<< Back to New York City
20,000 Years of Bread in 2 Hours: Illustrated with Historic Recipes
March 21, 2012 (Wed)
from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
New York, NY
Cost: $39
Event ID #403185
This class is a history of bread with recipes. It is an exploration of bread from the perspective of the baker. Bread is an amazing food. Unlike most other staples - rice, beans, potatoes - bread is not harvested by farmers. Farmers harvest grain. Bakers manufacture bread. Every bread is a small sculpted object.
It was the combination of bread and agriculture that transformed the early farming societies of the Fertile Crescent into the rich civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Homer’s Odysseus fought and voyaged on bread. Bread was offered to the Gods of the ancient world, and bread is at the center of the Christian religion. The Europeans derived most of their calories from bread, and their ships of exploration and conquest were each packed with tons of it. While today we don’t live on it, bread remains an important food - as the care with which most of us choose the bread for our dinner table attests. In profound ways all civilizations from the bread belt up to the modern era were organized around the manufacture of bread - the growing of the wheat, the milling of the grain, and the final manufacture and distribution.
But what were these breads of the past? In this class, esteemed baker and author William Rubel will offer an outline of the history of bread based on the latest historical research, illustrating that outline with recipes and demonstrations of a variety of baking techniques that will offer insights into two key technical and cultural aspects: what kinds of breads different peoples ate at different times; and what they thought of the breads and why.
As part of our journey from the breads of the Upper Paleolithic hunter gatherers (who, the latest archeobotanical research suggests, invented bread about 10,000 years before the invention of agriculture) up to the present William will demonstrate how to make breads that are both very different from our own and breads that we’d recognize. You will learn how bakers using basic stone grinding technologies actually produced breads of unparalleled sophistication; how dough hydration is the key to crust and crumb; and the true history of yeast and sourdough leavening systems - and to be master of each.
Throughout the class William will link bread history with present practice, with a particular emphasis on the baking traditions of 18th century France, as these are so evident in today’s artisan bread movement. Some of the breads you will learn about will be of the crudest whole grain variety, historically consumed by the poorest of Europe’s poor. Others will be the refined breads served at the tables of Kings. In all cases the breads are a revelation, offering a plethora of fresh ideas for today’s bakers.
Event Details
Food
Tags:
Food
Educational
Cooking Demonstration
This class is a history of bread with recipes. It is an exploration of bread from the perspective of the baker. Bread is an amazing food. Unlike most other staples - rice, beans, potatoes - bread is not harvested by farmers. Farmers harvest grain. Bakers manufacture bread. Every bread is a small sculpted object.
It was the combination of bread and agriculture that transformed the early farming societies of the Fertile Crescent into the rich civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Homer’s Odysseus fought and voyaged on bread. Bread was offered to the Gods of the ancient world, and bread is at the center of the Christian religion. The Europeans derived most of their calories from bread, and their ships of exploration and conquest were each packed with tons of it. While today we don’t live on it, bread remains an important food - as the care with which most of us choose the bread for our dinner table attests. In profound ways all civilizations from the bread belt up to the modern era were organized around the manufacture of bread - the growing of the wheat, the milling of the grain, and the final manufacture and distribution.
But what were these breads of the past? In this class, esteemed baker and author William Rubel will offer an outline of the history of bread based on the latest historical research, illustrating that outline with recipes and demonstrations of a variety of baking techniques that will offer insights into two key technical and cultural aspects: what kinds of breads different peoples ate at different times; and what they thought of the breads and why.
As part of our journey from the breads of the Upper Paleolithic hunter gatherers (who, the latest archeobotanical research suggests, invented bread about 10,000 years before the invention of agriculture) up to the present William will demonstrate how to make breads that are both very different from our own and breads that we’d recognize. You will learn how bakers using basic stone grinding technologies actually produced breads of unparalleled sophistication; how dough hydration is the key to crust and crumb; and the true history of yeast and sourdough leavening systems - and to be master of each.
Throughout the class William will link bread history with present practice, with a particular emphasis on the baking traditions of 18th century France, as these are so evident in today’s artisan bread movement. Some of the breads you will learn about will be of the crudest whole grain variety, historically consumed by the poorest of Europe’s poor. Others will be the refined breads served at the tables of Kings. In all cases the breads are a revelation, offering a plethora of fresh ideas for today’s bakers.
If the content of this posting is questionable, please flag it.
