Jeremy Cherfas

Golden raisin bread. Natural leaven, 25% wholemeal, about 70% hydration. A definite keeper.

It's about time. That thing I promised a few days back, about time and the business of baking bread, is now published. My basic argument is that cheap bread devalues good bread and good bakers. "If a loaf of pap is available for pennies, how are we to justify an adequate reward for the baker who needs time and space to produce a different kind of loaf? It is the existence of cheap bread that makes a desire for something better into an elitist, privileged foodie pursuit." http://ow.ly/q5DH30lLVr2

Our Daily Bread 31 - Winding Down http://ow.ly/qyup30lBumt What more is there to say? Plenty, of course, but not this time. This is the final episode of this run of Our Daily Bread. I say that as if there will be another, but all I'm really doing is leaving the door slightly ajar. I've had a lot of fun and learned a lot. I hope you have too. For a final thought, I cannot do better than Elizabeth David, from her meticulous chapter on The Cost of Baking Your Own Bread in English Bread and Yeast Cookery. After going through nutrition, prices and all that she writes: "So much for price comparisons. Long before you've finished doing the sums you realise that what counts is the value of decent bread to you and to the people you are responsible for feeding, and what that is, it's up to us to work out for ourselves."

Our Daily Bread 30 - A Perennial Dream http://ow.ly/8pcy30lB5vW Wheat is an annual plant; it dies after setting seed. Each year, the farmer has to prepare the land, sow seed, fertilise and protect the plants. When the ground is bare, between crops, wind and water can erode the soil. The shallow root systems of annual plants fail to exploit the resources of the soil and do little to improve it. So although wheat feeds us, it does so at considerable cost to the environment. It isn't sustainable. What if wheat were perennial? Photo by Jerry D. Glover; annual wheat on the left, Kernza™ on the right.

Our Daily Bread 29 - It's a Hard Grain http://ow.ly/3Zvt30lB5rE Durum wheat is only about 5% of the total wheat harvest around the world. For those of us who like our pasta, that's a very important 5%. Different gluten proteins make a durum dough stretchy rather than elastic -- perfect for pasta. The kernels are very hard and need dedicated milling machinery, which produces small granules -- semolina -- rather than flour. That, however, may be about to change.

Our Daily Bread 28 - Anything but Grim http://ow.ly/MAbj30lz3WQ The one process in the whole business of turning wheat into bread when time is of the essence is the harvest. It's back-breaking work, and the slightest delay can ruin the quality of the grain. In Europe, a ready supply of peasants got the job done. In America, labour, especially in the newly settled midwest, was extremely scarce. Inventors had to come up with machines.

Our Daily Bread 27 - Bread and Political Circuses http://ow.ly/SUG530lz3Uo An enormous amount of wheat, roughly one fifth of the total harvest, is traded internationally between countries and, as might be expected, if the supply falls, prices rise. Given the strategic importance of wheat, countries try to ensure that they have an adequate supply, even when doing so actually makes things worse, at least in the short term. Wheat links a drought in China to the fall of Egypt's government in the Arab Spring of 2011.

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.

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.