….Never Run of the Mill
true loaf ….never run of the mill
Win! A copy of by How to Make Bread Emmanuel Hadjiandreou See inside for details
The quarterly magazine for Real Bread Campaign members Issue 8. July – September 2011 The Flour Sack
This issue’s letter comes from Michael Gopfert, who is working on ideas for starting to bake Real Bread for his local community in Merseyside.
I started with the dilemma of wanting to make more bread to develop my skills, but as we were only consuming one or two loaves a week at home this was hardly enough to keep my sourdough starter up to full vigour. My interest got intensified following my partial retirement from the NHS when I had the opportunity to work in a bakery in Munich for two weeks. As an aside: the word artisan does not mean very much there either! In February I asked my friends if they would make a 50p contribution per pound of dough if I made them some bread once a week. Some said yes and since then I have made a different loaf each week, never repeating the same. We organised a sampling meeting with some Ethiopian food including injeera [a traditional sourdough flatbread made using flour from a grain called teff], sourdough bread, and some sourdough beer, which was great because people who did not know each other could talk with one another. There was an agreement as to how we could move this forward without it becoming too big too fast. The idea is to develop skills in the group and see if the whole initiative can be broadened out. So there will be a rotating selection of four types of bread, one each week, a more realistic cost contribution and some joint bread making for those who are interested, and the hope that the two will eventually fertilise each other. Meanwhile I am keen to develop my own skills but a mix of family and work (part time) commitments makes this very difficult. I have a wish to do some work with the Welbeck Bakehouse by working there for a week, but any other place that could accommodate me with that and has something interesting going will be interesting to consider for the future. I would want to contribute to the work and be helpful in exchange for some experience. I would not mind another course, though in general I am fed up with the courses and want to do the real work in a real bakery. Simultaneously I am exploring whether I should put a slightly bigger micro-bakery in my garage. I am not sure yet how to do that financially but someone already asked the question whether we need to build a bread oven and I would not say no. To contact Michael to chat about his plans or offer advice, please login to The Real Baker-e, our online members’ forum. Also there you can find notes of Michael’s bread club plans. Stay in touch You can share ideas and information, join in TAKE ACTION! with general Real Bread chit-chat and keep If you are a professional baker and would like to up with the very latest related goings-on in offer Michael – or one of the many other would-be the following places out in the virtual world: community/professional bakers on our waiting list – • The Real Baker-e: http://groups.yahoo.com/ a voluntary apprenticeship, please email realbread@ group/realbreadcampaign/ sustainweb.org for details of our scheme. • Follow @RealBread at twitter.com • Become a fan (click ‘like’) of the Campaign If you’d like to see your letter (no more than 300 words) published here, please on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/ send it to us by email or post by the next issue’s deadline. We can only publish one realbreadcampaign per issue but might instead choose to publish certain letters in the blog section of • View and share pictures on Flickr our website. www.flickr.com/photos/realbreadcampaign/ For much more information about Real Bread and the Campaign please visit: www.realbreadcampaign.org
Credits Issue 8, July – September 2011 True Loaf is the quarterly magazine of the Real Bread Campaign, part of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming.
Editor: Chris Young Design: Becky Joynt Contributors: Jonathan Cook, John Downes, Emily Earhart, Michael Gopfert, Angela Morris, Kelly Parsons and Andrew Whitley Photos: Unless otherwise stated, all images by Chris Young/the Real Bread Campaign, available under a Creative Commons not-for-profit attribution share alike license. Cover / inside cover: Patrycja Rejnin in Andy Forbes’ mixed-wheat-population-covered south London allotment last summer by Vincent Talleu / Sacks, Miguel Saavedra, http://www.rgbstock.com/populargallery/saavem.
The Real Bread Campaign is funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Local Food scheme and the Sheepdrove Trust. Printed by RAP Spiderweb with vegetable based inks on Print Speed paper, which has an FSC Mixed Sources accreditation. Contents Starter
Starter 01 In a break from today’s marathon True Loaf editing session, I popped into a local shop and was greeted by The Bread Board 2 - 2 a large purple and yellow (mmm… tasteful) banner The Gallery 03 across the top of The Daily Mail that yelled: ‘IS YOUR BREAD MAKING YOUR ILL?’ Aha, I thought, so today’s Pappiness in your hands 04 when they’re running the feature that freelance Loaf: thy neighbour 05 journalist Alex Renton offered to write as a result of one of our media releases. Cheers Alex! Bread Hero: Kenny Rankin 06 This was not the first, nor will it be the last, fruit of How many Real Bread bakers our work to encourage the country to say that after does it take to change a food system? 08 half a century of the Chorleywood ‘Bread’ Process Competition 09 (CBP - the additive-laden, no-time system by which most factory loaves are made), it’s time Britain got Sourdough...the real thing 10 real. BBC Breakfast broadcast the story three times Who are ya? 11 in a morning, it appeared in Delicious magazine, and Millers’ Tales 12 at the time of writing, Lucas Hollweg of The Sunday Times, Dan Lepard of The Guardian and Bee Wilson of Poster back cover The Daily Telegraph have all told us they’ll be telling of our mission. For the latest updates, keep an eye on Breadcrumbs, The Real Baker-e and our Twitter and Facebook feeds. Also on the horizon (future as I write, past as you read) is the launch of an initiative by Leicestershire brewer Everards to support Real Bread bakers, artisan cheese makers and other real food entrepreneurs in setting up WANTED businesses in pub outbuildings. Also in that temporal bubble is Bethesdabakin’, Mick Hartley and co’s annual Real Bread skills sharing weekend in Wales, which I’m sure will provide inspiration for other people to organise similar events elsewhere. We’ll be reporting back on both. But to this issue, in which Emily Earhart looks at the For the information and entertainment of your history of CBP and a future beyond; Andrew Whitley fellow members. shares with Kelly Parsons his calculations of how many True Loaf wants your: Real Bread bakers we’d need to replace CBP; Angela • News stories Morris talks to Bread Hero Kenny Rankin, who’s • Photos committed to passing Real Bread skills to some of • Bread and flour related features that next generation; and Jon Cook reports back from • Cartoons this spring’s grain chain building From Crop to Crust REWARD: a magazine that’s more about you and conference. Oh, we’re giving you the chance to win how you are helping the rise of Real Bread. the new book from Campaign ambassador Emmanuel APPLY: [email protected] Hadjiandreou. Deadline for issue 9 (October – December): 2 September 2011 Ready for this and more? Then tuck in!
Disclaimer The views expressed in True Loaf are those of the individual writers and not necessarily those of the Real Bread Campaign or Sustain. Inclusion of a product, service or organisation in Project Officer, the magazine does not imply an endorsement. the Real Bread Campaign
Chris Young by Katharine Hillier
1 The Bread board
Bread making workshop and celebration of Real Bread Events 13th July: Bread and ale evening, Topsham, Devon Fitting bread making into a busy daily routine; sourdoughs 16th July: Bread weighing, ale tasting and medieval fayre, and yeasted bread (short and long process) the milling Ashburton, Devon process; what goes into factory loaves; the story of setting up local bakeries; Community Supported Bakeries; secret 16th July: Brockwell Bake open day, south London Lammas rituals! All this and more will be explored on this 30th July: Community Bread Baking Day, Lovedays Mead, Stroud, 31st July event organised by Ipswich Food Co-op in support Gloucestershire (also 27th August) of the Real Bread Campaign. Confirmed speakers include: 15th August: Local Loaves for Lammas, Nationwide Nancy from Mains Restaurant Baking Club, Andy Cole from 4th August: A Slice of real ale (beer and bread tasting), Great Felixstowe Craft Bakery, Tim Lukehurst from East Bergholt’s British Beer Festival, London th August) Slow Dough Bakery, David Eddershaw from Pakenham 9th - 11th September: Bread trail, Ludlow Food Festival, Shropshire Watermill; plus members of the Food Co-op offering an (Festival Loaf competition on 20
informal skillshare, with more guests to be confirmed. For 24th September: The Eye Bread Festival, Leominster, Herefordshire more details, contact Gemma Sayers [email protected] 07971 863 586 Full details on the events calendar at www.realbreadcampaign.org The WI Are you a member of your local Women’s Institute? If so, you are in Knead to Know the best position to help to get not only your group, but also your If you’re one of more than 550 people local federation and even the national organisation to champion who’ve bought a copy of our book – thank Real Bread values and support our initiatives. As a start, if you have you. We’d love to read how you’re getting not done so already, please let your fellow members know about on, so please do drop a line in The Real the Campaign and encourage them to join Baker-e to share your ideas, plans and us. Suggest to your own local group that stories or to ask questions of your fellow they organise a bread-making workshop to members. Remember that our Bakers Angels share skills between members, or invite in a are on hand there to chip in with their collective vast wealth of professional Real Bread baker if you’re lucky knowledge and experience. If you’d like to start baking for your to have one locally. Another suggestion is local community, you can do a lot worse than grabbing a copy - as a that your group could help to arrange for Campaign member, you’ll get a 33% discount. Lessons in Loaf to be taught in a local school. Abergavenny Food Festival Real Breadmaker Week photo competition Congratulations to Captain Over the weekend of 17th and 18th September, we’re teaming up Barrie Sampson of the Salvation with Earth Apple Bakery to run fun bread making workshops in Army in Welwyn Garden the festival’s Food Academy area. Come and learn how easy it is City. His photograph of him to make interesting bread shapes and breadsticks. Elsewhere at and machine in action at the the festival, Campaign ambassador Tom Herbert of Hobbs House Silver Circle Club won him an Bakery will be running a one-off Real Bread workshop. American bread slicer from www.abergavennyfoodfestival.com thecookshoponline.com and the full range of bread flours from Real Bread Finder Marriage’s. If you know of a bakery that hasn’t taken up our invitation to add their Real Bread to our finder at www.realbreadcampaign.org, you Bethesdabasics can do your bit to help other people in your area by passing this on to the baker. Listing is free and the minimum requirement is simply that Well done to Chris Naish, who’s correct answer that bara is the Welsh the loaf to be listed is made without the use of artificial additives. word for bread was the first out of the flour jar. He wins a copy of Mick Hartley’s first book. Pappy Birthday Back Issues Our judging panel of chef true loaf trueandwich loaf You can find PDFs ….you just can’t fake it Michel Roux Jr, master baker …the communitytrue issue loaf true…keeping it realloaf from seed to s
WIN! of True Loaf in the …never dies A European WIN! baking Tom Herbert; and artist and class at starter baker’s Real Breadrtisan Food - The• ASchool of A House Bakery kitWorth from Hobbs£150! SeeWorth inside £85! for details slicer from • A bread and supply members’ area of CookshopOnline.com Marriage’s of flour from writer Jake Tilson chose the book Bethesdabasics
• Sourdough IlS entry by Isaac Hickinbottom as the website. We See INSIde for deta the winner of our competition also have a limited number of paper Featuring to design a card to say pappy Tom Herbert on shepherding the future of Real Bread On course at the Lighthouse Bakery copies of issues two What is tradition? birthday to the CBP loaf. He Scandinavian crispbread The many stories of bread to five, which you can ...and much more The quarterly magazine for Real Issue 5. Winter 2010 Bread Campaign member wins a Real Bread baker’s The quarterly magazine for Real s The quarterly magazine for Real Bread Campaign members Issue 4 . Summer/Autumn 2010 Issue 7. Spring/Summer 2011 Bread Campaign members paign members Bread Cam agazine for Real order for £1 each plus The quarterlyer/Spring m 2011 starter kit from Hobbs House Bakery. You can find the winning Issue 6. Wint design on the back cover of this here magazine and other entries p+p. Please email us if in the Campaign’s photostream at Flickr.com, a link to which we’ve interested. posted in the news section of our own website.
What are you up to? For a chance to share details of your Real Bread events here and in Breadcrumbs, PLEASE ADD IT TO OUR CALENDAR as far in advance as you can.
2 The Gallery
Photographs from Real Bread events over the past few months. You can find more pictures online in the Real Bread Campaign’s photostream on Flickr.
Bake Your Lawn – all images courtesy of the schools or groups shown
Peatmoor Community Primary Castle Climbing Club, London Peatmoor Community Primary, Swindon Peatmoor Community Primary
Garnetbank Primary School, Glasgow Garnetbank Primary School Charlie growing at home Jack and Charlie
Abbey Physic Garden Constantine Primary School, Cornwall Abbey Physic Community Garden, Kent Constantine Primary School
Do you have any photos from events that you’d like to TAKE ACTION! share with fellow Campaign We need your pictures from Real Bread events and for our Get Real! members? If so, please feel gallery of questionable loaf marketing and long lists of utterly unnec- free to post them in The Real essary additives. Please email (hi-resolution but no more than 5mb in Baker-e or on our Facebook an email) to [email protected] with a note of what it is and wall. If you’d like us to consider the name of the photographer. By submitting a picture you confirm them for a future issue of True that the copyright holder gives permission for us to publish the image Loaf, please email them to without payment in print, online or in any other media. [email protected]
3 Pappiness in your hands
Half a century after it was unleashed on an unsuspecting Britain, Campaign volunteer Emily Earhart looks at the history and future of the Chorleywood ‘Bread’ Process
We are all familiar with the spongy, While BBIRA’s research was intended Getting Real tasteless and additive-laden to support and protect the baking supermarket loaf, but how much do industries, CBP, with all its input Fortunately, there are already British we know about the history behind and equipment requirements, was bakers doing just that. Paul Barker, Chorleywood ‘Bread’ Process (CBP), a hard sell to bakers. It wasn’t until former employee of the Flour Milling the industrial loaf making system that 1962 with Lord Rank, CEO of Hovis, and Baking Research Association has reshaped bread in Britain over that CBP gained its first commercial in Chorleywood, runs Cinnamon the past fifty years? A closer look acceptance. Widespread commercial Square Bakery in Rickmansworth and at the social and historical origins of use of CBP was promoted and Ruislip, preserving the craft of long CBP can better equip us to change pushed by improver companies, fermented loaves with his 27-hour the future of bread in Britain. which benefited from the added Standard English bread and a 127- inputs of CBP in bread making. hour sourdough. Nicholas and Harris, a subsidiary of the Finsbury Food War Child Within a decade, CBP became the standard commercial method of Group, is proving that additive-free After World War II, the UK loaf production and today continues baking and large scale production government joined forces with to be the method by which 80% don’t have to be mutually exclusive the baking sector to create the of British ‘bread’ is produced. The terms. Based in Salisbury, Nicholas British Baking Industries Research predominance of CBP in Britain today and Harris produce all-natural breads Association (BBIRA) in the is therefore the result of increasing – including some long-fermented and Hertfordshire village of Chorleywood, industrialisation of the food industry even sourdough loaves - under the a partnership meant to strengthen post World War II and the market Vogel’s, Doves Farm, Village Bakery, and protect both the British baking capitalist interests that accompanied and Cranks brands. Cinnamon Square industry and British wheat farmers. this transition, reducing bread to and Nicholas and Harris are just To compete with the increasing a cheap, time efficient, energy two examples of the ever-growing import of Canadian hard wheat in the intensive food source. number of bakers across Britain 1950s, the BBIRA, led by Dr. George who are already providing viable Elton, sought to increase English soft alternatives to CBP. wheat’s oven spring while reducing Value loaf vs. loaf values production time. BBIRA’s studies As we face the future of bread in this As CBP turns fifty this July, let’s resulted in a controlled energy batch country, we must ask, what do we commemorate the milestone mixing without bulk fermentation value in bread? Is it the height or appropriately: not by celebration but using a Morton Z blade mixer that squishiness of a loaf as CBP marketers by challenging its conversion of bread required additional inputs: oxidising might have us believe? Is it the to a mere filling-carrying commodity. agents, emulsifiers, extra yeast, reduction of time and cost as BBIRA A future of better bread in Britain preservatives, and lots of water to sought? Or is bread about embracing calls on us all to put the values of adjust the consistency. This process time, flavour, community, and craft? time, flavour, community, and craft also required large volumes of A future for bread in Britain that back into bread. The Real Bread refrigerated water to cool down the embraces these values and conserves bakers who have listed their loaves dough, which had been heated by resources is far more likely to protect on the Campaign’s Real Bread Finder the energy intensive mixing. Thus and preserve the interests, health, are leading this reorientation of food in July 1961 the Chorleywood ‘Bread and culture of the British people values, proving that bread can sustain Process’, a high input, no time, than improvers, emulsifiers, and us beyond pappiness. Pappy Birthday energy intensive process preservatives. Chorleywood. was born.
TAKE ACTION! Who do you think is the most deserving recipient of our pappy birthday card? We’ve turned the winning design into an e-card for you to send to people responsible for making and selling CBP loaves. You can find the e-card, instructions and a suggested contact list on our website, so please GET SENDING!
4 CBP: past its use by date? Loaf: thy neighbour
For the third year running, the Real Bread Campaign is calling on Real Bread bakers and traditional millers around the country to help the people of Britain to rediscover the taste of the real thing by baking or buying Local Loaves for Lammas.
Longer-serving members of the Campaign (and others amongst you) will know that 1st August is Lammas. TAKE ACTION! Taking its name from the If you’re reading this before 1st August, Old English for loaf mass, either plan your Lammas activity this ancient harvest festival’s (our Lammas pages should give you traditional highlight was inspiration) and add it to the events eating bread baked from calendar on our website, or check it to flour milled from the see what’s going on near you. year’s first grain. Though in modern times the wheat’s not usually started to come in by then (see John Letts’ article on our website for details), it’s still a great opportunity for everyone either to buy a loaf of locally-produced Real Bread, or roll up their sleeves to bake a loaf right at home.
Once again, many members of the SPAB Mills Section and As well as bread making classes galore, of the Traditional Cornmillers Guild have told us they’ll be Local Loaves for Lammas highlights over organising events and activities to share the delights of Real Bread made from traditionally-milled stoneground the past few years have included: flour. As readers of the National Trust magazine will know • Murray Edwards College in Cambridge from the four page National Crust feature we secured in their summer 2011 edition, this year a number of mills baking loaves from wheat grown in on Trust properties will also be joining in the fun on and college grounds. around the Lammas weekend. We also have the support of • Little Salkeld watermill celebrating their Slow Food UK in asking their members to get involved. barley bannock bake with the old English ballad of John Barleycorn. Having said that wheat often hasn’t ripened by the beginning of August, in places where it has, we’re • Denver Mill in Norfolk collecting wheat suggesting that traditional mills (and people with small, from a local organic farm in the morning, hand-turned stone mills) host community milling and then milling it for a kids’ bread making baking days to allow kids who’ve been growing Bake Your Lawn wheat to complete their seed to sandwich Real Bread class. journeys. • Pinpastry in Exeter making loaves for local farmers’ markets using flour from Of course, hundreds of Real Bread bakeries around the Clyston Watermill, ale barm from Exe country bake loaves for their local communities day in, day Valley Brewery, and honey from the out, including some able to source and use locally milled flour from locally (or at least British) grown grain. Even Haldon Hills. so, we’ve encouraged all Real Bread bakers to consider • The Loaf in Derbyshire baking a special offering something a bit different for Lammas, and have Lammas loaf using flour milled at nearby worked to get the media to help us to spread our message to the nation: buy a local loaf for Lammas! Heage Windmill. 5 Kenny Rankin
Angela Morris chats to the head baker at Fifteen London, the first of a family of restaurants established by Jamie Oliver to offer apprenticeships to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Kenny draws upon over twenty years of experience to train and mentor apprentices, whilst providing the restaurant with a daily supply of high-quality Italian- style bread.
6 What’s it like working with the What’s next for you at Fifteen apprentices? London? Growing up I didn’t feel like I was much of an intellect, by that We’re working on a new kitchen space that’s solely for bakery, I mean I was more of a visual learner, so I can identify with the that way we’ll be able to control the room temperature so apprentices in that way. I’ve come to learn that each apprentice that it’s right for proofing bread, which is something that’s is different. I can remember each and every apprentice and difficult when you’re making bread in a restaurant kitchen. their learning style. I’ve learnt the importance of getting them With a dedicated bakery we’ll be able to produce more to a level where they believe in themselves, rather than feeling varieties of bread and also to teach the apprentices a broader they’re defined by their past. range of skills, particularly the bakery confectionary side. I’ve also learnt how to adapt my communication style to Alongside the bread we’ll be making our own croissants, bring out the best in each apprentice. It’s important to set the Danish pastries, chocolate bread, brioche and puff pastry. Puff boundaries and identify with the positives – if you start with pastry is a particularly good skill for the apprentices to learn as the negatives then the point you’re trying to make has already it’s often overlooked. been lost; for most of these apprentices, negativity is all they know so you’ve got to work hard at reversing their lack of self- And finally - what’s your favourite belief. Then again, we’re preparing them for the real world, so it’s also important not to be over-positive; it’s a matter of bread to make? striking the right balance. I particularly like zopf, a Swiss style knotted bread that’s a bit The nights are quiet working in bakery so the apprentices get like brioche. It’s an enriched dough, which means you can play to learn team work, social skills and confidence; they learn that with the variations of butter, sugar, milk or egg to alter the it’s okay to be ‘broken’ and let your guard down - they can flavour. I also like the design element; with something like move forward and not focus on where they’ve been but more zopf you can make a number of shapes such as a rabbit, dove, where they’re going. I quite often see this working alongside turtle or swan. I’ve also learnt to braid up to eight strands in a them in bakery. plaited effect. Taking a few steps back, how did you So you’re quite good with a braid? become a baker? Not bad actually! I was a single dad for a number of years so I braided by daughter’s hair. When she got to eleven she I was really interested in baking, so when I was sixteen I began asked me if it was okay for her sister to do her hair as she said a three year bakery degree at Tameside College in Manchester. I pulled too tight! One of my big passions in life is travelling, and after I graduated I decided to work in Switzerland for three and a half years – they’re renowned for their baking confectionary, For more information about the Fifteen Foundation, visit which is quite a skill to have under your belt. I worked for www.fifteen.net a restaurant group that produced all of the pastries for the Orient Express, so it was a fantastic experience. I did manage to drop a whole tray of pastries on the train tracks one day, though. That nearly got me fired! Before you came to Fifteen London, you spent three and a half years as head baker at Fifteen Cornwall – what were the highlights for you? It was particularly interesting to observe some of the changes amongst the female apprentices at Fifteen Cornwall; you could slowly see them soften – their expressions become less hardened as they grew in confidence. Most importantly you could see them achieve what you’d taught them, which is hugely satisfying! Once there were five apprentices there who were close to dropping out. Some of them were experiencing a bit of trouble in the main kitchen, where it’s fast-paced and a bit in-your- face, so bakery was a chance for them to have some time out. It gave them time to reflect on what’d been going on and slowly you could see them relax and open enough to talk it through. One of the five now works as a baker in Rick Stein’s restaurant in Padstow, so there is light at the end of the tunnel if they can just get over those hurdles. What does Fifteen mean to you? Fifteen looks at the bigger picture and gives great freedom and scope in terms of what we can create. Baking is such a dying art and is one of the oldest and most important skills we can teach the apprentices. Of course, as bakers in an Italian restaurant we have to produce the classics that customers expect - such as focaccia and ciabatta - but we’re allowed the freedom to teach the apprentices so much more.
7 How many Real Bread bakers does it take to change a food system?
So, we’ve said that we want to see an end to 30,000 bakeries. Is this level of productivity realistic? Well, prior to its recent move to larger premises, The Handmade CBP, but how many Real Bread bakers would we Bakery was pushing out around 1200 loaves a week with need to feed the entire nation once more? As a tiny amount of space and relatively basic equipment. As this output was from six part-time bakers doing a total Kelly Parsons finds out, Campaign co-founder of eleven shifts over just five days per week, the target of Andrew Whitley has done some sums and 3360 loaves is by no means an impossible one. reckons the answer is around 75,000… More jobs per loaf As well as improving our food security these local bakeries The Middle Eastern ‘bread riots’ of recent times have, once would also create many more jobs per loaf than the again, confirmed the humble daily loaf as the embodiment current system. If fewer than one in thirty of the 2.43 of a nation’s food security. Whether as a response to soaring million people unemployed (figures to April 2011) and grain prices, or to panic buying incidents caused by delays to claiming benefit were to train as an artisan baker we ‘just-in-time’ supermarket deliveries getting through (such would have 75,000 bakers spread across the community. as witnessed in the flooded Gloucester town of Tewkesbury Andrew believes that the other important impact of a in 2007), the case for building more resilience into our bread local bakery system would almost certainly be in reducing supply is undeniable. waste. With most bread made fresh and on the doorstep, More locally-dispersed wheat stocks, mills and bakers could he feels that there is a good chance that far less would be far better withstand such political and environmental wasted, reducing the overall number of loaves needing shocks; but what would we actually need to do to ensure to be made. According to WRAP, the government-linked everyone was within walking distance of a local loaf? Waste and Resources Action Programme, each year we throw away 2.6 billion individual slices and a further 75,000 Real Bread bakers 69 million whole loaves, plus rolls, croissants, crumpets, Well, for starters, of the twelve million or so loaves baked and other bready goods worth a total of just under (though not necessarily all eaten) every day in the UK, three half a billion pounds. What’s more, fresh bread within quarters are sold by supermarkets. Andrew Whitley says that walking distance means no need for any of the shelf-life- an individual artisan baker can produce at most 200 loaves extending enzyme adulterants that are currently used per day, so it would take 60,000 Real Bread bakers to match in most British industrial loaves - though not, of course, the current national loaf output. If we add in an extra twenty declared on the label. five per cent to our artisan baking army to cover days off for Let’s be clear that the initial cost of such a Real Bread holidays and sickness, the number goes up to 75,000. takeover would be considerable. Based on Andrew’s From his own experience at the Village Bakery, Andrew calculations, kitting out a small bakery to high told me that the minimum number of bakers you need to professional specification with two wood-fired ovens sustain a small bakery is three; which means 25,000 bakeries and other equipment can cost up to £50,000, and each making around 480 loaves a day, or 3360 per seven-day allowing for an average of £50,000 for refurbishment week. By way of comparison, France, which obviously covers of premises and some working capital, it could mean a considerably larger area geographically, currently has about £100,000 to set up each of our 25,000 bakeries: £2.5bn.
8 Real Bread bakers to change a food system? Competition
Investment in the wellbeing of the nation But let’s put that long-term investment figure in perspective: it’s only just over a third of one percent of the government’s ‘total managed expenditure’ (£710bn) for 2011-12, or we could look at it as being around only £33,000 per baker job created, which is less than a third of the average bonus (£104,839 – that’s on top of the Campaign ambassador Emmanuel Hadjiandreou basic salary) of a Barclays Capital employee this year has certainly earned his stripes, with over twenty – and that company’s total bonus pot of £2.6bn could five years’ experience in professional bakeries have more than paid for the whole takeover. Balance around the world. Currently passing on some of this against how it could drastically save on benefit his skills at the School of Artisan Food, Emmanuel payments; and be an important investment in the has also taken advantage of his move away from nutritional, social and political wellbeing of the nation. nocturnal working to sit down and put just some And, of course not everyone on a mission to expand the of his wealth of knowledge down on paper. alternative food system sets off with an all-singing, all- dancing three-person bakery. There are plenty of people The result is How to Make Bread, which is with big ideas but small budgets who have already published in September by Ryland Peters and Small. begun baking Real Bread for their local communities Illustrated with more than 350 photographs, the from kitchen tables. To supplement an existing domestic book takes the home baker step-by-step through baking set up to increase your once-weekly bake of one breads from a basic white loaf, to bagels, stollen, or two loaves to say a dozen or twenty in order to start and sourdough. a small bread club for neighbours could take an initial investment of under a hundred pounds. Now that’s not a lot of dough to invest in the rise of Real Bread!
Kelly Parsons is the deputy editor of The Jellied Eel, London’s magazine for ethical eating, published by Sustain’s London Food link. Andrew Whitley sits on the Campaign’s working party and runs Bread Matters. www.thejelliedeel.org www.breadmatters.com
TAKE ACTION! If you’re interested in baking Real Bread for friends, neighbours or your wider local community, take a look at the home baking and bakers’ support sections of our website. We have published a more detailed introduction to baking Real Bread for your local community as Knead To Know: the Real Bread starter, available through our website and a number of selected stockists.
Win For your chance to win a copy of the book, email a photograph of yourself reading True Loaf to [email protected]. We’ll post entries on our Flickr stream and pick our favourite to win the prize.
9 Image from www.andythornton.com Sourdough bread. . .the real thing Earlier this year John Downes, ‘the acknowledged father of the modern sourdough bread movement in Australia’ moved to the UK. Well, how could we not ask him to share some of his knowledge? Happily, he said yes.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect Going wild Not yeast-free of sourdough bread is that it is nothing special at all really: it’s the Sourdough bread is leavened by Sourdough bread has many other way most leavened bread has always populations of natural (sometimes interesting aspects from the aesthetic been made, but has simply been lost called wild) yeasts and bacteria. In to the nutritional. Made skilfully and in the race for the new. The present modern bread making, this symbiotic baked in a wood-fired oven it is arguably culinary zeitgeist is a curious mix of combination is replaced by a purified the most difficult of the culinary arts, the future/modern and the archaic, strain of just one yeast, Saccharomyces the most fundamental, and perhaps allowing sourdough bread to reveal cerevisiae. The leavening agents are produces the most visceral associations itself again as the ‘bottom line’ of all elemental in that they are found from aroma to digestibility. Sourdough food: the way to eat and digest the floating in the atmosphere as well bread is not yeast-free as often stated. cereal grains that are perhaps a key as adhering in higher concentrations It is simply free from the refined mono- signifier of human culture. Bread has to the surface of the grain itself. It cultured yeast that leavens modern been made this way since the first mix is easy to cultivate these elementals breads. The leavening in a sourdough is of flour and water was left, probably simply by mixing wholemeal wheat or caused by both the varying poly-culture accidentally, for longer than usual, and rye flour and water and leaving this of wild yeasts and lactobacilli, or lactic is still the common method outside batter to ferment naturally without acid bacteria. These actually partially the industrialised world. Whereas any human interference apart from pre-digest the grain matrix, which Chorleywood ‘bread’ is a perhaps occasional stirring, although some studies (and many people on the simulacrum, sourdough this isn’t even essential. Within days street) have concluded renders it highly is the real thing. the batter is usually showing the classic digestible, and makes the nutrients signs of fermentation: bubbling and within the cereal more bio-available frothing with clear biological activity. [converted to a form that the human This batter can then simply be mixed body can assimilate], which means it goes with more flour, water and salt (also down well and is very nourishing. an elemental), then allowed to continue activating, and finally Nutrients are also synthesised within baked to produce a very the sourdough process, the bread delicious well-risen being more nutritious than its original bread. components. For example vitamin B12 (not its analogue) has been found in good quantity in my leavens, and this is unknown in regular breads. The essential amino acid [i.e. necessary but the human body is unable to synthesise it] lysine is also formed, which is also exceptional as this is not found in unfermented cereals. Organic acids and alcohol develop during the fermentation, considerably modifying the glutenin and gliadin [the proteins that combine to form gluten], thus rendering them more digestible. There is even evidence that some coeliacs might be able to eat properly made sourdough wheat bread, and that diabetics might benefit from it*. As I believe many of the self-diagnosed food allergic/intolerant are in fact suffering from modernitis, this underlines the role of sourdough in nutrition/well-being. Evidence It is fortunate that we have rediscovered this process, as I and many other believe we ail from the refined breads that now dominate our food choices. Forced on us by corporate thinking as a way for them to make money rather than to nourish us (were there mass demonstrations demanding CBP loaves? History records the opposite, actually), modern ersatz ‘bread’ has pervaded our culture. In a recent article on the BBC News website,
10 Image: www.flickr.com/people/stone-soup/ TAKE ACTION! If you’re marketing sourdough bread as ‘yeast free’, stop it! Apart from the fact that this could land you in trouble with Trading Standards, it’s not in keeping with Real Bread Campaign values of openness and honesty. Possible alternatives include ‘made without baker’s [or industrial] yeast’, and ‘made using naturally-occurring yeasts’.
Gordon Polson of the Federation of Bakers is quoted as saying that there is no evidence that modern (CBP) loaves are any harder to digest. This leads us to another interesting aspect of the re- appearance of sourdough. Through the blessed medium of social networking, which relieves us from the tyranny of scientism, those of us who have started baking and eating sourdough bread have found that we are not alone in experiencing a magical reversal of digestive complaints. At which point does the in vivo evidence outweigh the in vitro? As a sourdough baker of forty years’ experience, I’ve met very many people discovering sourdough bread, then coming back to me to announce a sudden remission from all sorts of digestive maladies, which then return if they revert to industrial loaves. This relief can sometimes occur to a lesser extent with properly made yeasted bread, however I have found that sourdough is more fundamentally curative. Sourdough bread was once commonly made in Britain in John Downes (right) sharing a loaf with John Letts many forms. As its crafting is the antithesis of an industrial process, sourdough vanished here within the first days of the industrialisation of culinary life. Sourdough bread requires a skilled person (an artisan) as opposed to an In the next issue, John will give us an introductory guide ‘operative’ and is the original Luddite, resisting the to the first steps towards excellence in sourdough baking. machine. Although Ruskin and his contemporaries railed In the meantime, you can read John’s writing in the against the demise of the artisan, they were curiously Baker’s Blog at shiptonmill.com and his frequent blog silent about the food artisans. The process survived on the posts at sourdough.com. continent, notably in France where such bread retained its title of pain au levain. This levain is the leaven that, as I’ve * You can find links to the growing body of scientific described, can be generated spontaneously and cultured by evidence in the FAQs section of our website. If you know anyone. To achieve excellence, however, sourdough needs of a study we’ve not yet listed, please email the details to to be managed skilfully by the artisan baker... [email protected]
Who are ya? Earlier this year, we asked you to even bigger thanks to our volunteer things you want to see more of are complete a short questionnaire to help Emily who waded through and logged campaigning on relevant legislation, us answer the questions – just who the results), here are the key things we pressing for more health/nutrition are the Real Bread Campaign? Well, have learned about the gang… research, and training events. according to the results, the average 71% of members are female, 31% are The way you prefer to read Campaign Campaign member is female, aged between 41 and 50 and just under 30% news is in True Loaf [‘go the Loaf!’ ed.], between 41 and 60, works full-time are 51-60. By far the largest proportion Breadcrumbs and The Real-Baker-e, in and is a home baker. of you are homebakers, accounting that order. Facebook and Twitter also So that we can understand and better for 67% of respondents. Around 10% received good numbers of votes. serve our current members, as well each are either professional bakers or Well, now we know, we’ll see what we as focus our drive to attract more people baking at home for sale. can do! people to join you, we devised a The biggest reason for you joining mini-census. In response, we received is because you’re a homebaker, with 125 completed questionnaires, a You can read more details of the results wanting to help to change the baking representative sample of roughly one in the membership section of our industry and delivering the aims of the fifth of our membership at the time. website. Campaign almost tying as second and With thanks to you if you replied (and third of your reasons. The top three
11 Millers’ Tales As Campaign working party member Jon Cook reports, over 110 bakers, millers and farmers gathered on a stunning spring day at the NFU Mutual headquarters at Tiddington, Stratford upon Avon for a journey From Crop to Crust.
Against the backdrop of the No trouble at t’mill continuing surge in interest in SPAB Mills Section chairman James Real Bread and bread making, the Waterfield and TCMG chairman conference was convened to explore Nick Jones presented The Miller’s the relationships that need to exist Tale. James showcased the process between farmer, traditional miller he uses at Maud Foster Windmill and baker to support the continued in Lincolnshire to make white flour renaissance of good, quality bread. using stoneground meal and a Jointly organised by the Society centrifugal dresser, demonstrating for the Protection of Ancient how he achieves a white colouration Buildings (SPAB) Mills Section and along with some great flavour. To the Traditional Cornmillers Guild illustrate the fundamental enduring (TCMG), the conference proposed qualities of stoneground traditional that Britain’s traditional mills are in milling – using natural power to a pivotal position to help change produce a staple, quality food, Nick rural life and the quality and value of took delegates on a journey into a our most essential staple food: Real future world where due to natural Bread. disaster, there was no electrical power. He eloquently reminded us all Expert risk how these qualities are as relevant to To achieve the aim, an excellent today’s world of climate change and line-up of speakers was assembled. energy insecurity as they were to the Farmer Howard Roberts and John pre-industrial society that developed Letts, archeo-botanist, farmer most of the wind and water milling and founder of the Oxford Bread technologies found in our traditional Group, presented The Farmer’s Tale, mills today a workshop focusing on growing wheat for traditional milling. Howard Changing tastes farms a mixed arable organic farm in Award winning baker, teacher Hertfordshire and supplies most of his and author Dan Lepard and Little wheat to traditional mills including Salkeld mill’s Ana Jones presented the neighbouring Redbournbury The Baker’s Tale. Ana, focusing on Watermill. He described the benefits domestic baking, did a practical of provenance, how being connected demonstration making rolls to with mills and bakers enabling the highlight how simple and easy consumer to trace their bread back Real Bread making can be. She also to the farm gate has helped his illustrated some of the qualities of business. John shed light on the huge English wholewheat flour, including opportunities that exist in growing the fact it needs very little kneading heritage wheat varieties, from the to produce a light crumb. Dan talked qualities of the flour they produce to about the changing tastes of an their suitability to the ever-changing increasing number of consumers UK climate. He also reflected on the and bakers and the opportunities legal challenges of growing and this affords traditional millers. They, trading these varieties of wheat given he told the audience, can provide UK and EU legislation. greater variety of flavour in their flour due to the qualities of the
12 different parcels of wheat milled, and offer a greater range of types of flour. He made the important point that poor quality flour gives both the mill concerned and the wider traditional milling industry a bad name and that some traditional millers need to develop a greater understanding of how their product is used by bakers. Dan encouraged bakers to work Traditional mills in of stalls and exhibitions where millers, with millers to select a type of flour st bakers and representatives from suitable for the bread they planned to the 21 century organisations including the TCMG, SPAB make. He also suggested that bakers The last set of presentations of the Mills Section, Real Bread Campaign, explore the properties of flours from day showcased two watermills at NFU Mutual, National Trust, the Mills traditional mills by firstly hydrating the heart of their local communities, Archive and Bakerybits Ltd were a sample and exploring how the but at different stages of business ready to network, sell their wares and flour reacts – how it takes up water development. Justin James of discuss baking and milling. Emmanuel and how the gluten develops. From Redbournbury Watermill gave us an Hadjiandreou and students from the this, they should consider ‘cutting insight into the phenomenal successes School of Artisan Food, ably supported their coats according to the cloth’ i.e. achieved at this established watermill by Andy Forbes of the Brockwell Bake using these properties to decide what which mills wheat from local farmer and Dilly Boase, baked bread made type of bread to bake, rather than Howard Roberts and has an onsite with flour from TCMG mills in an oven trying to force a flour to produce a bakery used by both a bread baker and kindly loaned by Paul Jones of Melton predetermined loaf for which it isn’t a cake maker. Redbournbury personifies Mowbray. suited. what can be achieved by a traditional mill in the 21st century, creating a Many new acquaintances were made, After a presentation by heritage building new personal and business interpretation specialist Geraldine mutually beneficial commercial relationship between the baker, relationships all along the food chain Mathieson exploring the impact of from crop to crust, affirming the place the changing tastes of the consumer miller and farmer and combining this with a local enthusiastic following of and role of the traditional mill in the as regards the bread they eat, Chris st committed customers. By contrast, Lionel 21 Century and thus the aim of the Young charted the evolution of the conference. Real Bread Campaign, which has been Green’s Crakehall Mill is just completing working closely with both the TCMG a restoration programme, which at its conclusion will see it milling flour for and the SPAB Mills Section since its Jon Cook owns and runs the wind- a local Community Supported Bakery launch. The Campaign’s success in powered Fosters Mill at Swaffham Prior, made from local wheat. Delegates were gaining media interest has helped raise Cambridgeshire, is the secretary of the therefore able to hear the contrasting awareness of the role of traditional Traditional Cornmillers Guild, and vice- stories of these different mills, their mills, the difference between chair of SPAB Mills Section. successes and challenges. stoneground and roller milled flours, www.tcmg.org.uk and the benefits of baking and eating Alongside the presentations, delegates www.spab.org.uk/spab-mills/ Real Bread of course! were able to explore the marketplace
TAKE ACTION! Support sustainable milling by seeking out flour from a traditional wind- or water-powered mill. Real Bread baked from locally-grown and milled grain gives professional bakers a strong USP, as well as offering them and home bakers darn tasty loaves. TCMG and The Brockwell Bake both have traditional mill finders on their websites and recently we began to offer independent millers the chance to add their flours (and where to buy them) to our Real Bread Finder.
13 www.realbreadcampaign.org