New Project

 It was time for a new project.  This one required much research on my part only because I wanted to be as authentic as possible while still recognizing it could not possibly be authentic.  Get a cup of tea, this is going to be a long one.

Coincidentally Friend Harry and I happened to see a blurb in a magazine about 2,000 year old bread that had been found in the ovens of Pompeii and been analyzed and recreated.  I was intrigued and while he found the recipe from National Geographic, I looked online and discovered there are quite a few 2,000 year old bread recipes from Pompeii and they are all different.  I printed out a few, Harry sent me the one he downloaded and I started in.

First problem was sourdough starter.  Now, I love to bake and I'm a good cook if I do say so myself but I think there's something chemically about my make up that prevents successful bread.  I've tried for years and years and don't have good results.  A good result is more accident than skill for me. I've made bread in the past that the squirrels, who can crack a black walnut with their teeth struggle with a rejected loaf I tossed out the door. 

That being said the sourdough was my biggest concern.  I don't need another child.  I don't need another hobby and sourdough starter sounds like a big pain.  But, the Romans didn't go to the store and buy a packet of instant dry yeast so I searched for starter instructions.

PH suggested going online and on Etsy I found someone selling some of their family's 100 year old starter.  I ordered some.  But it was only about 1/4 of a cup and I needed to "grow" more. So THAT took time and crossed fingers that I didn't kill it.

 

I went to the library and got a couple of books.  I love Duff Goldman.  He may be silly but he's also a seriously trained baker and accessible.  I tried his recipe for starter.  He said to name your starter.  If you name it and it's sitting in the fridge you won't forget it.  I named this Duff.  Those are blueberries floating in there. He said to do that.  But after a week Duff didn't appear to be growing.  It smelled like he said it should but no bubbles.  I gave Duff the benefit of the doubt and made a small recipe of non-descript sourdough white bread and it was squirrel food.  Actually, it was less than that, I didn't even bake it.  Total flop.  Duff is going down the drain.

 

Montana, on the other hand was very bubbly. 

 

Now for the moment of truth.  I had grown enough of Montana to make half of one of the recipes I found online.  It had the smallest amount of ingredients, easiest instructions, most accessible ingredients.  I found the ancient grains, by the way, in a little store in the next town over.  I was shocked to find Kamut berries (now I have to find a way to grind them into flour which is why I didn't use THAT recipe.)  I even had Spelt in the freezer and I bought buckwheat flour and organic bread flour. 

 

I printed out a few of the other recipes, they are all different so I'm not really sure how authentic these 2,000 year old Pompeii breads are "real."

 

 

I was pleased with the way it came together.  I could tell immediately that it might work.  This is the loaf unbaked, after rising.    If you want to be "authentic" you put the string belt around the loaf and score it.  That's the way they carried them as they came out of the ovens.  The string would have a loop tied in and they would string the loop onto a pole and carry them to sell them.  

Yesterday was a nice warm day so I put it outside, covered, in the sun to rise and it did (that can be one of my issues).  It cracked a bit but I was reluctant to grease it with olive oil.  Just in case.  I don't need to jinx any bread I make, I can do that quite well without trying. 

 

And here it is baked.  It actually looked good!  But it was late last night when it came out of the oven and one thing Duff said was don't cut a loaf while it's warm, there's still stuff going on with bread till it's cooled so leave it alone to cool.  By the time that happened we were willing to wait till this morning.

 

Ta Da!   This morning I cut a small slice.  The crumb is good, it's heavy, dense and PH and I both thought it tasted great.  It certainly isn't sandwich bread but more like a meal bread.  PH said it's dunking-in-olive-oil bread  and he's right.  It's got really good taste.  I did it!  Squirrels can just move on!

But I'm not finished.  Montana has been fed and sat on the sunny counter till it started to bubble again and now lives in the fridge.  I have to grow enough to make one of the other recipes - once I find a way to grind Kamut kernels into flour.   There's yet a third recipe I found that included fennel, poppy seeds and parsley that someone named Philostratus, a Greek born Imperial Roman-era sophist wrote about. It didn't come from Pompeii but what the heck, I've got the sourdough starter in the fridge.