Bread making

 

Bread is unifying in that it is the world’s most widely eaten food. It is also unifying in that it draws on the elements of the natural and human worlds: light, earth and water to produce grain, the hand of man to harvest and mill the grain, then water, salt, kneading and fermentation to activate the transformation from ingredients to finished product, then heat to fix it, and again the hand of man to initiate these processes and monitor them.

Perhaps this is why bread is given such high regard throughout history: life-giving and accessible to rich and poor alike, yet also embodying all the levels of the human potential, from the mineral, plant and animal through to the divine. Viewed this way, the cheapening of the approach in commercial bread baking is all the greater a travesty. A recent resurgence in craft baking has been noted as curbing the allergies that have become common as a result of substandard bread.

The use of the word ‘ripe’ (which is the technical term used by bakers) to describe dough that is ready for proving and firing in the oven is not accidental. Just as fruit is described as being ripe when the sugars in it have developed and it changes from being a consumer of nourishment from the tree to being a source of nourishment for other life, the raw dough must undergo a transformation if it is to make good and tasty bread. All food has potential, in that by careful handling by the cook, it can be brought to the best possible taste and healthiness. And food nourishes both the body and the spirit.

Bread is a particularly fine example of this because of the many elements of which it is composed. It is thus, both in how it is made and in how it is eaten, and is a deservedly vital element in the education of the Beshara School. From my experience of learning to make bread at the school, it also exerts a transformative effect on the baker.

Robin Thomson
Specialist Baker for the Chisholme Kitchen


Sourdough bread making

Robin takes us through the basic process and principles of making a pain de campagne loaf or two...