I am totally in love with the recent podcast series ‘Cereal’ from @farmerama_radio. Yesterday I listened to episode 5, about sourdough and bakers who are championing local flour, community projects and real bread.
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Two threads from it are filling my thoughts right now:
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1 – Removing commodity from our food system at every level.
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This makes me want to ask, how can we get more people making sourdough at home? I think the *making* is the key, as when you start doing that you are naturally led to questions such as ‘where does my flour come from?’
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2 – Around 1/3 of bread in the UK ends up in the bin.
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This astounds me. I moved from the UK to Italy recently – a country that has an incredibly rich history in its ‘cucina povera’ of making stale bread taste a.m.a.z.i.n.g. in thousands of ways. I am reading a book by a local food author/historian which includes recipes like this right now. It might not solve all this problem, but we need to get people cooking with old bread.
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Can you tell how fired up I am?! I am so passionate about local food and there’s nowhere I feel that more than in my bread-making. If you’ve any thoughts, experiences or advice to share, I’d welcome it. I’d also really recommend listening to the Farmerama podcast.
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And, yes, almost forgot, I posted a picture here. This is today’s local spelt flour loaf. I am totally in love with not scoring my bread. Look at the beauty of that burst!