On Old Ovens and Picnic Lunches and Bears

I feel as though, if I am to be completely honest, I've been a bit blasphemous. I've done an injustice to one of the great culinary institutions of the human race. Last week, instead of lifting up, idealizing, instead of crafting a pedestal upon which I might rest my tribute to the foundation of one of the fundamental principles of the Western diet – bread baking - I blathered on about the expectations, both assumed and otherwise, heaped upon professional chefs. I should have been, rather, talking about the amazing chain of human expertise, about common knowledge of complex chemistry, about everyday mastery, generation after generation, stretching back to nearly the beginnings of definable civilization. I should have told you, when I talked about sourdough bread, of how every one of your ancestors, if they originated in Europe, Northern Africa, the Near East, or Middle East, have been making bread in this exact manner for their families, for nearly 5000 years.

I should have, but I didn't, and I'm not going to do so this week, either.

Instead, I am going to tell you a story.

I spent some time in Italy years ago, long before I knew I wanted to be a professional cook. Long before I knew much, actually – as is the wont of twenty-year-olds. What I did know, the moment I landed on the Peninsula with my soon-to-be fiancée, was that I was hungry, and that I was in the motherland of pizza. A beautiful combination, I remember thinking.



A quick consultation of the obligatory guidebook sent us wandering in search of the local “best” pizza. We found it, eventually, a little cave of a place, reassuringly inhabited by a bear of a waiter who, hunched over his ordering pad, diminutive in his harry paws, frowned and furled and scribbled in furry our order. He passed the docket to the sole inhabitant of the kitchen with a grunt. I watched, as no seat in the establishment was more than a metre or two from the tiny cooking space, our pizza's being prepared.

I still, every time a see it, deeply wish I had the skill to pat and stretch and toss and hang and coax a tiny piece of dough into a giant, perfect, translucent base that makes a good pizza, just as our pizza chef did that night. None of that flamboyant flinging into the air, spinning on fingertips crap that passes for finesse elsewhere. No. It's the absolute display of a deep intimacy with the nature of the dough, expressed through knowing flips and turns and deft little flicks and pulls which stretch, yet never tear, the dough. I'll never tire of watching that kind of simple beauty in action. And our mustachioed chef was a master. However, the bulk of my fascination that evening, all my infatuation, belonged to the wood fired oven.

It was a cracked thing, an injured beast, in this particular establishment. The oven bore a dramatic zigzag of a crevice like a wound which traced, I imagined, the brickwork beneath the concrete rendering that covered the great dome and its cast-iron door. The damaged animal drew and roared and huffed and hissed like some primal thing, only barely contained. It's no wonder, really, that the brick dome failed in some part. The oven, as I later learned, is capable of reaching 500ºC. At that temperature any mason can be forgiven. Besides, your pizza is in and out, charred 'round the edges, in something like three minutes. Tempestuous beast or no, the customers are happy.



Three days later, shopping in a street market for the picnic lunch we planned for Pompeii, we stopped at a baker's stand to buy a loaf of bread. He had on offer only one style of loaf – ciabatta – with no sign indicating price. My grasp of the Italian language is limited to a few pleasantries and the word “birra,” so I really don't know what I expected to accomplish when I asked “Quanto costa?” (“How much?”) Whatever the man said, the plan was to give him a 20 euro note and hope for the best.

Walking away, bread in hand, I started to count my change, in curiosity mostly. I got up somewhere above 18 euro when I became intensely distracted by the most intoxicating smell. It was sweet and warm and deep and smoky, and it was coming from my armpit. Rather, to be precise, it was coming from the loaf tucked there. Not only did this chewy, woodfired, sourdough cost me something less than 1 euro, it was still warm. I clutched it to my chest and inhaled, like holding a newborn, until people started to stare. Into the backpack with our lunch of tomatoes and whatnot.

It tasted as good as it smelt, at lunch that day when we rested in the stands of Pompeii's coliseum: chewy and crusty and sour. Later, poking around in the alleys and buildings as one can only do in an Italian-run World Heritage Site, we came across the remains of a bakery. There were giant stone mills, still standing, the shattered remnants of storage vats and, in the back, the gaping mouth of a woodfired oven. The metal door had long been removed but it was the twin of the oven I watched our pizzas being cooked in days before, and the oven, I imagined, my lunch loaf had been created in as well.

I stared into its depths for ages, imagining innumerable fires and loaves and flatbread dinners. These people, I realized, have been doing this very thing for more time than I can really imagine.

It seems silly to spend an entire day in one of the most amazing archaeological sites in the world and walk away thinking about an old oven and the loaves of bread it once baked, picnic lunches in ghost towns, and pizzas served by bears.

Or maybe not.

The experience made me feel deeply connected. It's one of the reasons I bake.



Ciabatta

Sourdough bakers love to bang on about the fact that you need only three ingredients to make bread: flour, water, and salt. There are even breads sold both in the States and here in OZ which make claims about being “yeast free,” usually implying this is some kind of health benefit. Close inspection of the ingredients reveals no yeast at all. I guess these loaves are injected with air prior to baking. Or, perhaps, they are leavened with natural yeasts, as in those from a starter. My point? Unless you are making flat bread or soda bread, you need yeast.

That said, I absolutely do not suggest you add commercial yeast to your bread. Commercial yeast has a disgustingly overpowering taste, and once you learn to recognize it, you'll never be able to eat bread baked with it again without being aware of the flavor. The solution? Use non-commercial, wild yeast. It is as gentle in flavor as it is slow in action and well worth the effort.

Ciabatta is a flat loaf of sourdough with uneven holes and a chewy texture. It is a bit tricky to make because the dough is so wet. I describe a folding, almost no-knead, technique for working with sticky dough below. It is simple and very effective.

The only things you need, you see, to make this loaf of bread are: flour, water, salt, and starter. If you want to make really amazing bread, however, you need a woodfired oven or a very hot, steam-injected commercial one. I, sadly, don't have either. But it is still possible to make a great loaf of bread.

250g sourdough starter
250g flour
170ml water
5g sea salt flakes

Mix the starter with 50g of the flour and leave in a warm place overnight.

The next morning mix in the remaining flour and the water. Stir just to combine and rest 20 minutes. Add the salt. The dough will be very sticky and quite loose.

Pour the dough onto a floured surface. Using a dough scraper gently lift and pull the sides of the dough, folding each side into the middle, like an envelope. Repeat twice. Dust liberally and cover with cling film. Rest 45 minutes.

After resting, repeat the envelope folds as above. Dust, cover and rest 45 minutes.

After the second rest, repeat the envelope fold, dust cover, and allow to rise until doubled, about 2-3 hours.

When doubled, fold two of the sides up and into the center, pinching a pit so that they hold together and form a seam across the loaf. This should shape your dough into a rough square. Transfer to baking paper dusted with flour. Seam side up. Dust and cover. Proof until doubled, about 2 hours.

Meanwhile preheat your oven to the highest setting. If you have a baking stone, heat it on the bottom shelf.

When the ciabatta has doubled, use the dough scraper to gently stretch the loaf into a rectangle by pulling out the two ends perpendicular to the seam you created earlier. This will deflate the loaf a bit, which is necessary for creating those different size holes which lend so much to the texture of this bread.

Slide immediately onto the baking stones, still on the baking paper, or onto a flat tray on the bottom shelf of the oven. Spray the sides of the oven with water to create steam, close the oven, and reduce the heat to 200ºC.

Bake 10-15 minutes, until the crust is deep brown in color and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Cool completely before slicing.