F2f-The Power of Flour by Four Communications Ltd

from FoRk to fork journeys in local food

the Power of flFLour

“ It’s meditative.

You can think about anything or nothing, empty your mind, or plan what you might like to make next.”

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the power of FLour Baking may seem prosaic but in fact itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the most bewitching of crafts, as Jackie Bates discovered when she got up before dawn to witness the transformation of flour, water and salt into something rather magical. Words Jackie Bates Photography Iestyn Hughes

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“There are yeasts in the air around us, invisible, waiting... give them the correct support and enticement and they’ll be happy to make your bread delicious.” wouldn’t describe myself as a morning person. In fact, I’m famous for not being one. So as I roll out of bed at four a.m. I wonder what I was thinking when I agreed to investigate baking in Wales. It might be late April but it’s still dark at four forty-five. I bid farewell to the comfort of The Hardwick and embark on a journey through the dark countryside, heading for an industrial unit on the outskirts of Hay-on-Wye to talk to Alex Gooch, Artisan Baker, about, well, bread. The countryside around Abergavenny is lovely – especially in the spring; blossom, leaves unfurling, lambs – all sadly invisible at five a.m. We drive through empty villages and never see another car, only valleys filled with mist, hanging still and silent. At last we’re here. A smell of baking, yes, just a hint, and then we’re inside in the warm. We meet Liam, Alex’s assistant, and Alex. We don’t shake hands, he’s covered in olive oil and dough. The unit is square, high-ceilinged, the ovens a shiny stack of stainless steel boxes. There are metal-topped catering tables, a giant mixer, huge plastic tubs full of dough. Alex works at a vast oak table – it would seat twenty for dinner. When we arrive, half of it’s covered in a slippery heap of dough. I’d imagined bakers in white, but Alex and Liam both wear black T-shirts and dark cooks’ trousers, navy aprons.

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Liam’s been in since one a.m., Alex since ‘two-ish’. He’s in the middle of moving house, and he has a four month old baby, he must be knackered but he doesn’t seem it. We look at the stacked bakers’ trays of cinnamon swirl pastries and fruit bread that they’ve already made this morning. It’s about six o’clock, so they’ve been working for five hours already and have made a lot of stuff. Tell me about bread, then. Why bread? Alex used to be a chef. But while working at Penrhos Court with Daphne Lambert he learned about fermentation and sourdough and has never looked back. What’s so special about sourdough? It’s complex and magical. Magical in a scientific way, of course. There are yeasts in the air around us, invisible, waiting. Give them the correct support and enticement and they’ll be happy to make your bread delicious. Alex’s sourdough is made with a starter that was born or created – conjured from the air – ten years ago. You feed it and watch over it and in return it makes your bread something special. It’s alive, after all, and affected by all kinds of things. The weather. The season. The other ingredients. Your mood? I ask. Yeah, I think so, says Alex, definitely. I watch as he slices the enormous shifting wobbly pile of dough into pieces. Forty, sixty, all chopped and weighed and

The Power of Flour

rolled in flour, shaped and left to prove further. It’s soothing to watch, and something he clearly does as second nature, my nosy questions not affecting the repetition of his actions. The dough is very wet, if you’re used to making ordinary bread, and very active, forming large, slow bubbles even as I watch. He moves back and forth, pricking the biggest bubbles with the corner of the dough blade. Then the dough goes into proving bowls, and he’s emptying another enormous heap onto the table. Tell me about ingredients, then. Flour’s interesting. He uses various flours, different grains for different loaves. Some is grown elsewhere but milled in Wales, and some is grown in Wales. He makes a heritage loaf with Welsh-ground, Welsh-grown flour, Halen Môn salt from Anglesey, and seaweed from the Gower. Wales is an amazing place for produce, we agree, great cheese, brilliant for salad and herbs, amazing to have local salt. It’s easy to see local provenance for lamb or beef, of course, but you don’t think

about flour, where it come from. Alex is always looking for new producers, interested in what’s going on in terms of local and organic produce. And why here? He lived near Hay as a child. He came back because it’s a good place to be. He sells at Hay Producers’ Market and Presteigne. And he sells to restaurants – The Hardwick is one of them. We had your bread at dinner last night, I tell him. We’re there for nearly four hours, watching Alex and Liam feeding the ovens with ciabatta, sourdough rolls, four or five different sourdough loaves, fruit bread, a dense rye and raisin loaf. It seems endless, industrial, and yet all shaped by hand, methodical, calm. What do you think about, when you’re doing it? Liam laughs, he doesn’t think about anything. Bread? I ask. Alex says maybe. It’s meditative. You can think about anything or nothing, empty your mind, or plan what you might like to make next. The final thing he makes is the famous sourdough focaccia. I’ve made focaccia myself and

“It''''’s complex and magical

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always been pretty pleased with it but my goodness this stuff is amazing. The dough is wetter and oiler and much – busier – forming huge gassy bubbles as Alex pours it into large metal trays and prods it, adding more oil and salt. At the moment he’s making one with onions, cheese and a bright green pesto-like substance made with local rocket and purple-sprouting broccoli. It’s intensely green-tasting. The plain focaccia is incredible, I could have easily eaten – I did eat – loads of it. Salty, oily, perfect, amazing. The open crumb is unexpected. It’s absolutely delicious. Very popular, he says. His father, who’s arrived to help with the stall at the market, tells me it sells fantastically well, and I’m not surprised. I’m extremely jealous of the people of Hay and Presteigne who can buy this stuff from their markets. Do they know how lucky they are? Stuffed with bread, now we’re off to the Vale of Glamorgan for cake. The weather is absolutely glorious and the countryside is beautiful. For me it’s a strange feeling to

have done a day’s work (if you can call talking to people and eating, work) already. I couldn’t be a baker but bread is amazing stuff. I’m pretty fond of cake, though, and looking forward to meeting Mel Constantinou, doyenne of Baked by Mel. She lives in Llantwit Major, which seems to be full of bluebells, late daffodils, birdsong and sunshine. In complete contrast to Alex’s little industrial unit, Mel bakes at home. We’re drinking tea and eating Bara Brith within moments of being welcomed into her kitchen. Baking seems to make happy friendly people, and Mel’s no exception. Her baking journey began as a way to work from home when her children were small and she was a single parent. At first she made cupcakes and sold them at the local garden centre and at markets and food fairs. When she moved to Llantwit Major she had to rethink her audience. She wondered if there was a market for cake by post. Cupcakes aren’t really suitable for posting, though. And they’re not so Welsh. But Bara Brith, well, everyone likes that, and you really can’t get it elsewhere

People open the box and eat it, basically,

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The Power of Flour

in the UK. She sold at the Abergavenny Food Festival and gained an award from Taste of Wales. Fortnum and Mason took an interest and before she knew where she was, Baked by Mel Bara Brith was on sale in Piccadilly. People are surprised, sometimes, that Mel’s not Welsh – she was born in Essex and is half Greek-Cypriot. But one of her grandmothers was from Swansea, so maybe it’s not such a stretch. She lived in the Middle East (‘on a beach with no running water and no electricity’) before teaching in Wiltshire and Somerset and finally ending up in Wales. Her Welsh grandmother made ‘tea bread’, and it was only when Mel began to make it herself that she realised it was the same as she’d eaten as a child. Bara Brith is one of those things, she says, where everyone has their own recipe and a real idea of how it should taste. It’s very satisfying when she puts out her samples and hears people saying ‘this is as good as granny’s’. She was determined to use no preservatives. Bara Brith keeps well – hers has a sixteen day shelf life – more than adequate for sending it out by post. People open the box and eat it, basically, she grins. I don’t think many survive the full sixteen days.

How many do you send out a day? Usually between four and ten. She makes the mixture one day, bakes the next and posts the following, and there’s still a post office in the village so it’s very straightforward. And do you love it? She does. She’d make cake anyway, after all, and she needs to be at home for the boys. It’s ideal. Next stop, Cardigan, to meet another baker. Jack Smylie Wild was born in Aberystwyth but brought up in Devon. He’s 25 and started baking three years ago, in reaction to the ‘rubbish bread’ his girlfriend was buying. At first glance a philosophy degree might seem a strange path to baking, but maybe not. Do you find it a meditative thing? I ask. He’s enthusiastic in his response. Absolutely. Early mornings, quiet, bread – all lead to contemplation. He bakes forty to sixty loaves a day, sold in Bara Menyn, his bakery/café, just up the hill from Cardigan Castle. They opened in February. How’s it going? Brilliantly. The café was certainly busy while we were there. I’d seen acclaim on the internet for his sourdough pitta, so that’s what I have for lunch, with falafel

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“the depth of fLavour adds a level of complexity

and halloumi. I love pitta, but I’ve never tried a sourdough one before and, as with Alex’s focaccia, the depth of flavour adds a level of complexity. I have toast as well, made from the standard sourdough loaf, and it’s excellent. Jack’s full of energy and enthusiasm, and I talk to a couple of customers who rave about the bread. He helped set up the Organic Fresh Food Company’s bakehouse in Lampeter, and one couple used to buy their bread there. We were so thrilled when we found we could buy Jack’s bread here, the lady tells me. I ask Jack about produce. He’s interested in local producers as well, with plans for an all-Welsh loaf, also featuring Halen Môn salt and Welsh flour. Some of the flour he uses is ground at Y Felin, a watermill in St Dogmaels, just up the road. He tells me how proud he is to have a business that employs people. He hoped to create three jobs, but he already has six people working for him. Bara Menyn began life as one of Cardigan’s Custom Houses. Jack himself lives in a little flat above the kitchen. So you can get up in the night and check it’s all doing the right thing? Yeah, it’s good to live on the premises, he feels an even greater connection to his work.

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So what did I learn on my journey? That Wales is a beautiful country full of incredibly passionate people. They make, grow and produce all kinds of wonderful things. It’s not just about fish or lamb; the fields full of wheat or rapeseed can also end up in local food. That everyone thinks it’s pretty cool you can get Welsh salt. That people who are lucky enough to find their calling can inspire others with their passion. And that this passion can result in fantastic food. If there’s somewhere near you producing amazing, delicious and honest food, you should support them if you possibly can. People who love what they do want to share it. Alex does courses, and Jack will give you some of his sourdough starter and explain how to care for it if you want to make bread at home. Mel will send you a Bara Brith. And what could be better than getting cake through the post? Everyone I met was incredibly inspiring. Although I don’t need much encouragement or inspiration to stuff myself with baked goods.

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Food Lore & Legends VIVA LA BARA BRITH When the Welsh sailed off to Argentina in 1865 in search of a better life, they took their famous bread, sorry, cake, with them. Visit a Welsh teahouse anywhere in Argentina’s Chubut province and you’ll find bara brith on the menu. Usually sweet and more of a cake than a bread, in Spanish they call it torta negra, or black cake.

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COULDN'’'T EAT A WHOLE ONE Bala cooked the world’s largest Welsh cake on St David’s Day in 2014 measuring 1.5m wide, weighing 21.7kgs and cut into more than 200 pieces.

The wind that feeds Growing corn, milling flour and bread making has been an essential part of Welsh life for thousands of years. Anglesey, the island of windmills, was called ‘Môn, Mam Cymru’ (‘Anglesey, Mother of Wales’) as it was reputed to have enough corn growing to feed the whole country.

A slice of pancake Welsh crempog, also known as ‘ffroes’, differ from the British/ French crêpe. More like the American pancake and bigger than the Scotch pancake, crempog can be made with or without yeast, with buttermilk, oats or speckled with raisins or currants. Stacked in a pile, smothered with butter and then sliced like a wedge of cake – a teatime treat.

Old shell biscuits Aberffraw cakes are more biscuit than cake. The name of these little shortbread biscuits comes from the village where they originate and they are moulded into the shape of a shell. Traditionally the shape is formed by pressing the unbaked mixture into a scallop shell before baking; the shell is removed before it goes in the oven leaving the shell imprint – a traditional motif of pilgrims, steeped in ancient meanings.

Griddled not baked Traditionally Welsh cakes were cooked over a hot bake-stone, but iron griddles were later used and are now the predominant method used to cook them. They have gone by a few different names including their Welsh language names ‘Cage Bach’ or ‘Picau ar y Maen’ but also they are known as ‘Griddle Cakes’, ‘Welsh Tea Cakes’ and ‘Welsh Miner Cakes’.

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We're now at our journeyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s end... ...however to start your own food and drink odyssey visit www.fork2fork.wales and chose one of the hundreds of direct food locations available just a stone's throw away, be it a farmersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; market, farm shop, festival or at a farm gate.