September 28, 2008
I swear, the color is two weeks early this year. And not just any old color, I mean shades of magenta, vermillion, alizarin crimson, violet, cadmium red, and a hundred shades in between. Long, gloomy, very wet summer, followed by a brief chill, and the maples, birches and their hardwood cousins are all morphing into the most eye-stabbing spectacle I have seen in my short five years here.
Now the sweet, faint hints of folks' woodstoves being stirred into activity again, and the sweep of cool breezes gets one in the mood to store nuts in the old burrow, if you take my meaning. We had a crappy tomato harvest, due to the soggy conditions, but for some reason got tons of cucumbers and a bumper crop of blackberries. So it's jammin' and picklin' time. After one failed batch of pickles, we realized one really does need to keep the cukes completely submerged. So the second batch is going just peachy, er, pickly.
It's almost too easy. You make a brine of maybe 10 percent apple cider vinegar-to-water, generous amount of salt, few garlic cloves, peppercorns, plenty of fresh dill, and plunge your cukes in over their heads, put something on top to keep 'em from floating up, and maintain at room temperature for a few weeks. Ecco qua --
Peeeeckles!
And along with this fun activity, I've become even more acutely aware of the importance of fermentation in my bread making. More than proper mixing, more than the type of oven or how hot it is or how much steam you put in or how long you bake . . .
if the dough is not fermented to perfection, the bread will not be exceptional. So I'm paying more attention to time, temperature, and the degree of maturity of my refreshment. Achieving the just-right degree of starter acidity, and then refreshing it for just the right amount of time at the right temperature is way harder than you think, unless you work in a laboratory. My shop temperature during this time of year fluctuates wildly. If I bring in a fresh load of flour, it might have been in my van overnight and gotten dow to 30 degrees. The water coming from the spring starts to get colder. And then as the nights get even chillier, everything in the building sort of curls up and shivers, and I have to be really vigilant about the temperature of my water when mixing refreshments and doughs.
Complain? Unh unh. I love this time of year. If for no other reason than the friggin' bugs start to die off. Man, have we had the mosquitos this year! They usually call it quits in early September. Not this year. I still have to wear long sleeved shirts. Bugs think I'm top sirloin.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Last Spring
March 14, 2008
In some parts of the Northern Hemisphere, Spring is arriving. [grim, hollow laughter]
Here in Vermont, Spring is still at least a month away. Old timers have indicated to me that this has been one of the longest, iciest winters they can remember.
In the last week, it looks like things are thawing a bit. Not the huge piles of ice and snow -- I'm talking about a thaw in human activity. Folks have either been holed up at home or just plain old gone. Sales of my bread have been way down at the co-ops, and heating oil and gas prices have been up. The scariest thing of all is the price of wheat. Up 50% in the last 6 months. The life of the village baker has not felt prosperous or fulfilling since about January. My wood supply has been beset with an endless barrage of snowstorms, usually followed by freezing rain, causing the entire pile to become a 70 foot long frozen sculpture. Daily, I chip away at it, putting the logs into the warm oven to dry out for a few hours before I can get the stuff to actually burn.
Add to this, the flour I was buying went up to a dollar a pound, the highest it has been in history, and so I tried some flour from a mill in Canada which was either green or had too much starch damage, and my bread sucked for a couple of weeks. So anyone who thinks the life of a hippie-brick-oven-organic-natural-baker is all patchouli and bean sprouts ought to steer clear of trying such an enterprise here in the Northeast.
But even if out of nothing else but sheer boredom and frustration, folks are coming out of their lairs and moving around. They're buying stuff. The parking lot at the co-op is getting more than half-full. And my bread is once more flying off the shelves.
And I'm finally feeling like writing something.
Today I want to talk about fermentation. It's what makes bread possible. And wine, beer, cheese, pickles, miso, sauerkraut, kim chee, yogurt, etc. I can't think that our ancestors had any way to keep food fresh for very long -- it must have gone through various forms of bacterial transformation. OK, some of them resulted in food poisoning, but others were beneficial. Fermentation essentially "pre-digests" our food, releasing vitamins and minerals and making them easier for our bodies to absorb. Some would say that humans evolved to cook and prepare food, rather than constantly scour the landscape for fresh, raw food.
In learning how to be a better cook and baker, I've vastly increased my enjoyment of eating. Simply put - I'd rather eat bread than raw wheat berries and I prefer a good cooked carrot to an uncooked one. Annie and I have taken to using the oven more and more, investing in a heavy Le Crueset pot and very slowly roasting meats and vegetables with onion, garlic and herbs. Mighty nourishing fare for the long winter nights.
At the heart of my own diet are foods like yogurt, bread, cheese and stout ale. I recently began making plain miso broth using a well-aged, very dark barley miso. It's a great way to start the day, along with the obligatory thick-as-90-weight-gear-oil mugga joe. And yes, of course I eat my own product - long-fermented, brick-oven-baked bread.
__________________________
Here's a quote from Jeffrey Steingarten from his book " The man who ate everything".
"By closing ourselves off from the bounties of nature, we become failed omnivores. We let down the omnivore team .... Overnight, everybody you meet has become lactose intolerant. It is the chic food fear of the moment. But the truth is that very, very few of us are so seriously afflicted that we cannot drink even a whole glass of milk a day without ill effects .... I cannot figure out why, but the atmosphere in America today rewards this sort of self-deception. Fear and suspicion of food have become the norm. Convivial dinners have dissappeared and with them the sense of festivity and exchange, of community and sacrement."
In some parts of the Northern Hemisphere, Spring is arriving. [grim, hollow laughter]
Here in Vermont, Spring is still at least a month away. Old timers have indicated to me that this has been one of the longest, iciest winters they can remember.
In the last week, it looks like things are thawing a bit. Not the huge piles of ice and snow -- I'm talking about a thaw in human activity. Folks have either been holed up at home or just plain old gone. Sales of my bread have been way down at the co-ops, and heating oil and gas prices have been up. The scariest thing of all is the price of wheat. Up 50% in the last 6 months. The life of the village baker has not felt prosperous or fulfilling since about January. My wood supply has been beset with an endless barrage of snowstorms, usually followed by freezing rain, causing the entire pile to become a 70 foot long frozen sculpture. Daily, I chip away at it, putting the logs into the warm oven to dry out for a few hours before I can get the stuff to actually burn.
Add to this, the flour I was buying went up to a dollar a pound, the highest it has been in history, and so I tried some flour from a mill in Canada which was either green or had too much starch damage, and my bread sucked for a couple of weeks. So anyone who thinks the life of a hippie-brick-oven-organic-natural-baker is all patchouli and bean sprouts ought to steer clear of trying such an enterprise here in the Northeast.
But even if out of nothing else but sheer boredom and frustration, folks are coming out of their lairs and moving around. They're buying stuff. The parking lot at the co-op is getting more than half-full. And my bread is once more flying off the shelves.
And I'm finally feeling like writing something.
Today I want to talk about fermentation. It's what makes bread possible. And wine, beer, cheese, pickles, miso, sauerkraut, kim chee, yogurt, etc. I can't think that our ancestors had any way to keep food fresh for very long -- it must have gone through various forms of bacterial transformation. OK, some of them resulted in food poisoning, but others were beneficial. Fermentation essentially "pre-digests" our food, releasing vitamins and minerals and making them easier for our bodies to absorb. Some would say that humans evolved to cook and prepare food, rather than constantly scour the landscape for fresh, raw food.
In learning how to be a better cook and baker, I've vastly increased my enjoyment of eating. Simply put - I'd rather eat bread than raw wheat berries and I prefer a good cooked carrot to an uncooked one. Annie and I have taken to using the oven more and more, investing in a heavy Le Crueset pot and very slowly roasting meats and vegetables with onion, garlic and herbs. Mighty nourishing fare for the long winter nights.
At the heart of my own diet are foods like yogurt, bread, cheese and stout ale. I recently began making plain miso broth using a well-aged, very dark barley miso. It's a great way to start the day, along with the obligatory thick-as-90-weight-gear-oil mugga joe. And yes, of course I eat my own product - long-fermented, brick-oven-baked bread.
__________________________
Here's a quote from Jeffrey Steingarten from his book " The man who ate everything".
"By closing ourselves off from the bounties of nature, we become failed omnivores. We let down the omnivore team .... Overnight, everybody you meet has become lactose intolerant. It is the chic food fear of the moment. But the truth is that very, very few of us are so seriously afflicted that we cannot drink even a whole glass of milk a day without ill effects .... I cannot figure out why, but the atmosphere in America today rewards this sort of self-deception. Fear and suspicion of food have become the norm. Convivial dinners have dissappeared and with them the sense of festivity and exchange, of community and sacrement."
Journal entries from last year
8/23/07
News that wheat prices are going higher, and along with that headline, that huge (mega) companies like Sara Lee and Kellogg are getting squeezed. Nothing could make me happier. The whole economy of how we produce and consume food is so screwed up. Eveything is based on cost and profit. In my case, my profit margin is so high, I don't have to worry much about rising raw food costs. And the reason my margin is so high, is that I don't have the overhead that the big companies do, plus I don't have to compete in the fast lane of bargain-priced bread. The world of super markets and discounters is entirely separate from the world of coops and small stores I deal with. Of course, the big retailers would just love to force the small guys out of business, but that's been the way of the world for eons.
As long as bakers like me, and other food producers too, can continue to sell our goods locally in a local economy, then we will survive and thrive. It's our way of fighting the system -- a system that undercuts local economies and working class people all over the world.
8/18/07
Something that is unique about making bread in this environment, that is, at home, where one can constantly be in contact with the process, is that there is enough time -- time to allow the dough to fully mature and reach its peak of flavor through the fermentation process.
This simply cannot be done in an industrial environment unless people are working around the clock, and that necessitates making a lot more product, and the cycle spirals up and up, until the quality of both product and of work enjoyment suffers.
The rythms of a small bakery are based on this constant attention, and that more or less means you have to have it nearby . . . in the home. But the results are unparalelled. Bread of this quality cannot be produced in the usual bakery. There is a tradeoff. I really would like to have a nice shop in town, but then I'd either have to move there, or change the way I make the product, and it wouldn't be the same.
8/21/07
My current method for french bread is as follows.
I refresh the starter the night before, up to about 4 pounds worth.
Next morning mix full starter batch of 16 or 17 pounds.
Mix poolish at 12 pounds.
These are mixed at about 8AM and are for all the doughs, not just the french bread.
at 11:00 I mix the autolyse for the french bread, just the flour and water, and mix for about 4 or 5 minutes. Hydration is about 74 to 75%.
At 1PM or so mix the dough, adding the starter at around 14% the total flour weight and poolish at 15%. Add salt here as well, 1.8%
Mix this on low for a few minutes to incorporate.
Mix on medium speed (2nd gear on Hobart) for 4 or 5 minutes.
Pointage lasts 3 to 4 hours, 76 degrees.
. . . . . . . . ............ Speaking of time, this entire process requires inordinate amounts of time. The fire has to burn slowly, the doughs have to rise slowly. This is REAL slow food.
News that wheat prices are going higher, and along with that headline, that huge (mega) companies like Sara Lee and Kellogg are getting squeezed. Nothing could make me happier. The whole economy of how we produce and consume food is so screwed up. Eveything is based on cost and profit. In my case, my profit margin is so high, I don't have to worry much about rising raw food costs. And the reason my margin is so high, is that I don't have the overhead that the big companies do, plus I don't have to compete in the fast lane of bargain-priced bread. The world of super markets and discounters is entirely separate from the world of coops and small stores I deal with. Of course, the big retailers would just love to force the small guys out of business, but that's been the way of the world for eons.
As long as bakers like me, and other food producers too, can continue to sell our goods locally in a local economy, then we will survive and thrive. It's our way of fighting the system -- a system that undercuts local economies and working class people all over the world.
8/18/07
Something that is unique about making bread in this environment, that is, at home, where one can constantly be in contact with the process, is that there is enough time -- time to allow the dough to fully mature and reach its peak of flavor through the fermentation process.
This simply cannot be done in an industrial environment unless people are working around the clock, and that necessitates making a lot more product, and the cycle spirals up and up, until the quality of both product and of work enjoyment suffers.
The rythms of a small bakery are based on this constant attention, and that more or less means you have to have it nearby . . . in the home. But the results are unparalelled. Bread of this quality cannot be produced in the usual bakery. There is a tradeoff. I really would like to have a nice shop in town, but then I'd either have to move there, or change the way I make the product, and it wouldn't be the same.
8/21/07
My current method for french bread is as follows.
I refresh the starter the night before, up to about 4 pounds worth.
Next morning mix full starter batch of 16 or 17 pounds.
Mix poolish at 12 pounds.
These are mixed at about 8AM and are for all the doughs, not just the french bread.
at 11:00 I mix the autolyse for the french bread, just the flour and water, and mix for about 4 or 5 minutes. Hydration is about 74 to 75%.
At 1PM or so mix the dough, adding the starter at around 14% the total flour weight and poolish at 15%. Add salt here as well, 1.8%
Mix this on low for a few minutes to incorporate.
Mix on medium speed (2nd gear on Hobart) for 4 or 5 minutes.
Pointage lasts 3 to 4 hours, 76 degrees.
. . . . . . . . ............ Speaking of time, this entire process requires inordinate amounts of time. The fire has to burn slowly, the doughs have to rise slowly. This is REAL slow food.
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