Bread Baking at Enrico Biscotti
About 4 months ago, I fell in love with the concept of baking my own bread. Why? It all started with the bread baking “class” from the Enrico Biscotti Company. In just a single-session introduction, I didn’t learn all the intricacies of bread, nor was I able to actually reproduce the loaf of bread we made in class—at least initially. The primary outcome of the class was inspiration: I started baking bread every Saturday morning.
On Sunday, I took that class for a second time—this time with two new friends. If you like too cook (or have any interest in baking or Italian food culture), you should sign up and take the class as well. Breakfast alone is worth half the cost.
At the start of the class, Larry presents an amazing breakfast. Fresh fruit paired with cheese, fresh-baked quiche, beans and greens (my personal favorite), and, of course, bread. The breakfast is amazing, and there’s really no choice but to stuff yourself in an attempt to try a little bit of everything, then find room for another serving of something that happened to really tickle your taste buds. While his students feast, Larry delves into the history of bread baking: “10,000 years ago, a woman in Bagdad grids up a some farro to break the shell, mixes with water from the Euphrates, smashes it into a flat shape and puts it in a box to carry during the day.”
While his story is necessarily an interpretation of his various reading, he is clearly well-read and familiar with the underlying history of his stories. He really drives his point that bread has been central to our culture for 10,000 years and it is soon to be lost in just 3 generations. Actually, I think the lecture leaned a little bit further in this direction during the first class than the second. For 10,000 years, baking technology passed along to each new generation, and we’re on the verge of letting it fall through the cultural cracks: accepting processed something not much better than Wonder Bread in its place.
That’s not to say that that artisan bakers are a dying breed. Quite the contrary—their profession is on the rise. The real issue is that we no longer live in a world where mothers pass the craft of bread baking to their daughters. Gone are the days when the making of bread is intertwined with the production of a meal that regularly unites a family in an almost ceremonial breaking of bread. On one hand the situation is completely understandable: you don’t see me complaining that we no longer can our own vegetables or milk our own cows, but there is something significant in the baking of bread that the world is quickly losing.
After hearing all that Larry has to say, it becomes clear that bread means so much more to our culture than stewed tomatoes. Families “break bread” together. For holy communion, Christians, consume bread representing the body of Christ. The word “companion,” literally means “one who breaks bread with another.” So much of our past and present culture is tied to the ritual of baking the daily bread.
Since I took the class, I have been making bread nearly once a week. I always make at least one loaf for my own consumption and I often make multiple loaves and distribute them to friends. There’s something about the magic of bread baking that motivates me to keep up with it week after week. It has a certain challenge that keeps me wanting to try another loaf using a slightly different technique.
I don’t think everybody should do the same—after all, I’m fairly obsessed with food and cooking. I do think that everyone should take the class. So go, sign up or maybe just visit the Saturday cafe.