true loaf …your mother should dough

The Real Campaign magazine Issue 34, January – March 2018 WIN

As usual, we’ve rounded up some tasty treats for one lucky supporter to get their doughy digits on.

I dough you got soul Beyond your tastebuds, Julie Jones’ book also promises a feast for the eyes and soul. As you’ll read on pages To enter 8-9 of this issue, when Julie’s mother, who taught her to cook, was Tell us in no more than 500 words the diagnosed with dementia, together became a form of therapy way(s) you have benefited from the for them both. From bread and other yeasted doughs, through to Real Bread Campaign’s work at any cakes and pastry, Julie will take you on a personal and visual journey time of the past nine or so years. This into baking. (Soulful Baker by Julie Jones, Jacqui Small, £20) could be personally or professionally. quartoknows.com/books/9781911127246/Soulful-Baker.html Have we helped you along your baking journey? Helped to inform, I want smørre(brød) inspire or connect you in some way Of course you know how to make a , and even slap pickled that has helped your business? herring or smoked salmon on a slice of bread to make a Scandi- Given you the motivation or tools to style open one, but there’s always room for inspiration. Chef and food take the next step or leap? Shared writer Trine Hahnemann offers 50 recipes ‘beautiful enough to serve at information about bread (or industrial a dinner party or simply a quick and filling snack making good use of loaves) you didn’t know before? leftovers.’ Includes recipes for , bases, sauces and toppings, as well This could be thanks to one of our as a history of the origins of these Danish delights. (Open by books, events, ongoing media work, Trine Hahnemann, Quadrille, £12.99 Published 22 March 2018) website, reports, guides or initiatives. hardiegrant.com/uk/quadrille/

The small print… arranging in Frisco zzYou can enter from wherever in the Quirky one, this. By night, San Francisco software engineer Lois Clary world you are but the books will only be posted to an address in the UK salves her soul with from a local restaurant. When the zzThe draw is run and promoted by the owners shut up shop, they pass their starter on to her and she becomes Real Bread Campaign, with a prize obsessed and then baker to her company canteen. An attempt to break donated by the publishers into a Bay Area farmers’ market clique fails but leads Lois to a secret zzThe prize cannot be exchanged for cash or an alternative prize society fusing food and tech. (Sourdough by Robin Sloan, Atlantic zzThe decision about the winner is Books, £12.99) final and no correspondence will be atlantic-books.co.uk/book/sourdough entered into zzWe will pass entrants’ contact details on to the prize donors. If you do not want us to do so, please email to say so: [email protected] Do you have something you’d like to offer up as a prize to your fellow zzWe may publish any entries, either in supporters and hopefully help us to gain new ones? We promote competitions print or online. to a much larger number of breadheads on our website, social media and zzEntries must be received by 12pm on enewsletter. Email [email protected] Thursday 29 March 2018

Roll of honour Issue 34, January – March 2018

True Loaf is published exclusively for Real Bread Campaign supporters by the charity Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming. Development House, 56 - 64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT Contributors: Trine Hahnemann, Julie Jones, Lily McCann, Izabella Natrins and Robin Van Creveld Design: Becky Joynt Editor: Chris Young Front Cover: Julie Jones by Lisa Linder, taken from Soulful Baker

Printed by RAP Spiderweb with vegetable based inks on Print Speed paper, which has an FSC Mixed Sources accreditation. Contents Starter

Competition 2 Happy birthday to us, happy bir…actually, I should Starter 3 save my energy as the official tenth anniversary The Bread Board 4 of the Campaign’s launch isn’t until 26 November, so I need to pace myself for everything we’ve got Gallery 4 coming up in 2018. Celebrate our (loaf) tin anniversary 5 Ahead of that, we’ve got Real Bread Week, the Cut some rug 6 launch of our No Loaf Lost guide, a new report Baking with mum 8 from our Together We Rise initiative, Sourdough September, the next steps in our campaign for an Weed killer sandwiches 10 Honest Crust Act and, of course all of the other Challah-lujah! 12 championing Real Bread and challenging obstacles to its rise. Bethlem baking buddies 14 In search of the bread of Borodino 15 It’s rye smiles all round with baker, restaurateur and cookbook author Trine Hahnemann’s postcard Borodinski...ish 16 from Denmark, and Lily McCann’s quest to replicate at home Borodinsky bread as it is made in Russian bakeries. Stay in touch On a less cheery note, Izabella Natrins looks at the You can share ideas and information, join in with work of the Pesticides Action Network and the general Real Bread chit-chat and keep up with Soil Association in highlighting and tackling the the very latest related goings-on in the following places out in the virtual world: problem of powerful herbicide residues making their way into flour and loaves. The Real Baker-e http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/realbreadcampaign/ While we’re chipping away at waking the world Follow @RealBread at twitter.com (please use up the therapeutic benefits of making bread, #realbread so everyone can find your posts easily) Julie Jones knows them very well. She recently For much more information about Real Bread and published a book based on the baking she and her the Campaign please visit: realbreadcampaign.org mum started doing together after the latter was diagnosed with dementia. Back to Real Bread Week, I look forward to you YOU can help bake the next True Loaf! joining in the fun, and helping to spread the word We need YOUR news and photos, especially if you’re about Real Bread and your Campaign. outside the UK. Please drop us a line: [email protected] News deadline for issue 35 (April – June 2018): 15 Happy baking, March 2018 We are also always looking for writers, photographers, illustrators and prize donors to help create your magazine. Join the #RealBread conversation At the moment, the ONLY money our charity Sustain receives with me and to continue running the Real Bread is from annual supporter contributions, one-off donations, payments for publications more than and any adverts you see in this magazine. 27,700 people on Twitter!

Disclaimer The views expressed in True Loaf are those of the individual writers and not necessarily those of the Real Bread Campaign or Sustain. @RealBread While we are choosy, inclusion of a product, service or organisation in the magazine does not necessarily imply an endorsement.

Receiving the School of Artisan Food’s first Fellowship theReal Bread board Gallery You can find details and updates on the below and much more in your Real Baker-e forum, monthly Thanks to all of you who shared Breadcrumbs enewsletter and our social media channels. your Sourdough September photos. Here’s a selection… Sign the No Loaf Lost pledge We’ve written a guide to help small bakeries reduce Photos courtesy of: Our Little Bakery, Mark Sutcliffe, Birch Cottage, Heron Mill, Julie Russell their loaf surplus and waste and are asking ALL small bakeries to pledge to reduce theirs. The guide and pledge will be available on our website from mid-January. Falling on Defra ears If you’re one of the 1300 people who wrote in support of our Honest Crust Act call to Michael Gove at the Department of Environment and Rural affairs, thank you. At the time of going to print, we’re not aware of him having replied to anyone and are considering our next steps. Pret a Manger marketing The Advertising Standards Authority is still investigating the complaint we submitted over a year ago in December 2016. The Trading Standards department of Westminster Council is doing likewise but revealed that ‘Pret has been told that we do not fully endorse the [company’s] mission statement.’ Bread Revolution Join supperclubbers Produkt on 1 February for an evening of chewing over (and on) Real Bread. Guest speakers include baker Dan Lepard and Campaign coordinator Chris Young. supporter benefits. Find details on our website. Put your loaves on our map Bake and sell what we call Real Bread? Flaunt our wares on our map for free! As a supporter, you have a profile in our database, so login as ‘existing friends and supporters’.

What’s happening where YOU are? Being based in Britain means our focus is often on limeys’ loaf life but we have supporters in more than 20 countries and know there are tales to be told and issues to be solved everywhere. So, if you’re outside the UK, please drop us a line with your news, offer of sharing the view from where Microbakery for rental under licence you are (see Trine’s article on pages 6-7), or flagging Established business in attractive, mid-Staffordshire market town. up something local that need shouting about, good Housed in a single garage space with separate flour store. or bad. Kit includes gas-fired Tom Chandley three-deck and spiral mixer. Current t/o £30,000 p.a. Scope to grow the business and option to purchase. Call David on 07809 337542 4 Celebrate our (loaf) tin anniversary

This year sees two Campaign milestones: the tenth annual Rewinding to six months after our Real Bread Week and a decade since our launch. launch, in May 2009 we teamed up with The Real Food Festival to create what began as National Real Bread Back in the mists of time (well, 2008) with The Real Bread Loaf Mark. Flying Maker Week, now an international baker Andrew Whitley, the charity the Real Bread flag on behalf of local (and less clunkily-named) annual event. Sustain, chef Oliver Rowe and other bakery owners often too busy doing chums gathered together one cold the important job of baking it, has To make this year’s Real Bread Week November morning at Celtic Bakers in included securing media coverage in bigger and better than ever, we north London to launch the Real Bread most national UK newspapers and need ALL of our supporters to GET Campaign. Since then, we’ve harvested many magazines, plus print and online INVOLVED. Whether you bake for thousands of supporters and friends news and features from Milton Keynes a living or leisure, or don’t bake at in more than twenty countries, not to to Malaysia and Kentucky to Korea. all, from 24 February to 4 March, we mention tens of thousands of followers need YOU to do your bit, be that At the same time as championing Real even further afield. organising a special class, event, or Bread and the people who make it, selling a loaf you don’t normally bake. In that time, we’ve helped tens of we continue to challenge obstacles to thousands of kids to learn to bake its rise. Constantly vigilant for ‘hijack However much or little you do, through our Bake Your Lawn and marketing’ by industrial loaf fabricators please help spread the word about Lessons in Loaf projects; inspired and and retailers using language and the week and your Campaign, informed more than 5000 community imagery more appropriate to Real helping us to raise some dough for and microbakers with our first book Bread, or just plain misleading, we our work and recruit new supporters Knead to Know, and thousands more have submitted numerous complaints, to help us keep the Campaign going people on fermentative forays with our winning further support…if not for at least another ten years… second, Slow Dough: Real Bread. always the cases. Addressing loopholes though, hopefully, we’ll put ourselves in labelling law our Honest Crust out of business before then. Act work has led us to meetings in Champion and challenge Westminster and seen more than Find ideas of events and activities We’re promoting almost 800 bakeries 1300 people write to Cabinet minister, that could work for you, along with by helping people to discover their Michael Gove. artwork for posters, social media and loaves on The Real Bread Finder map point of sale materials, on the Real and, in around 200 hundred cases, Photo: Real Bread Week 2016 at Greenfield Bakers by Sonya Hundal Bread Week page of our website.

5 5 “I grew up with in my lunch box” Out of the mouths of Danes Bagerens børn får aldrig brød (The baker’s children never get bread) = One with talent or money but unable or unwilling to use it for benefit of self or family Brødflov (lit. bread embarrassed) = Peckish or that somebody didn’t offer you food when you visited their house

6 Cut some rug

Restaurateur, caterer, cookery writer, cookbook author, Tartine in San Francisco. The other baker and ‘Danish Delia’, Trine Hahnemann tells us about thing that has happened is that some of the really good bakeries have the loaf life of her homeland. turned into big chains. Unfortunately, this has come at a price, I think that their quality has suffered. Then again, In Denmark bread is part of everyday “Denmark has that creates room for new, small eating. We eat it for breakfast and artisan bakeries, so it’s like a tide lunch and also sometimes for dinner. experienced a going forth and back. In our part of the world, we first ate flour revolution Denmark has experienced a flour porridge as the poor quality of grains revolution over the last forty years, and milling was better suited to over the last which means that we now have a wide porridge than bread. Cereal breeding range of tasty and interesting breads and milling technology changed forty years” to choose from. There is spelt, Øland all that and so bread, mainly rye wheat, Svejde rye, Manitoba wheat, (rugbrød), became part of our culture. their loaves ended up being no better and much more. Then we thank millers than the supermarkets sold. like Skærtoft and Aurion and other pioneers, who work with heritage Rye Home baking is still part of the culture grain and to enhance the quality of Rugbrød is very important. It’s the and baking classes are popular, so flour. base for smørrebrød (literally – butter supermarkets stock a wide range bread), the Danish open sandwich, of interesting, local, organic . This has also made the consumer which is a unique part of Danish food The preferred flours in home baking understand that flour is not just flour, culture. We eat smørrebrød for lunch are spelt, rye, and wheat. Yeasted but a whole range of produce that in canteens, at home and in special and sourdough wheat, spelt or has to be taken seriously. It got us to lunch restaurants, which only serve Øland wheat loaves, cold fermented understand the flavour in bread. We smørrebrød. I grew up with rye bread overnight, are often baked at home. are also experiencing a rise in artisan in my lunch box, as did most Danish Easy to do and magic results. bakers and bakeries, who are doing children until other alternatives really interesting things working with It is very popular to make 100% became widespread, like sandwich all these new flours and, not least, per cent rye sourdough with a long bread, pizza, shawarma, and other establishing important relationships fermentation. It is fairly easy to do easy-to-eat options. with millers and farmers based on an and you typically bake one big loaf understanding of the grain and the In the 1800s, the higher echelons of per week. Also popular are yeasted, land. society would also eat wheat bread, sweet dough buns for birthday parties which was more expensive. White or to enjoy in the afternoon with bread here was always more of a hot chocolate. That households bake Speaking, inspiring, luxury or treat. Even when I grew up, regularly is evident because fresh yeast teaching and shouting the saying was: ‘you have to eat your is readily available everywhere. rye bread before you get the white We never lost the taste for good bread.’ Only if you finished three or bread, so when good bakeries open four pieces of rye would you get a slice Industrial loaves and they will have queues outside. At of with butter and a thin countercurrent the same time, this is not something we can take for granted. I think we layer of brown . Today, we have a big industry for now have a movement to promote factory loaves. You’ll find a lot of great flour and bread, but it is not as bake-off products in supermarkets and Home baking organised as in some other countries. gas stations. They do rye loaves, rolls Back in time, baking was mostly done It is a trend among people who love called rundstykker and international on farms and bigger homes. Home and appreciate good bread. Speaking, things like brioche, baguettes, focaccia baking was part of everyday living inspiring, teaching and shouting about and, of course, sandwich loaves that at a farm in the country. In urban bread still needs to happen every day. we Danes call ‘’. The toast loaf households it was mostly for special has never been a staple here, however, occasions as you did not really need to under the influence of the UK and US, bake if you lived in a city, where there trinehahnemann.com it is now part of Danish food culture. were bakeries everywhere. Home @trinehahnemann baking became more widely popular While there’s a lot of really horrible Trine’s new book, Open Sandwiches when became part of the home stuff, there’s also a great counter (Quadrille £12.99) is out 22 March. kitchen in late 19th century. It then movement. Apart from rugbrød, For a chance to WIN a copy, see inside started dying out in the 1980s and was artisan bakers do not do a lot of front cover. replaced by supermarkets offerings. traditional Danish bread. Instead the Sadly, high street bakeries also started focus is on in a style very using a lot of different flour mixes, so much inspired by Chad Robertson of Photo by Columbus Leth

7 Baking with Mum

After Julie Jones’ mum was diagnosed with dementia, they began baking together as a form of shared therapy. Posting her baking photos on Instagram led to Julie publishing their recipes and story in the book Soulful Baker.

It was in 2011, just after the birth of tested my patience my second child that I started to notice and it could be that things weren’t quite right with exasperating, especially Mum. She was starting to say strange with three children also needing my give my Mum bread dough to knead, things, was becoming forgetful and attention. she would love the feel of it beneath would do odd things around the house; her hands, the benefits of baking again every handle would have a tea towel showing no bounds. hanging from it, unusual items would Bake well be stacked atop of each other. There My decision to bake one afternoon was one defining moment that I will with Mum was an impulsive one. It was Laughter, smiles never forget, one afternoon when she a simple idea, which went on to save and happiness was driving. We had stopped at some those last few months we had together traffic lights when she turned to me from being stressful. Now I have I recently spent time making biscuits and told me that she had forgotten such fond memories of those baking with some of the residents in my Mum’s what to do, her face full of worry. We afternoons. As soon as we would start care home and the response was just sat through three changes at those to bake her symptoms would ease, her wonderful. It’s been something I’ve lights before something clicked back anxiety practically vanishing for those wanted to do for quite a while. The in to place and off we drove. There few hours. It was very touching to see positivity that baking has on those who was a big change after that day, she even just a fraction of that person she suffer with dementia is just astonishing. had frightened herself and afterwards once was and I would eagerly await That same response that I used to get became very worried and anxious, she our weekly baking day. We would with my Mum was evident with all of knew something was wrong. bake simple things, things that could the other residents too. There was be easily prepared and baked within a laughter, smiles and happiness in the couple of hours, eating them together room, the residents were enjoying the Slipping with her favourite music playing in the moment. One lady who spends a lot of Mum became extremely depressed. background partnered with a soothing time in her room was engaging whole She stopped eating, she wouldn’t wash cup of tea. heartedly, stirring her mixture with or change her clothes. During her gusto. Another, a real character, was Sadly, Mum was eventually sectioned diagnosis we would try to talk about rubbing her mixture with experienced and admitted to a specialist dementia dementia but she didn’t want to hear fingers, that familiar action coming unit, staying there for three months. it, she had no acceptance, verbally back to her almost automatically. I Upon discharge, she was placed in full lashing out saying she “had no such heard one lady trying to say something time care. She was just 72. thing.” Eventually when an official about her mother’s biscuits, memories diagnosis was made, she was prescribed clearly being evoked! medication that was meant to slow Benefits of baking I would love to do this again and after down further damage to the brain, I experienced such sadness through her posting about this on my Instagram along with some anti-depressants. illness. Not only had I lost my Mum to page and involving the local press, I am Even though her mental state was this terrible disease, I had lost my best hoping that it will go on to inspire and worsening she no longer knew what friend too. Baking has helped me to encourage others to do the same, not was happening, which I guess made it cope in so many ways over the past few only in care homes but also at home easier for her. years, pushing through the anguish with loved ones. Perhaps people could Soon after my third child was born a and grief onto happier times. I bake so bake in day care centres or social care further dip in Mum’s condition was many different things, but the one thing groups and, hopefully, one day baking apparent. She became highly anxious, I find I can switch off most to when will come to be recognised as a formal started repeating herself and we baking is bread. The whole process is form of therapy. could no longer go out, spending just a wonderful thing, turning the time at my house instead. It could simplest of ingredients in to something be a long afternoon constantly trying magnificent in its simplicity. Being the instagram.com/julie_jonesuk to reassure her, answering the same best vehicle for butter, bread will always question countless times. Naturally, this be a winner in my eyes! I would often Main photo © Lisa Linder

8 “As soon as we would start to bake her symptoms would ease”

9 Glyphosate can be used not only to clear fields of weeds before crops emerge in the spring, but also just Weed Killer before harvest in countries like the UK with wet summers to desiccate (dry out) wheat and other crops. Peter Sandwiches? Melchett, Director of Policy at the Soil Association has said that applying glyphosate so close to harvest increases NOT On My the likelihood of residues in food. Does eating Plate! glyphosate matter? Although manufacturers insist glyphosate levels in our food are safe, Unless a loaf is certified organic, did you know that you might studies are now emerging to support be feasting on residues of the toxic and most commonly used a growing, global consensus on the negative impact of glyphosate-based weed killer on the planet, asks Izabella Natrins. herbicides on human, plant and soil health.

In 2014, Pesticide Action Network Glyphosate Glyphosate works by interrupting a (PAN) UK reported that 63% of In 1970, US-based multinational metabolic function in plants’ cells: supermarket own-brand and leading the shikimate pathway. When this brand-name industrial loaves in the agrochemical and agricultural biotech corporation Monsanto found path is interrupted, the plants die. UK (around two in every three sold) Some glyphosate supporters argue contained traces of at least one glyphosate to act as a broad-spectrum, systemic herbicide. The company that human exposure to it is harmless pesticide or herbicide and that 25% based only on the fact that human contained residues of more than one.* began marketing it in 1974 under the trade name Roundup to farmers, park cells don’t have a shikimate pathway. Based on data from the UK keepers, keen gardeners and everyone worldwide with weeds to control. Scientists, however, have long been government’s committee on pesticide concerned that glyphosate is a residues in food, the report revealed neurotoxin and endocrine (hormone) that the most frequently detected disrupter, which can cause cancerous was glyphosate. Friends of The Earth “The World Health tumours, birth defects and other points to the 2013 ‘Determination of Organisation developmental disorders. The Glyphosate residues in human urine World Health Organisation lists samples from 18 European countries’ lists glyphosate glyphosate as a ‘probable carcinogen’. study by Medical Laboratory Bremen, Commenting on the Pesticides Action which found traces of glyphosate in as a ‘probable Network’s (PAN) 2016 wide-ranging, the urine of nearly one in two people carcinogen’” detailed publication ‘The Glyphosate tested! Monograph’, Nick Mole, Policy Officer

10 time a causative link between an “Applying environmentally relevant level of glyphosate so Roundup consumption over the long-term and a serious disease, close to harvest namely non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Our results also suggest that increases the regulators should reconsider the likelihood of safety evaluation of glyphosate-based herbicides.” residues in food” Not In Our Bread at PAN UK says: “it looks very closely at As well as supporting The Soil the health and environmental effects Association’s Not In Our Bread of glyphosate and refers to all the campaign, the Real Bread Campaign available peer-reviewed science.” urges ‘conventional’ farmers to stop spraying wheat with glyphosate; PAN’s report highlights the body of millers to reject grain that has been environmental dangers of glyphosate, evidence for the negative impact sprayed; and bakers only to accept we all need to work to ensure it’s NOT of glyphosate on (but not limited flour if the miller can guarantee a on our plate! to) the immune system (asthma, glyphosate-free chain of custody. arthritis, autoimmune skin and mucus membrane conditions); endocrine The Soil Association is calling for onceuponacook.izabellanatrins.com hormones (oestrogen and androgen) the immediate ending of the use http://soilassociation.org/our- and endocrine-related cancers; of glyphosate on wheat destined campaigns/not-in-our-bread reproductive and developmental for use in bread and factory loaves. problems (miscarriages, low birth Peter Melchett says: “If glyphosate www.pan-uk.org/glyphosate/ weights and defects); neurological ends up in bread it’s impossible for development and function (Parkinsons, people to avoid it, unless they are *Glyphosate was not found in any certified ADHD, autism); metabolic disorders eating organic. On the other hand, organic loaf. (diabetes, obesity). farmers could easily choose not to use Just before we went to print, the EU glyphosate as a spray on wheat crops agreed to re-license the use of glyphosate In January 2017 researchers at just before they are harvested.” for five years. While this is shorter than King’s College London found that a full 15 year renewal, PAN and Global glyphosate-based herbicides caused In the meantime, it seems the only 2000 launched legal action, telling news non-alcoholic fatty liver disease ways of being 100% sure you’re not agency Reuters that EU authorities were (NFLD) in rats at doses thousands consuming resides of glyphosate (as ‘in breach of the requirement obliging of times below permitted levels. well as herbicides, pesticides and them to make an independent, objective Regulators worldwide accept toxicity fungicides in general) in flour or loaves and transparent assessment.’ In France, studies in rats as indicators of human is by avoiding them altogether or President Emmanuel Macron promised to health risks. One of the report’s choosing certified organic. ban the chemical within three years. authors commented: “The findings of our study are very worrying As the science moves towards as they demonstrate for the first consensus on the health and

What can YOU do? Whether a miller, baker, retailer, hospital cook, college caterer, eatery owner, café or in our day- to-day lives, we can all say NO TO GLYPHOSATE! • Ask your retailer or miller for proof that the flour you buy is glyphosate-free • Urge supermarkets to only stock organic and other guaranteed glyphosate-free flour and loaves • Use certified organic flours at home • Share with patients, students, customers, family and friends the dangers of glyphosate • Tell your MP that the regulations on glyphosate must be re- examined • Ask Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to exercise a duty of care for our public health and protect us from glyphosate

11 Challah-lujah!

Robin Van Creveld grew up in a traditional Jewish house, where the rhythm of the week was punctuated by the Friday night Shabbat meal, central to which was challah. Here Robin unplaits its strands of culture, history and continuity.

Photos by Carlotta Luke

12 When I was young, my mum would leavened with bake challah, or kitke as we called a sourdough it, every week and our house in starter. These Johannesburg would be filled with days, it is usually the yeasty, rich notes of this enriched made with bread. Hers was plaited from three refined wheat strands of dough, said to represent flour, sweetened peace, truth and justice, although some with sugar and bakers bake two six-stranded loaves to leavened with represent the Twelve Tribes of Israel. baker’s yeast. For Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, mum would form the challah as a round, spiral loaf, symbolising the cycle Challah of the year. She would often use extra bakers dough to make bulkalach, a bun dotted I spoke to several with fruit and spiced with cinnamon. bakers about On the holiday of Purim the same their technical dough was used to make sweet pies approach to known and hamantaschen. challah and what it means week for my own family and now I Home and away to them. The Lighthouse Bakery’s get to share it with more people!” American-born founder Liz Weisberg On the kashrut issue, no meat or When I was in my teens, mum started only bakes around ten challahs per working and home-baked challah shellfish are used in the bakery week “as there are very few Jews in and the challah is dairy free but for became an occasional treat. My the wilds of rural East Sussex.” She maternal grandparents would bring either to be certified as kosher, “we makes a straight yeasted dough at a low wouldn’t be able to use such high us challah from Kaufies, a kosher hydration, with a long bulk ferment. bakery opposite our synagogue and quality ingredients and my husband She favours a four-strand plait which is would have to switch the oven on up the road from my school. Its steamy made on a Thursday night and retarded windows, enticing smells and overfilled for me every day!” When a customer until Friday morning when it is egg asks, I explain this to them and it is bagels were a constant torment during washed and baked. Liz says that “I my hungry teenage years. up to each person to decide whether learnt to bake challah as a child at a it meets their needs.” In the early ‘90s, my family moved to Hebrew school. It makes me feel part of London, where we discovered Jewish a historical continuum which reinforces I also approached a large, bakeries including the indomitable my Jewish roots and culture.” commercial, kosher bakery in London, but they were less than Carmelli Bakery in Golders Green In Hampstead, Karma Bread is one of and Roni’s Bagel Bakery in West forthcoming. All they would tell me a growing number of modern bakeries is that they are certified by the Beth Hampstead. As a stranger in a strange that follow many of our traditions but land, they felt immediately familiar; Din, whose remit is to ensure that aren’t certified kosher. Founder Tami food is produced in accordance with their smells, bustle, less than gracious Isaacs Pearce, known to customers as service - and of course their bread - all kashrut guidelines, including the ‘The Challah Queen’, started baking ritual blessing of challah. made me feel more at home. as a therapeutic endeavour, which evolved into a business. Tami says Cultural history “We pride ourselves in a moist, sweet Legacy of tradition challah, made from yeasted dough, While there are many references to a Having worked with food and highly enriched using good eggs with Sabbath bread in the Torah, the iconic community organisations for nearly extra yolk. I bend and blend traditions, woven bread we now call challah can two decades, I’m acutely aware of the for example creating a stollen challah be traced to Medieval Germany, where role bread plays as a centrepiece of at Christmas, pumpkin challah for the decorative plaited bread barches the multifaceted cultural smorgasbord Thanksgiving, and a pecan, honey and was adopted by local Jews. Making of our postmodern existence. The apple challah for the Jewish New Year. plaited challah became engrained in bread of my youth is the bread of my My customers are not predominantly central European Jewish culture and family and my tribe. It is the cultural Jewish and our delicious and elaborately then spread around the world from signifier that connects me to a legacy plaited challahs are loved by every the mid 19thcentury as emigrants took of tradition that goes back thousands pocket of our melting pot community.” their baking culture with them. of years. This legacy weaves together Michelle Eshkeri, founder of Margot the cultural and historical strands Depending on who you ask, the word Bakery in East Finchley, makes shared by our diasporic communities. challah derives either from the term for sourdough challah with organic Having said that, challah’s an easy donating a portion of bread paid as a ingredients, “offering a unique bread to make and utterly delicious tithe to the priests, or from a word for product in terms of flavour, quality regardless of one’s cultural or a cake. Many observant Jews still make and nutrition, which positively religious background. an offering of a ritually-burnt portion challenges people’s expectations of of dough to God before baking the even the most familiar of breads.” She challah. In kosher law, one does not communitychef.org.uk says: “As a Jewish baker, preparing mix milk and meat and thus traditional @communitychef1 and baking challah on a Friday is as challah is pareve (or parve - dairy-free) intertwined with the rhythm of my so that it can be served with any meal. Robin runs the Lewes Community week as it is for many of our customers Before the mid-19th century, challah Kitchen and is the founder of who are also friends and neighbours. Community Chef CIC. His next Jewish would have been made with a coarser The bakery is an extension of my own bread workshop is on 24 March 2018. flour, sweetened with honey and kitchen. I used to bake challah every

13 Bethlem Baking Buddies

Last spring, we ran a series of workshops as part of Together We Rise, our ongoing mission to help people having a tougher time than most of us to benefit from making Real Bread. In November, we published our findings.

therapeutic baking. The new results run for the reference of occupational further support our belief that making therapists and other health care Real Bread can offer therapeutic benefits professionals considering running to some people who are experiencing therapeutic bread baking sessions. mental health problems, and that therapeutic baking deserves further study, funding and even to be made Thank you available through social prescription. While grant funding continues to remain elusive, what we have Peter O’Hare, Head Occupational managed so far has only been Therapist at Bethlem, perhaps the possible thanks to in-kind assistance, world’s oldest psychiatric hospital, doughnations, book sales and mainly agrees: “This wonderful project your annual supporter payments, so confirmed what we intrinsically believed: thank you! that bread baking has tremendous potential as a therapeutic activity which can also foster and enhance community Together We Rise: Bethlem Baking engagement and cohesion.” Buddies and Rising Up are both available for PDF download at Dough how realbreadcampaign.org The sessions were facilitated by Gaye Fisher, a Real Bread Campaign Bethlem Baking Buddies was a pilot supporter and Bread Angel, who runs series of six, two-hour Real Bread the Sticky Mitts microbakery and Bake well baking sessions we ran from 21 April baking school in Surrey. She worked As we reported in the previous to 26 May 2017 for resident mental alongside occupational therapist Jenny issue of True Loaf, we’d like health care service users at Bethlem Shaieb, deputy head of Bethlem’s OT to hear from everyone who’s Royal Hospital in Kent. department, who previously trained and found making bread (or other worked as a chef. baking) helpful through periods In the first week, participants learned of anxiety, depression or other Happier, creative and challenges. a sense of achievement to make a simple, yeasted white dough, which they used to make bread twists. We’d also like to receive 100% of the five participants’ Subsequent sessions were based around stories and stats from people responses to weekly evaluation this same basic dough, with different who’ve run therapeutic, social questions were that baking that day shaping and additional ingredients. To or employment skills baking made them feel happier, creative and monitor how participants felt immediately projects for people with mental gave them a sense of achievement. In after each baking session, they each were health issues or learning the majority of their responses, they given a sheet of multiple-choice questions disabilities, ex-offenders, also reported that baking had made every week they attended. disempowered women, or them feel relaxed, a sense of purpose otherwise have a tougher time and less anxious. We have published Together We Rise: Bethlem Baking Buddies in two parts. than most of us. These findings are in line with the The first is a report of the results of the To share your story or learn evidence we published in Rising pilot programme, and the second looks more, please email realbread@ Up, our 2013 report on social and in more practical detail at how it was sustainweb.org

14 In search of the bread of Borodino

Avid home baker Lily McCann set herself a mission of Bordinsky coming as close to an authentic Borodinsky bread as she My recipe (overleaf) stays true to the could in her own kitchen. GOST formula as close as possible for a home baker. All you need to succeed is My first memory of rye bread is from Soviet statute a couple of bowls, a bread tin and a ton when I was about six years old. My of patience. Despite this, it has taken Making Borodinsky bread was strictly mum brought a rye ‘brick’ home from the best part of two years to research regulated in Russia by state standard her trip to Kiev. It was wrapped in a and refine this recipe for home baking. GOST (ГОСТ) 5309-50. This controlled brown paper bag, and to this day I can I have discovered some new ingredients everything from the ingredients and still remember the wonderful aroma and tricks along the way. Dark rye (as methods of baking to the look and of and coriander that filled opposed to white rye) flour give the texture of the finished bread.* the kitchen the moment I unwrapped bread a really complex rustic flavour, it. This was my first taste of probably From the first glance, the GOST rules roasted barley malt is a great way of the most famous Russian sourdough, don’t appear to be that difficult: Use getting the super-rich colour the bread Borodinsky (Бородинский) bread. only rye flour (80%), white flour (15%) is famous for. When making the scald, and red rye malt (5%); add salt, sugar, you’ll kill most or all of the yeasts and and coriander, caraway, bacteria in the flour, so keep some Origins cumin or anise for flavour. Now it back to add after it has cooled. You’ll Borodinsky bread is a type of ‘black’ gets a bit more interesting: Mix up also use more coriander than you think bread that is very popular in Russia. the dough using a scalding method you’ll need, a great big whack of it, the There are many legends about where and then develop the dough over bread can take it, and so can you! and when this bread came into 48 hours. Now for the best part: The This recipe makes a dark bread with a existence, no-one knows for sure. baked bread should be a rectangular crumb sturdy enough to use as a base Some say it’s a romantic tale of a loaf shape (not wedge or mushroom for open sandwiches, but also soft nun from Borodino Saviour convent shaped...) with rounded corners, with enough to have as toast with some mixing up a dark mourning bread to a crust no thicker than 4mm and an crumbly cheddar. It’s full of warm spice represent her sorrows for her dead even, elastic, non-gummy crumb. and sweetness from the molasses, with husband. Others tell a patriotic story a rustic touch of dark rye. of a baker from Borodino village, the Although GOST 5309-50 was site of an infamous battle during the superseded in the 1980s by a more general set of rules for bread (GOST 18th century Napoleonic invasion. http://messybaker.blogspot.co.uk/ 2077-84), with less strict requirements, Whether you believe the legends or @messy_baker many Russian bakers seem to still not, it does suggest that the original recipe is probably over two hundred follow the earlier standard. *In a similar way to the European protected years old, though the first evidence names scheme, which includes Protected I could find of a Borodinsky bread Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected recipe only dates back to 1933. Geographical Indication (PGI) and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG). [ed.]

15 Borodinsk…ish

Recipe by Lily McCann

Starter 20g rye starter (100% hydration) 40g water, room temperature 60g dark rye flour

Scald 30g roasted barley malt flour 2tsp (heaped) ground coriander 90g dark rye flour 300g water, boiling

Pre-ferment 90g stiff rye starter (above) 370g scald (above) 185g dark rye flour

Final dough All of pre-ferment 100g water, room temperature 30g sugar 5g salt 25g dark molasses 2tsp whole coriander 100g dark rye flour 75g white bread flour

Day 1 (evening) Whole coriander seeds Starter: Mix together the starter ingredients in a small bowl. Cover and leave overnight to ferment at room temperature. Day 2 (afternoon) with your hands. Place the dough into the tin, pushing it right into corners Scald: Bring water to the boil and leave Final dough: The pre-ferment should and smoothing the top with wet hands. to cool for a couple of minutes. Mix all have increased in volume slightly and Sprinkle with coriander seeds and press but 2tbsp of rye flour with the roasted developed a sweet smell. Dissolve salt, them in. barley malt flour and ground coriander. sugar and molasses in water and mix Pour hot water into the flour, stirring together with the other ingredients constantly to avoid lumps. Mix in the and pre-ferment. Cover with cling wrap Cover the loaf loosely and leave to remaining rye flour until smooth. Cover and put back in the oven to ferment prove in a warm place for 2-3 hours bowl with clingfilm, then fully wrap the for 2-3 hours. until you can see small cracks appearing bowl in foil. Place the bowl in the oven on the surface. with just the light on (or elsewhere Day 2 (evening) Preheat oven to 200°C (fan) and bake slightly above room temperature) and for 40-45 minutes, until the bread is leave to ferment overnight. The dough will have increased in a rich, brown colour and comes away volume, should have little bubbles on from the sides of the tin. Leave to cool the surface and look almost impossible in the tin for 15-20 minutes, then on a Day 2 (morning) to shape. Oil or grease a 1kg loaf tin, cooling rack for about an hour. Pre-ferment: Mix together the rye flour then sprinkle the base and sides with with 90g of the starter and 370g of the coriander seeds. Lay a large piece of scald. Cover with clingfilm and leave in clingfilm on your work surface and Wrap the warm bread in baking the oven (with just the light on again) oil well. Scoop the dough onto the parchment and then in clingfilm. Leave for four hours to ferment. clingfilm and shape into an oblong by for at least 24 hours to allow the loaf to lifting the sides of the film and rolling it set and flavours to develop.