Baking bad

In “Ode to Bread”, Pablo Neruda describes how flour, water and fire combine to create a sort of magic that is both poetic and prosaic, simple and profound. Our daily bread should be “hallowed and sacred, because it will have been won by the longest and costliest of human struggles”. The contemporary significance of its production process, as well as the value and appreciation of the end product, is the theme of David Wright’s important and wide-ranging book, an absorbing narrative that is part memoir, part political polemic, part meditation, part sociological survey and part reportage. It could be a lumpy mix, but the author’s credentials as a third-generation artisan baker, along with his descriptive flair, analytical mind and tone of wry amusement, save the text from being too stodgy. The depiction of the family’s ancient Artofex dough mixer, for example, is vivid: “it would get patched up after every shift with thick engine grease and a wet sponge – like a punch-drunk boxer about to be sent in for another round”. For Wright, the true alchemy of baking happens only when the bread is spiritually infused with the character of the baker. It’s where skill meets creativity.

His brave and honest personal story as a “broken baker” is braided with that of an industry, indeed a planet, facing multiple challenges and crises. Wright has set himself a huge task, which he addresses by initially asking everyone he speaks to – farmers, millers, bakers, chefs – what they envision when they hear the word “bread”. His own archetype, for example, has a “glassine-blistered crust, bronzed but not evenly so, the recipient of a thousand fiery kisses”. Others reference home, hearth, mothers, feasts, famine and awe.

The book is divided into ten sections, each examining a different yet interlocking aspect of the bread experience: bread and identity, the cycle of growing, science and technology, bread and nutrition, bread as a political and economic tool, bread and war and more. There are historical references, but Wright’s focus is the present – and the future, in terms of feeding the world. He admits candidly that he has more questions than answers, but the former are nonetheless stimulating.

The title seeks to capture some of the complexity of the subject. The double sense of the word “Breaking” is apt: the methods used by industrial food producers to avoid time-consuming traditional processes lead us not to good health, but to disease. Technological developments, such as the notorious Chorleywood method, have brought downsides, prioritizing speed over taste and nutrition. Wright acknowledges ruefully the difficulty of making an honest, fully informed choice when we are constantly faced with “innovations” such as “sourfaux”, a flavouring made with dry sourdough powder.

There is nonetheless cause for optimism, which the author recounts in searching conversations with fellow bread lovers and bakers in the UK and US. One important conclusion is the need to marry the adaptability and creativity of small food systems with the ability to scale them up for everyone’s benefit. There are positive signposts, even if purists frown: Wildfarmed bread, for example, is made from regenerative flour (and sold in selected supermarkets). Perhaps it all comes down to what Jane Grigson famously described as a better standard of ordinariness. Breaking Bread is neither recipe book nor manual, but it does include useful tips such as this one, on sourdough starters: “It doesn’t matter how old your starter is, a culture that’s a month old and kept with care and precision will outperform a 5,000-year-old starter found in the tomb of a pharaoh’s favourite baker, every time. It’s just not as Instagrammable”.

When social history met social media in the time of Covid, home baking collided with the gods of instant gratification and viral sensation. The results were often frustratingly poor, but the journey itself can also inspire: writing about the quest for the golden loaf at the end of the rainbow, Wright reflects on the addictive “never-ending opportunity for progression” that will “keep me baking for as long as I live”. The food historian Dr Neil Buttery, in his new book, Knead to Know, also situates the way we eat now in the context of our history. Every bread has a story, and Buttery tells them with the enthusiasm that arises from personal pleasure. His engaging book is a clear, informative guide to the creation, evolution and cultural significance of breads, cakes, biscuits, patisserie and pies. He notes key agrarian, technological and scientific innovations, along with the happy accidents on which so much of the wheel of food history turns.

The subject of grains and grinding, griddles and ovens, manchets and muffins, and much more, is well documented, not least in Elizabeth David’s magisterial and slightly terrifying doorstop English Bread and Yeast Cookery (1977). Buttery offers a fascinating broad sweep without sacrificing academic integrity, linking items as wide-ranging as the creation of the whisk; the purpose of fish heads in a stargazy pie; the 336 names for cornbread; the meaning of the terms “stop-gap” and “upper crust”; the contentious status of the miller in feudal medieval life; Renaissance pies baked with not just blackbirds, but live snakes; and the wonderful titbit that Henry VII was showered with wafers cut into snowflake shapes on a visit to York. We also learn the rather vulgar roots of the word “pumpernickel” – a bread that makes you fart like the devil.

The book is divided into easily digestible, loosely chronological sections, and Buttery acknowledges that tracking the evolution of such huge, complex subjects – when does pastry become biscuit, bread become cake? – can be messy and disputable. Pinning down definitions isn’t easy: who can forget the great Jaffa Cake debate? Buttery’s research, scientific explanations and factual analyses are interspersed with tales of his experience as a home baker of historical recipes and intrepid explorer of forgotten recipes and techniques (though an index is much needed). Knead to Know is generally cheery and conversational, enlivened with some waspish comments that reminded me of David’s fearless barbs. When considering the origins of American red velvet cake, Buttery suggests that the main reason for its development was the unromantic goal of flogging extra food colouring. “Call me a cynic, but this is the one I’m going with.” He describes today’s ubiquitous mass-produced wraps as “thin, clammy – or worse, soggy – flatbreads, reminiscent of cadaverous skin”. And he sounds downright indignant when it comes to the decline of royal icing, now “replaced by the worst of all icings … often sold as fondant icing, which it certainly is not”. Speaking of icing, he has strong opinions about its appearance on a Bakewell tart. Mr Kipling, he writes, has a lot to answer for.

Like Breaking Bread, Buttery’s book combines social history (how a drop in the price of candles encouraged the practice of afternoon tea, for example) with practical advice on why you should only use eggs at room temperature. He examines the food identities of regional bakes, from crusty cobs to stotty cakes, and along the way offers cultural reflections on disparate subjects such as Britain’s infatuation with dunking biscuits and the internet’s obsession with mirror glaze icing. Neil Buttery scores highly on myth-busting. He demolishes with insouciance persistent origin stories such as those for crêpes suzette and simnel cake. And he shreds the conventional croissant back story as “hogwash”. His advice is to “judge any food origin story where the creation of it was apparently accidental with great caution. They are almost always too good to be true”.

Clarissa Hyman is a food and travel writer. She is co-author of In Season: Autumn & winter, 2024

The post Baking bad appeared first on TLS.