Jeremy Cherfas

Our Daily Bread 26 - Wheats and Measures http://ow.ly/jVLd30lxI4x Eight wheat seeds of silver gets you 5 pounds 10 ounces of bread. The very first English law about food regulated the size of a standard loaf of bread. The Assize of Bread and Ale kept the price constant, but that price bought more or less bread depending on the price of wheat. It never was a very useful system, for bakers or bread buyers, but it survived from at least 1266 until 1836 and provides an opportunity to consider a pound of silver versus a pound of bread.

Risk-taking

Baking a soufflé is no different from driving 150kph while drunk.

Ripped apart, as it deserved.

Ok.

Checked into Piazza Fatebenefratelli

Our Daily Bread 25 - Tradition! http://ow.ly/wCsS30lxHFL The one thing to be thankful for in the rise of fast factory bread is that it prompted the resurgence of small, artisan bakers. They have been goaded to produce breads that are better in every way than even the best breads of years gone by. It may seem at times as if their focus is on traditions from time immemorial. It isn't. Because aside from taking time, what they are doing isn't all that traditional.

For all the satisfaction I get handling a good load of dough and multiple loaves, there is something very pleasant about doing one simple bread.

Our Daily Bread 24 - Slow, but Exceedingly Fine http://ow.ly/W4Ix30lvxpu Without a doubt, the most important trend in the resurgence of baking with care is the increasing use of small mills by keen home bakers and professionals alike. Better nutrition and stunning flavour are the obvious benefits. Less visible, a renewal of local grain growing and closer links between farmers and bakers, all in search of better wheats. Photo by kind permission of Andrew Heyn at New American Stone Mills.

Far and away the weirdest nagware I've ever seen. A website distributing PDFs of academic papers requires me to wait 120 seconds until I can download, but the clock ticks only while I am on that site. I can't go and do anything else. Of course, I can also "donate".

Terrific. FB Just banned a friend's link to my latest podcast episode (Brown v. White; Our Daily Bread 23). Twice, for reasons unspoken that I can only imagine. They did not ban my link to the same post.

Our Daily Bread 23 - Brown v. White http://ow.ly/Fn5K30lvxlk The fight between brown and white, good for you versus good for us, has been going on for a long time. Brown flour certainly ought to be more nutritious, and these days, even the elites are choosing brown bread over white. Maybe that's why sales of "whole grain bread" have more than tripled in the US over the past few years. The weevil in the loaf: whole grain need be only 51%, and whole grain flour is just white flour with some added bran and germ.