Bread is life. As cliché as it sounds, it’s true. History tells us that bread has kept societies alive and functioning. Yes, and sometimes bread has failed us. We’ll get to all that.
For now, I want to stop and peer into the bowl of dough rising on my counter. There’s life in there. It’s moving, breathing, pulsing with valiant communities of yeast and bacteria.
Bread isn’t just life…Bread is alive.
Anyone who works with the modest mixture of flour, water, salt, and yeast knows this to be true. Every loaf of bread is an appreciable ecosystem in and of itself, a world that rolls the micro and the macro into one. Every bite of bread is a nod to the unseen world of yeast and bacteria mingling with whole human cultures and human ingenuity. Bread tells an important part of our story.
Many people have expressed to me their desire to bake bread, but find that the science of baking hampers their creativity in the process. There is science, sure. As with anything, it helps to understand the process. But bread is not science; nor is it art. In the deepest sense, bread is a relationship. It’s the beauty we find in participating as all the nuances come together to create something more than the sum of what we started with. And isn’t that, after all, what life’s all about?
So, I state the case again…bread is life.
Now we get to the basics. Who am I, and why am I spending all this time writing about bread? I am Adrian and I’m a dedicated home baker. I’m also a rambling kind of person, and my travels have led me on a hunt for good bread. No…make that great bread. No…make that life-sustaining, hearty, chew-with-a-hefty-sigh-of-thanks kind of bread. If you know where to find some, give me a shout. For the rest, I’m compiling a list of my most beloved bakeries so you can visit all the places I’ve sought out, admired, and stood at the door in wonderment as I closed my eyes and breathed in a gracious thank you to the universe for this marriage of land, sea, and fire. It’s all there when you take a bite. Everything we are rolled into those perfect daily bits of quotidian prayer we can wash down with coffee each morning. Or sop up with the evening meal. It is for this reverence that I am qualified to write about bread here. That, and my constant baking forays which begin with a little pot of yeasty beasties I keep on my counter. I feed them stone-ground flour at 100% hydration twice a day at present. That might change since relationships are in constant flux.
If I can inspire you to make one loaf just to use your hands, or to sit at a bakery and really taste what’s in front of you, then my mission here is complete. This is a great, big, wide world we inhabit and you have to start somewhere. For the love of all that is wild and wonderful, start here.
All my best,
