Handcrafted Wholefood
Baker man–
Matt Marshall
@sundaysustainablebakery
Photos–
Lila Theodoros
@ohbabushka
Words/cook–
Rachel Surgeoner
@Yes_Joy
Creative direction–
Beck Marshall
@sixgallery_
Originally published in Paradiso Issue 5
No matter what culture you look to around the world, there it is—the sandwich. The marriage of bread filled with untold variations of meats and cheeses, slathered in endless inventive condiments.
From the Bánh mì, baguette and bao to pizzas and pitas, tortas and arepas. The commonality? Bread.
Hundreds of books are dedicated to the historical, political and social powers of the mixing of flour and water to create what is commonly known as a loaf of bread. Below we take just a small slice into the world of bread and it’s sandwich-making destiny.
Bread as a life force
You give a person flour and water alone and they cannot live; you give a person flour, water and heat and they can live indefinitely. Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods, dating back to Neolithic times when unleavened dough was placed on hot stones in the embers of a wood fire. Since this pivotal moment bread has become synonymous with life itself, and really, some would argue that hasn’t changed some 12,000 years on.
Through experimentation or accident, the discovery was made that the addition of yeast gives flour and water the ability to rise. An earthy, metallic magic occurs as enzymes react and fermentation begins, akin to the way beer is made, one could in fact consider beer as liquid bread and bread as solid beer.
Bad rap
Bread has had some bad PR. We’ve gone from Wonder Bread believers to conscientious gluten objectors. It’s back on the rise however, with sourdough starters becoming the new household pet and wholesome bread crusaders espousing sprouted grains, rye, spelt, khorasan (kamut) and einkorn (Google it) from the 200,000 varieties of wheat grown worldwide. These new Bread Enthusiasts are unable to fathom a life without bread, a Coeliac diagnosis akin to exile.
Writer and activist Michael Pollan encourages the modern world to eat better, exploring our relationship with food and the importance of slow food. While he says industrialisation is not inherently evil, he warns us that, “often in the rush to make something cheaper, we overlook the reason why it was done in the somewhat more painstaking way. And in the case of bread, what we may have overlooked is the importance of a long, slow, sourdough fermentation.”
Intolerance issues aside, we salute bread as a source of sustenance, feeding the worlds most disadvantaged and uniting us as a people.
Bread goes highbrow
We’re inspired by the balance of bread; the decadence of a deli sandwich overflowing with pastrami, the simplicity of an unleavened flatbread, dipped in hummus, French women who will never give up the croissant – the delicate steadiness of enjoyment of quality versus overconsumption.
NYC based baker and artist Lexie Smith explores the diverse dialogues that stem from our relationship to grain, in her project ‘bread-on.earth’ Smith says, “I think of bread as a river. This is highly metaphorical, but I find it really helpful to visualise it. I call it the “River Bread” and there is a delta at the end and all of these streams flow out of it. And they are endless. And they are so rich with stories of history, gender, and politics. And there is also this purely aesthetic component: I, personally, find bread beautiful.”
