The first seed
In 2012, the economic crisis hit most of the Greeks and unfortunately, it did not make an exception for me.
Having enough free time in my daily life, I started brushing up on my English. One day I came across an interesting article on a serious news agency about the worldwide view of baking, what gluten is and why gluten intolerance is so common in our modern world.
The article explained how bread from being a staple type of food became banned, what contributed to the “abuse” of gluten and furthermore, what the real nutritional value of a real sourdough bread is.
I found it very interesting, although I felt it could be a little exaggerated since another forbidden food is added to the list with necessities such as milk, meat, etc.
Though the article had previously struck me as intriguing information, Google continued reminding me of it over the next few days and suddenly I found myself attempting to make my first sourdough loaf.
I spent almost six months attempting to produce the “best” loaf. I also began looking for bibliography or even searching for Greek artisans, but I could not find anything about this special type of bread. So, I started searching abroad. I contacted with bakers, ordered books, and travelled a lot. And finally, I succeeded.
My excitement when I created my first “best” loaf was inexpressible.
As time went on, I became more and more passionate. When I realized that I am not dealing with a basic recipe but with the behavior of a living organism in any given situation, I became determined to learn it better.
I also became obsessed with struggling to figure out that although I tried the same recipe, I did not get the same results after all. How complicated can a recipe be with common ingredients such as water, flour, and salt?
I dedicated myself by studying and recording any attempt. I was watching the baking and the consistency of the crust, adjusting the humidity, taking the temperature, starting to measure the ph, trying to understand why the beehive of its crumb could differ with almost similar data. I was waking up at night only to check the process of fermentation and looking forward to opening the cast iron roaster to see the final shape of the loaf just before the baking is complete.
Every time I was trying to make the best loaf!
But which is the perfect loaf? That’s a long conversation! I still can’t reply to this question with certainty.
The key is to understand that you are dealing with something alive and live with it.
You must take care of it, keep it strong, take it with you on your vacations, give it character and develop with it. After this the question of what the best loaf is might be answered at some point.
Most bakers, amateurs or not, usually give a name to their starter but I didn’t give to my own one. I was mostly concerned about what was happening in the “material” I had enclosed in a small jar and this was mostly of great importance.
I preferred not to buy or borrow a starter (although I had the option) but to start the process myself from scratch. Besides, I don’t believe so much in overage starter since the characteristics change according to the place are stored and the avid baker himself.
I couldn’t wait for the weekend to come when I usually tried new recipes because this process gave me incredible freedom. Moreover, my friends’ enthusiasm and smiles gave me amazing satisfaction when I gave to them my fresh loaf. I was generously giving away my bread with the only reward getting their opinion of what they were tasting. When I was asking them for their impressions, the older ones recalled their childhood memories, while the younger had never tried anything similar, yet they were expressing their enthusiasm. Hardly anyone could point a bakery that sells a similar loaf. All these happened in 2019 because now, the moment you are reading this text, the bakery industry is evolving and in Athens there are bakeries that reintroduce the bread. Only a handful but they are worth visiting.
This was the reason I chose to start my own bakery using real sourdough bread. It seemed as if I wanted to give the chance to more people, besides my friends, to try eating real bread. So far, with the support of a very strong group of bakers-confectioners, for which I really feel proud of, led by Th. Stamoudis, to offer daily sourdough bread, viennoiseries, sweets and snacks made from scratch in our workshop while the front house team offers them daily with a smile to our customers. You will read about its benefits and features in the articles that will be published and uploaded on the site of BREAD B.C.
Now that BREAD BC has flesh and blood, I still declare myself amateur and I will remain as an amateur till the end. But I am still wondering was that article which brought me here in this position?
I strongly believe that it was simply the occasion.
And I am sure that the reason lies in the past. In the dessert my mother used to prepare for me out of sourdough bread soaked in water and sugar, in my everyday impatience for the school bell only to go to the oil mill where my father used to work during the winter in order to taste the baked slice of sourdough bread baked on the core wood in fresh hot olive oil and salt, in the heat of propira, which was disappeared only in a few minutes after coming out of the stone oven, in the picture of the threshing floors where wheat was separated with the help of horses in the summer months but also in its grinding at home with the help of a manual stone mill. But also, to the impressive watermills that unfortunately I didn’t have the luck to see them in operation, to the phrase “have a seat and let’s eat bread” by the grandparents used as a code word to start the meal at the festive table and so many more pictures recalled from my memory with the help of the special aroma of a of sourdough bread.
Bread BC is my past and my personal attempt as well to offer, with the respect it deserves, a product that has been misunderstood like no other.
Have a seat and let’s eat bread….
Pericles Vourthis
Slow fermentation visionary