In Search of the Perfect Loaf is a must-read for anyone looking to delve deeper into the seemingly ordinary but incredibly delicious dish of handmade bread.
In 2009, journalist Samuel Fromartz was given the mission of a lifetime: to go to France to work on a boulangerie. He began his journey to hone not only his homemade baguette – which later beat out professional bakeries for “DC’s Best Baguette” – but also his knowledge of bread, from seed to table.
Over the next four years, Fromartz traveled across the United States and Europe, perfecting his sourdough in California, his whole-grain rye in Berlin and his country’s wheat in the South of France. He met historians, millers, farmers, wheat geneticists, sourdough biochemists and everyone in between, learning about the history of bread making, the science of fermentation. A personal yet informative account of bread and baking, complete with detailed tips and recipes.
So it’s not about recipes, what is this book about? It is the process of becoming an expert in a certain field. Yes, it’s about baking the “perfect loaf,” but ultimately, it’s a process that can be applied to many other areas. You don’t just pick a recipe from a recipe book, bake it once and expect to get your hands on that perfect dish. That’s not how things work. You do the same thing over and over again until it becomes second nature, then you try to make small adjustments, learn more about ingredients and processes, talk to and learn from experts. other experts as well as fine-tune their own techniques. What we witness in this book is Fromartz’s journey from someone who has baked a lot of bread to someone who has a much better understanding of every aspect of the subject of ‘bread’.
Review the recipes in the book: They are important articles for this journey and not the main reason why you should buy this book. Enjoy the stories, learn some new tidbits about cereals, flour, and bread, then bake a bread or two from the book ten or twenty times to walk a little next to Fromartz in the walk. that program.
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In Search of the Perfect Loaf
- A Home Baker’s Odyssey
