yearofplenty

Graham Crackers, Corn Flakes, and Other Echoes of Christian Food Ethics

The most interesting section in Theology on the Menu, thus far, is the review of early U.S. history where Christian leaders were on the forefront of the healthy food movements. The authors highlight the religious justifications for 19th century justifications for vegetarianism, whole foods diets, and healthy eating.

For example Dr Sylvester Graham was a Presbyterian minister who spoke out against the delitorious effects of white bread and advocated for breads made from whole grains. He came up with his own healthy flour mix made with whole-wheat flour, bran, and wheat germ from which he developed the well known cracker that bears his name. Along with being healthy he claimed that the dryness of Graham Crackers curbed sexual urges, both of which modern civilization has counteracted by adding chocolate and marshmallows to make S'mores.

In another example of the strong historic connection between early health food movements and Christian faith the book highlights the development of corn flakes. John Harvey Kellogg was the superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitortium, health center and headquarters of the Seventh Day Adventists who were strong advocates of vegeterianism. This close relationship gave birth to Kellog's breakfast cereals and the iconic corn flakes. Once again, modern America has taken this historic holy urge for health and added lots of sugar to transform them into Frosted Flakes. 

These are just two examples of many that point to the strong religious roots of modern food movements, but that really shouldn't be a surprise. Many secular food passions have an implicit, if not explicit, spiritual vibe. From vegans to raw foodites, to localists and bacon evangelists, there is something more going on than just calorie counts and fat content. These dietary regimens point to a way of life and possess hints of the meaning of it all.

Living Bread - An Artisan Bread Recipe for the Home Kitchen

Tom and Louise Tuffin from Arabesque Breads and Spokane Farmers' Market fame have put together a home recipe for Artisan Bread. They did their best to convert their large batch recipe to something on the scale of home kitchen. Tom let me know that the salt and yeast amounts may need to be adjusted. He's going to do it at home and let me know if the recipe needs to be changed. Here goes.

Stage 1: Make "chef" or "biga"

• 5 cups flour
• 3 cups cold water
• 1 heaping tbls Natural Starter (see below for Natural Starter recipe)
• 1.5 tsp yeast
• Process: Mix above ingredients and let stand for 3-5 hours in a covered bowl or bucket. Hint: Thoroughly mix with whisk 1/2 cup flour w/ 3 cups water, natural starter and yeast. Let stand in mixing bowl 3-5 minutes to develop yeast culture. Then mix in rest of the flour.

Stage 2: Make dough

• 5 cups flour
• 3 cups tepid water
• 1.5 tsp yeast
• 1 heaping tbls natural starter
• 1 tbls salt or to taste
• Process: Repeat process above with 1/2 cup flour from your 5 cups total to develop yeast and culture, add another half cup flour with salt and thorougly mix again. Add remaining ingredients and all of the "chef" from above and mix until combined. (A mixer with a bread hook will do the job.) Put finished dough in a covered bowl/bucket or tub to rise. Every 10-15 minutes fold gently corner to corner 5-10 times (notice how the dough stiffens). At approx. 30-45 minutes the dough will be ready to form the loaves. Hard kneading is not necessary (Yay!) The variable of folding and rising time will determine the crumb and texture of the bread. Divide into loaves by gently forming and score the top with a knife using a shallow angled cut. Allow medium sized loaves to rise for 20-30 minutes. Bake at 350-375 degrees until the internal temp of the bread is 200-210 degrees. This should take approx. 20-25 minutes.

Other Things to Consider:

• Allow bread to cool 6 hrs before refrigerating or freezing. Hint: Pre-slice bread before freezing so that you can just take out what you need and preserve freshness.
• Tom always includes some of the dough from the previous batch in making the chef. He includes it as 20% of the total of the chef -which in this recipe would mean adding roughly 1.5 cups of previous dough into the mix. This dough needs to be used within 7 days or it gets a little funky.
• Natural Starter is like a Sourdough Starter but uses only the natural bacterias occurring in the air. To make a starter take 1 cup course pumpernickel rye flour, 1/2 cup regular pumpernickel rye, 1/2 cup unbleached flour, and 1 cup water and combine ingredients. Let this sit around for a couple of days and it will start starting. Higher temps above 72 degrees make it more yeasty and lower temps 63-67 degrees make it more sour. Every 2-3 days replenish it by dividing in half and adding the same ratio of initial ingredients. In talking with Tom I get the feeling this takes experimentation and trial and error. Don't be afraid to mess up. Tom also adds some oats in there every other time he divides the starter.

Tom and Louise sell their breads at the Spokane Farmers' Market downtown on Saturdays and Wednesdays, Millwood Farmers' Market on Wednesday afternoons, South Perry Farmers' Market on Thursday afternoons, and the Community Roots Market on Sundays. Go here for the opening day schedule for the markets.

Real Bread

With wheat fields as far as the eye can see and grain silos standing like towers of Babel all over Spokane, it's no surprise that there is a lot of locally made bread in the Inland Northwest. There are huge operations like Franz in Spokane Valley and medium sized bakeries like Hearthbread Bakehouse north of the Gonzaga campus. But until I got involved in the Millwood Farmers' Market last summer I had forgotten about the joys of "real" bread. I'm talking about bread with crust that bites back at you and with texture and body that speaks of hands that have worked the dough.

We've started making a couple loaves of whole wheat honey bread each week and I would put it in the "real" bread category. On a side note, we bought a flour grinder on ebay to grind our own flour. We plan on getting our whole grains at URM Cash & Carry. Spokane Bakery Supply also sells them but you have to order it in bulk. Maybe someone knows more about locally sourced whole grains. I've been surprised how many people in Spokane grind their own flour.

While it's great to make our own bread, there is something really satisfying about buying a freshly made loaf a "real" bread. Tom and Louise Tuffin of Arabesque Farms & Bakery are the deans of Spokane's artisan breadmakers. They add a little extra "realness" to every loaf. 

"Flour is Flour."

We stopped by the old Centennial Mills ADM flour mill today on Trent Rd. It's one of many old mills in the Valley that we pass by everyday without giving a second glance. We did a little investigating and were able to get the scoop on Indland Northwest flour. It turns out almost all the flour in the Spokane area is processed at this one mill. It has storage capacity for 4 million bushels of wheat. Its largest customer is Snyder's bakery in Spokane Valley. They package the flour for retail use as Western Family, Fred Meyer, Albertsons, Stone Buhr, and on and on.