Someone asked me “Why bread?”
I couldn’t really come up with an answer, and as I made my way through my thoughts as I tried to explain why, I recalled how special getting off the bus at Ms. Jane Ann’s house after school, she was once my Sunday School Teacher. My sister and I really only went there when my mom was in the hospital, and it was hard, I missed her. But everyday after school Ms. Jane Ann had the most delicious loaf of sourdough waiting for my sister and me.
We would slather it in “I Can’t Believe it Not Butter” and go to town. I asked her once if we could make a loaf, and she said that it took a lot of time, and we didn’t have much time left that evening.
I realized then what a special gift that was. And now that I know a lot more about sourdough, I know that it took a lot of forethought, she had planned it for us, it was a special occasion. It was a labor of love.
I grew up on a farm, we had chickens and crops to take care of, and didn’t usually have much time to make anything that took a lot of care and attention. One rainy day when farm work seemed to temporarily halt, I went over to Ms. Carol’s house and we made cinnamon rolls. Until that day, I really had no idea that they came in any other form than from a tube at the grocery store. The patience it took, and the gentleness that was needed was new to me. I was much more used to the rough work of farming. Used to ripping things out, digging around, moving heavy things. This wasn’t that. My hands felt big and awkward.
That would lead you to believe that’s it’s wildly stressful, but it really often just feels like play.
Working with some dough, learning to get my hands used to doing things gingerly, I felt like a kid again working with neon Play-Dough, or working on the potters wheel in high school.
Even as I feed my starter and levin for every night, I remembered being in the back-yard mixing up potting soil on water to make mud pies with my sister. Moments of laughter with her, our cooperation, and imagination.
I love the experimentation too. Trying new methods, learning the science, finding the palate. I keep a notebook with variations, and keep a textbook like cookbook open, with important notes highlighted. I’m enthralled with LEARNING again.
It’s really hard to explain the nuances of baking without experiencing them for yourself. Let the dough sit out too long on a warm day and it’ll over-proof. And on cold days trying to find a way to coax the levin to do its work. I like that, I like exploring the small areas of preference and technique that can become personal.
I think that all along I have craved the small discipline of caring for something that doesn’t cry or meow when it needs something. Meeting myself, in the kitchen every night murmuring, “Alright, 100 grams of water, 70 grams of starter, 50 grams of rye, 50 grams of unbleached.”
I never stop appreciating how almost miraculous way that some salt, water, and flour somehow becoming a something sustaining that my family enjoys. And how something do pedestrian can be so fulfilling. It’s almost like magic.
I guess that’s why bread.