The Spiritual Side of Bread

Part of my journey into "real food" is also a journey into personal involvement with my food. As a result, I have made a commitment to bake my own bread. I toyed around with bread baking when the kids were little and again many years later with bread machines. Now that I am increasing whole grains in my diet, I am looking at how to make whole grain breads that taste good. Enter the new cookbook: Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. Peter is a baker who shares his personal journey into whole grain bread baking, the good, the bad and the ugly. His writing includes his anecdotes, the science of whole grains as well as the theory of the delayed fermentation process. His love of bread comes through loud and clear. This is my favorite quote from the book.

Bread is the ultimate transformational food. Its ingredients are not only radically changed from one thing into something completely different, but more significantly, and unlike any other food, bread actually goes through two transformations in its journery from the earth to the table. Let me explain.

To make bread, we harvest the caryopsis (the seed) from living grass, taking the life of that grass. Usually, but not exclusively, that grass is wheat. Then we grind the seed into flour, taking even its potential for future life. During the mixing stage, we combine this flour with salt and water and turn it into a claylike mixture. When infused with leaven, it gradually comes to life as it rises and becomes bread dough. (It may help to know that the dictionary definition of leaven is "to enliven, to vivify; to bring to life.") This is the first transformation.

After several succeeding stages of the bread maing process - fermentation, shaping, resting, and so on - the baking stage arrives and a second transformation occurs. Living dough enters a hot oven, as the internal temperature of the dough passes 139 degrees (the dough's thermal death point), all life ceases. In order to complete its mission of raising the dough and transforming it into bread, the leaven gives up its own life too.

These two transformations help to explain our fascination and love for bread. Whether literally or symbolically, the ingredients are radically transformed and so, at times, is the baker. The road from wheat to eat takes many twists and turns, verging at times on seemingly mysterious, alchemical changes. And the ultimate loaf experienced, finally at stage twelve (eating!) is a creature totally unlike the grass seeds ground into flour from which it originated.