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Bake bread to slow down, eat locally, and make connections with your community
Natural Family Living in North Florida
By Teresa Youngblood
The gathering of ingredients and supplies, the clearing and cleaning of the space, the careful sequence of events, the long rising, the baking and the waiting - why would anyone bake his or her own bread by hand anymore? Here are three good reasons: a delightful and contemplative slow pace; an opportunity to use healthy, local ingredients; and the chance to strengthen feelings of community.
A Zen priest, Edward Espe Brown, wrote one of my favorite books about bread, The Tassajara Bread Book . In the book, the weaving together of in-the-moment spiritual practice and bread baking is seamless. Each step has its pace - the mixing, the rising, the baking, and the cooling. Nothing is rushed, the hands touch the dough at every stage, and the bread is forgiving.
Because the goal is a food full of love and thought and health, the baker becomes full of love and thought and health by putting him or herself fully into the process. Lately I have made a habit of baking my bread on Friday afternoons after work; it helps me to wind down from the week and to enter my two days of rest with a quiet, focused mind.
Stories and myths involving bread abound, and more than a few of them feature bread made from the ingredients on hand in a time of need. The most basic bread can come to be from flour, water, and heat enough to bake it, but the possibilities for creative expression are nothing short of amazing.
Though you might be hard-pressed to find a local source for flour, we are lucky enough in our region to have plentiful local sources of milk, eggs, honey, nuts, seeds, and hundreds of varieties of fruits, herbs and vegetables. The flavors and combinations possible from such luscious ingredients are tantalizing to say the least - hearty wheat with honey butter, spinach and sun-dried tomato foccacio, rosemary rye, oatmeal bread with blueberries; the list is endless. I have a grand plan for this summer of trying to come up with different breads each week made from whatever looks good to me at the Wednesday Growers Market at Lake Ella.
My own introduction to the baking of bread was from a wise, kind, free-spirited friend who whips up hearty, yeasted loaves for roomfuls of people. Watching the ease with which she manifests feelings of community and good cheer among eaters with her bread's heavenly scent and mouth-watering taste is inspiring.
Breaking bread with another is a powerful metaphor because it resonates with so many of us. It represents the most basic connection - recognizing the life in our bodies and in those around us. A fresh, homemade bread gifted to another is a rare and wonderful kindness. It is providing for another life's sustenance, a very profound act, and yet it is appropriate to greet a new neighbor, to share at a book club meeting, or to bring to a wake.
There are many fans of healthy store-bought breads and bread machines, and there is something to be said for these conveniences. But there is, too, the will to slow down, be present, and be involved; the intent of honoring your particular land's bounty; and the creation and maintenance of personal bonds that makes bread baking so valuable.
There is a whole shelf dedicated to books on bread baking at the main branch of the public library, and doubtless you will find several offerings at any of our locally owned bookstores, as well. Look for "local" stickers on honey, eggs, milk, and produce at New Leaf Market or check one of the several farmers markets around town.
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