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slow rise. a breadmaking adventure. robert penn. particular books hardback 227pp illus. £17.99

slow rise - robert penn

there are many different recipes for energy foods professing to satisfy the needs of the average cyclist. the chaps and chappesses we watch on the telly box, racing at professional level do not, perhaps obviously, fit into the category of being average, so the food carried in the team car, in musettes or in rear jersey pockets, is aimed at physiologies that scarcely compare with our own. few can have watched saturday's strade bianche and not marvelled at the speed and energy with which mathieu van der poel left bernal and alaphillipe on the climb into siena's town square to take race victory. there's every likelihood that not only does mathieu consume a different recipe than you can buy in the shop at debbie's, but probably a great deal more than required for the average sunday ride.

i'm probably not giving away too many secrets to inform you that my three pelotonic colleagues, yesterday, finished off the first part of the ride by munching on double-egg rolls along with their coffee. doubtless, mr van der poel would have enjoyed similar repast at the finish line, were it not for the team nutritionist advising otherwise. of course, this has to be tempered with the knowledge that flying scotsman, graeme obree, is known to have favoured cornflakes and jam sandwiches during his heyday of victories in the pursuit and hour record. but then graeme was always just a bit different to the rest of us, but in a different way than van der poel.

personally, jam sandwiches sound a tad more appetising than rice cakes, carbo gels and the like, but only if made with brown bread. it has long been of concern that, wherever there are pre-built sandwiches available for purchase, for some reason, it seems to be the carnivorous varieties that are constructed with the healthiest of brown breads, while the vegetarian options are on white bread almost devoid of character and nutritional value. i base this purely on the assumption that vegetarians are often more concerned with their health and wellbeing than meat eaters.

it is of note that most of the breads to be found in today's supermarkets are baked in substantial batches, to uniform recipes seemingly designed with a lengthy shelf-life in mind, rather than any uniqueness or unbridled flavour. whether there is a nascent reaction against this soul-less uniformity or not, i confess i'm unsure, but i believe that lockdown may have brought a certain number of closet bakers out of the woodwork and into the kitchen with their panasonic breadmakers. for them, and those amongst us who have aspirations to join the merry throng, robert penn's latest publication slow rise may be a remarkably timeous release.

robert and i first came across each other when he sought minor assistance with research for his sunday times best seller 'it's all about the bike', research that also formed the basis of a tv presentation. he has since written 'the man who made things out of trees' and 'woods: a celebration', all of which i have reviewed on the post purely on the basis that i can, and anyone who could write a highly praised book about bicycles, is alright in my book (pardon the pun). robert, as described on the back cover of 'slow rise' as 'obsessive' is exactly that, but in a very good way. while you and i would probably take an interest in bread-making simply as far as ordering a bread-maker from amazon, robert decided to research the heck out of the subject.

in his opening chapter, usefully entitled flour, yeast, water & salt after the basic ingredients of a loaf, we find the author making his way along the road to siverek, a town in the eastern region of turkey. what makes mr penn's books worth reading, aside from the intrigue of his subject matter, is a grasp of the more descriptive aspects of the english language.

"We thundered down the road to Siverek. The peaks of the Taurus Mountians gleamed white against the azure Anatolian sky. Storm clouds were gathering to the south over the Harran Plain, a great sweep of rich, agricultural land with biblical resonance."

penn was in turkey to search for wild wheat on the slopes of karacadag, a mountain range that rises over the so-called fertile crescent, the sickle-shaped territory thought to be the cradle of civilisation, embracing modern iraq, western iran, south-east turkey, syria, lebanon, israel, jordan and egypt. some 15,000 years ago, this region was the home of the 'natufians', not a people from an episode of star trek, but a community of hunter-gatherers, allegedly the first people on earth to bake bread. discovery in 2017 of charred flatbread remains made from cereals and plant-roots at shubayqa, were dated to around 14,400 years ago.

did i mention that the author was a tad on the obsessive side?

though the advent of lockdown may have encouraged home breadmakers as a means to occupy furlough time, robert penn's interest was piqued by illness. "I read more about the stability of bacteria in the gut and foodstuffs that disrupt it. I started to look at my diet, which I had always thought to be balanced and nutritionally wholesome. One day my wife wondered out loud if I had coeliac disease."

as it transpired, robert tested negative for the disease, but, rather than attempt to give up gluten altogether, as seems quite trendy these days, he gave up eating bread and "...the era of my stomach ailments ended." serendipitously, a neighbour presented the penn household with a tub of natural 'sourdough starter', which mrs pen used to produce sourdough bread. though the kids ate it eagerly, robert opted to bake his own bread. "Miraculously, it did not upset my stomach."

this revelation which highlighted the difference between the factory made bread to be had from the supermarket, and that baked devoid of any additives to enable an increased shelf-life, was sufficient to attract robert down the rabbit hole, to further investigate the history of breadmaking, of the grains and its social importance. "Bread is kneaded into economics, politics, human biology and religion. The availability of bread has significantly influenced demography and population growth. Its story is the story of humanity."

having learned all of this within the book's first nineteen pages, the narrative continues in many, threaded directions, which the author's skill as a writer subsequently draws together into what can only be described as a successful conclusion. there is much intriguing digression through history, underlining the reference in that last quote, to the story of bread being that of humanity. a farmer friend lends the author an acre of land for a year in which he expects to sow and subsequently harvest sufficient grain to bake bread for the penn family for a year. it would spoil the story if i confirmed whether this aspiration is granted, but the journey to find out is endlessly fascinating, including as it does a visit to the plains of central america to witness state of the art machinery used to harvest and thresh grain on an industrial scale and a summary of the technological advancements that brought us here.

"Jim lives in Colby, Kansas. He leaves home in the second week of May each year, at the head of e 3km-long convoy, comprising six combines, grain carts, service trucks, lorries and mobile homes for his seasonal crew..."

obsessives such as robert penn can be fascinating people to meet, or, as in this case, read. he takes us through pretty much every process that forms a part of bread-making, from the sowing of seed, harvesting, threshing, milling, kneading and baking (naturally, in a brick-built oven). i almost feel a responsibility to inform the manager of our local averagemarket, that he should plan on increasing the availability of their daily, in-store baked bread, sales of which i have already made inroads following my reading of this wonderful book.

and if further justification for its review within these pixels is required, robert penn is still an enthusiastic cyclist, which makes him one of us.

monday 8 march 2021

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................