Ancient Bread Reproduced ~ Part 2

 Well, I can't believe the week has flown by and we're into the weekend. My company is coming today and will leave very early in the morning.

But today I'll continue with the story of Ed Wood, the man who wrote World Sourdoughs From Antiquity. Before he and National Geographic magazine could make the trip to Egypt, they had to convince the Egyptian government to allow them to come.


One way to convince the Egyptian government that he was serious about reproducing an ancient bread was to use an ancient flour. In fact, the ancient bread couldn't be made without it. But there had to be gluten in the flour--the flatbreads of earlier times had been replaced by wheat flour in order to get the rise in the bread--so all Ed had to do was find an unrefined ancient flour to use, and plenty of it. He found an ancient grain called "emmer" in Turkey, and bought 50 pounds of it. Then he bought a backup flour called "Kamut" in case the emmer didn't cooperate. Getting ready for the trip and making sure everything was properly done took a while. Unfortunately the first trip was cancelled. But the group finally made it to Egypt and began working on the project.

Ed's first priority was to capture some of Giza's wild yeasts, and he began immediately. His hotel room was close to the pyramids and a group of date trees, so he sat a mixture of flour and water outside to capture spores from the air. The culture was active and bubbling by the third day. However, the replica of the ancient bakery wasn't even begun. After finding an acceptable site, work began on one unit which replicated the original multiple outdoor units capable of producing enough bread to feed an estimated 30,000 people per day. While the original units were enormous, Ed's replica was about 20 feet square, with low stone walls 30 inches high. Inside was about 10 feet of working space. 

A bigger challenge was reproducing the original bread molds, since they were huge. Shaped like a "monstrous football," the molds were two cone-shaped clay pieces that when put together were 30 inches in length and 18 inches in diameter at the middle where the halves connected. A nearby potter agreed to make the molds. While they were waiting for the molds, Ed went with a group to see the tomb of Teti, which had wall drawings of Egyptians kneading bread, pouring dough into pots, removing bread, and stacking pots over a bed of charcoal. The scene with stacked pots was puzzling, but later gave an important clue to the art of making ancient bread.

As you can imagine, the story of purchasing all the supplies needed for the baking process is a saga that Ed managed to keep interesting while getting it all in. I'm going to skip the details. After some experimenting with mixed results, Ed learned enough to make a real test run. Success came at that point and beautiful loaves just like the loaves baked for slaves building the pyramids came out of the conically shaped clay pots. Each pot made two loaves. And each pot had a lid that created an oven for the bread. Without the top--the clue in the wall drawing--the bread would not bake!

The article in National Geographic magazine was titled: "After 4500 Years Rediscovering Egypt's Bread Baking Technology." So Ed Wood kneaded and baked sourdough bread in an oven next to the pyramids, the same way it had been done in ancient Egypt 4500 years earlier. Ed's evaluation of the finished product was that it had "great flavor and nice crumb!"

What Ed went through to bring that ancient process back to life can't really be compared to our having accessibility to everything we need to make a delicious sourdough bread. Maybe it will help you think about taking up the fulfilling art of making sourdough bread.

Enjoy the weekend!

Blessings...Mimi

  

Ancient Bread Reproduced Near Pyramids After 4500 Years

You may not have noticed, but I love bread! And some of my favorites are breads of the sourdough variety. Good sourdough bread can be found almost anywhere now, but the beautiful sourdoughs in the picture are made fresh daily at the Boudin Sourdough Bread Bakery in San Francisco--a bakery I've seen in operation on television. Now I don't want to give you a recipe for sourdough bread, but I do want to tell you about Ed Wood, who wrote the book: World Sourdoughs From Antiquity. What makes him fascinating to me is that he studied "the magic of sourdoughs" for close to 50 years and became a master of his craft. But he didn't stop there. It's his trip to Egypt that I want to tell you about.  

Remember the line that says, "You had me at 'Hello'?" Well read Ed's description of a hot loaf of sourdough coming out of the oven: "A loaf of hot sourdough exudes an aroma with an overpowering, irresistible attraction that can be experienced only in the warmth of one's own kitchen. It cannot be purchased anywhere. No other bread is anything like it. If there is an endorphin in the kitchen, it is in the divine 'thing' that makes bread rise!" That's a "Hello" line to me!

But Ed didn't rest with becoming a master of breadmaking. In the Fall of 1991, as Ed tells it, he was reading the paper, when he noticed an article about an archaeologist who was reporting the excavation of a large, ancient bakery near the pyramids of Giza. Ed saw this as an opportunity to "isolate a sourdough culture that leavened man's first bread from the walls of that bakery." So he called Dr. Mark Lehner. Eventually, Ed learned that the ancient bakery had been built in 2500 B.C. to feed the thousands of workers who built the pyramids at Giza. And in 1993 Ed was asked by National Geographic magazine to help them and Dr. Lehner rediscover how the Egyptians baked the first leavened bread. They not only hoped to produce the same bread, but use the same kind of ovens, baking vessels, and tools. They didn't know if the Egyptian government would allow them to search through the ovens site, but they would try to get permission. Everything had been covered in sand to protect it. Would they want it disturbed?

 Tune in tomorrow to see what happened. I've just read that a blog should only be 250 words long. I'm not sure that will ever be me, but I'm trying! I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend.

Blessings...Mimi