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."