The Factor of Time in Bread

Thank you so much for signing up for the October Bread Share!! I hope you enjoy every loaf!

As I am diving deeper into the world  of grains and learning about so many varieties and their nutritional value and taste I am amazed on how easily we gave them up to be replace with white, gummy, tasteless modern wheat! Most of us don’t even know this happened, since it was done by the food giants without us knowing. It is great to see a big movement across the country now with bakers (that is the lens I see everything through, I am sure there are others!) using many ancient and heirloom grains and old methods of long fermentation often even milling their own flour. I find this incredibly encouraging and inspiring. An exciting time to be a baker here in the US. Unfortunately Germany the bread country of the world with more than 3000 varieties of bread is heading the other way, importing more raw frozen pre-shaped buns etc than are being baked by real bakers from scratch. I hope this trend stops soon before all the old traditions are lost and the last small bakery has to shut its doors because it can’t compete in a market saturated with automated bread look-alikes. I often wonder why cultures go through these cycles of everything old is bad and the desire to modernize it only later realizing what we have lost by abandoning that craft or skill. I think it is important to always question why something is cheap and convenient and what we are missing by leaving out time in the equation. I know for one that my bread would not be what it is without the factor of time.

This week’s Share

German Rye Bread
Ingredients: Montana grown org. wheat flour, org. fresh milled rye flour, water, sourdough culture, org. fennel seeds, org. coriander, sea salt.

Sesame Seed Sandwich Loaf
Ingredients: Montana grown org. wheat flour, water, org. sesame seeds, org. sourdough culture, sea salt.

Bakers Choice: Emmer Sandwich Loaf
​Ingredients: Montana grown org. wheat flour, C5 Organics emmer berries and fresh milled emmer flour, water, sourdough culture, sea salt.