The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [8]
Saturday, October 14. I have made a few loaves of bread with my grape starter—the early ones were pale purple, and all were dense and sour—but must abandon the project in a few days when I leave New York to eat, professionally, in Paris for three weeks. Besides, I am extremely suspicious of yeasts that live on grapes. They are too fond of wine rather than wheat. I am looking for yeasts that love bread as much as I do.
Monday, April 2, 1990. In the August 1989 issue of his indispensable newsletter, Simple Cooking, John Thorne gives instructions for pain au levain based on the methods that Poilâne himself employs. But I will wait until I can get hold of Poilâne’s paperback handbook, Faire son pain, and read it for myself. My friend Miriam promises to find one for me in Paris.
Meanwhile, I turn to The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book (Random House) and its recipe for desem (the Flemish word for levain), which is fastidiously designed to develop only those yeasts that live on stone-ground whole wheat. Recently milled organic flour must be used so that the microbes will still be alive and well; everything must be kept below 60 degrees Fahrenheit until the final rise to discourage the growth of acid-generating bacteria that thrive at higher temperatures; and everything must be sealed to avoid colonization by airborne yeasts. I telephone Giusto’s and ask them to send me a sack of whole wheat flour by overnight mail the moment it is milled. Then I walk around the house testing the temperature. Bread writers who live in the country typically tell you that the perfect place for this rising or that is on the creaky wooden stairs going down to your root cellar. Don’t they know that most people live in apartments? At last I create a zone of 55 degrees by piling a twenty-four-quart stockpot on a cardboard box at the edge of my desk with the air conditioner set to turbofreeze. Now all I need is the flour.
April 11. My freshly milled whole wheat has carpeted the floor of the UPS truck; the bag split in half somewhere en route from California. The UPS man is sliding and slipping from one side of his truck to the other. I telephone Giusto’s for another sack.
Late April. The flour has arrived. It is a balmy spring, but I am wearing a winter coat at my desk so that Laurel’s Kitchen desem will feel comfortable. My wife has the sniffles.
Early May. Both of us have come down with serious colds, complete with fever. The desem starter smells terrific, a fresh fruity scent unlike anything I’ve made before, and the bread is rough and wheaty, full of complex aromas. But like all whole-grain breads, the strong taste of unrefined flour obscures the more delicate flavors I am after. Long ago I concluded that the only bread worth its name is made with good white flour; small amounts of barley, whole wheat, or rye can be added for their flavor and color. John Thorne writes that “whole-grain breads … whether made of wheat, rye, oats, or any other grain, retain something of the seed’s stubborn unwillingness to be digested. They remain a kind of aerated gruel, filling but not ultimately satisfying.” If Isaiah were alive today, I’m sure he would agree.
Friday, June 1, late morning. Faire son pain has arrived from Paris. Step One: Create a bowlful of life. Poilâne’s instructions have you make a small piece of dough with one-ninth of the total flour and water you intend to use and leave it covered for two or three days while the wild yeast and bacteria awaken and multiply to form an active culture. This will be the chef.
Bakers weigh everything because flour can be packed densely or lightly in a measuring cup and doughs can be tight or aerated; it is their weight that matters. I dust off my electronic kitchen scale and set it to grams. Poilâne says that all ingredients at all stages should be between 22 and 24 degrees centigrade, which equals 72 to 75 degrees on Dr. Fahrenheit’s thermometer—a nice, moderate room temperature. Now I can turn