In mine the last post I shared the experience about the workshop with Nicolas Supiot From seed to peasant oven.
Today I would like to share a video about his unique way of baking sourdough bread. It is meditative – with bare feet on the ground, hands in the petri dish and fire in the heart.
Nicolas bakes sourdough bread twice a week. The first step begins the evening before the day of baking, when he grinds his own grains in his mill and then places the flour in the petri dish to rest there overnight. Petrin is a French word for a dough box – the box where you mix the dough.
“In other languages petrin is called metrnga, nečke or vintola (Slovenian), tulha (Portuguese), maida (Sicilian), Deeg Schaal (Dutch), načve (Serbian), artesa (Spanish), korytko (Slovak), noshtvi (Bulgarian) ). ). *
What is the name of Petrin where you live?”
The baking day starts early. The morning mists are slowly disappearing as he weighs the beginning of sourdough and warm water. Before pouring filtered water into the petri dish, he gives a bowl three crucial spins – to bring the water to life.
The preparation of the dough is not routine, it is different every time. Except for the prayer before dipping the hands in flour. Prayer is an acknowledgment of existence and connection to future bread.
Mix the dough gently and firmly and let it rest. Nicolas says that baking bread is a lot of work when we are not working. It is relatively warm in the room, so the dough ferments quickly. As it ferments, Nicolas performs some stretching and folding to give the dough strength. While the dough rests, he fires up his wood-fired oven. The fire should burn and heat the bottom. Nicolas observes the readiness of the oven by the color of the bricks and the movement of the flames. When it's time to shape the loaves, it's done firmly, but gently and quickly. Experienced hands know how to feel the dough.
This is Nicolas Supiot in his rustic bakery.
Who is the peasant baker?
In short, the country baker (also farmer baker) is more than just a job to be a baker. It's a lifestyle choice taking care of the entire bread production chain – growing our own grains, grinding those grains into flour in our own mill, and baking bread with natural yeast.
To an outside observer running a rustic bakery may seem extreme. But as I learned from Nicolas, it's better to say radical instead of extreme.
“Radical: in a medieval philosophical sense, from Late Latin radicalis “of or having root”, from Latin radix (genitive radicis) “root”. Meaning “going to the origin, essential” is from the 1650s.
The peasant bakery exists on the other side of agricultural industrialization, the imbalanced grain economy, and industrialized fast bread. By going back to the roots, I mean choosing old varieties of wheat and other grains and agricultural practices that take advantage of environmental intelligence, natural cycles, and ancient plant protection knowledge that predates the pesticide era.
Choosing heirloom and local grain varieties is an important step towards seed independence and biodiversity. Biodiversity brings flavor and character.
Country Bakery provides transparency and clarity, what a consumer needs to make better choices.
Being a rustic baker means being on a holistic journey, from seed to bread. It requires understanding of various related processes and adequate adjustments.
In the end, two things matter most: protecting our environment and general well-being. These two can go hand in hand – going back to the roots and opting for technological innovation as a means of efficiency at the same time. And in the end, it's all about balance.
We can always decide and choose. And indecision is also decision. Make good decisions about your well-being.
Stay tuned for the next video where we take a look at the other side of reality!
* Thanks to all contributors from My Daily Sourdough Facebook Page!
Recipes to try:
