Le antiche Macine

Expression of the company Leidi SRL founded by Romeo Leidi, the brand “Le Antiche Macine” produces using traditional methods coarse and rustic flours, ideal for making polenta with a rough flavor and for being used in all the recipes passed down by our grandparents. For three generations, the Leidi family has been milling flour with stone, and not just any stone: a specific type of French flint, sourced from the small municipality of La Ferté-sous-Jouarre – the most famous and prized for this type of processing, is indeed used in the production facility in Bergamo.
 

A brief introductory statement will surely correspond, in the reader's imagination, to a lush countryside scene – which we indeed find in the area where the company stands – featuring a characteristic watermill, an architecture that evokes very distant times from modernity. Thus, operating in the 21st century, the mill of Le Antiche Macine is not a postcard building, but a modern industrial plant where the technology of the past meets that of the present, offering the public the benefits of the former at the pace of the latter.

Some details on stone milling

To produce the finer flours, such as the well-known flour 00, it is necessary to use milling stones coated with a compound very similar to that found at the base of some non-stick pans, consisting of emery, magnesite, and flint. In this case, the rotation speed of the grinding stones is indeed very high, which however produces an undesirable effect on the temperatures generated by friction: the surplus thermal energy, in fact, heats the corn and deteriorates its nutritional properties, thus affecting the quality of subsequent processing.

Flint stones, on the other hand, rotate at a lower number of revolutions per minute, ensuring a temperature equal to the average summer temperature (around 30°C). In both cases, the ground grains are complete, not stripped of bran and germ: this adds richness to the panorama of flavor, fiber, vitamins, proteins, and fats present in the final mix, ready to be packaged and distributed.

The advantages and disadvantages of this production method

Whole or partially whole flours certainly have peculiar characteristics that go beyond the simple difference in texture to the taste. They are more resistant to leavening, in general, their shelf life is shorter, but in our opinion the advantages far outweigh the few disadvantages: to find out if the flours from “Le Antiche Macine” are right for you, we suggest a selection of products to enjoy in ways suggested by your imagination.