Eating locally and sustainably often seems easy at first. We make plans for root cellars and preserving farmers’ market finds in the forms of jams and chutneys. However, our commitment often strays when it comes to the basic staples: it may be nice to have twenty-six pounds of pears, but what do you do about things like flour, sugar, and olive oil? This week I’ll be taking a journey into one of my favorite culinary lands: the place where bread is baked.
Bread, one of our most beloved baked goods, seems simple, but is actually a complex amalgamation of flour, water, salt, some kind of fat, and usually a leavening agent. The leavening agent has varied over time. The first bread, made in the Neolithic Era, was usually leavened by the natural yeast spores floating in the air. Pliny the Elder described the Gauls and the Iberians fermenting bread with the foam skimmed from beer, while other cultures fermented wheat bran in wine, and used that yeast to leaven their bread.
Image: Courtesy Chuck Groenink
The evolution of bread has been marked by a few notable occurrences. In the medieval ages, bread was often used as a “trencher” with food served atop it. At the conclusion of the meal, the trencher was eaten, given to the poor, or thrown to the dogs. In 1928, Otto Frederick Rohwedder, an American, completed the bread slicing machine he’d been working on since 1912. In 1961 in the UK, the Chorleywood Bread Process brought along another great advancement: a mechanical kneading process that greatly reduced the time it took to make a loaf.
The most important part of the bread is the flour. When bakers get ready to make a loaf, they measure ingredients by weight, not by volume. If you try to make your own bread and use artisanal flour, or other specialty flours, it would be wise to take this into consideration, as the flour can vary from batch to batch and year to year. Flour may not seem like much, but it’s a complicated ingredient, and all flours aren’t created equal. Flour is made of starch and protein, the protein being the more important of the ingredients. Bread flour has more protein in it than regular all-purpose flour. As you knead bread dough, the proteins form strands of chain-like molecules known as gluten. When the bread rises, the gluten gets a chance to develop, and helps to make bread more elastic.
Bread recipes usually state that dough should be allowed to rise for an hour, punched down, and then allowed to rise for another hour. However, some recipes suggest forgoing the kneading, and simply allowing the bread to rise for a long period of time. See the below recipe illustrated by my dear Mr. Groenink for more details.
You can be green and local about your bread making, whether you decide to let it rise for an hour or ten. Artisanal flour may perform differently, depending on the year it was harvested and how it was ground. Ask at your co-op or grocery store for local options. Whatever your flour or baking method of choice, enjoy your time kneading away in the kitchen – few things say “home” like a loaf of freshly made bread (especially if you top it with some of the aforementioned farmers’ market jam).
