Stones For Bread by Christa Parrish

Author:Christa Parrish
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2013-11-04T18:30:00+00:00

They want to learn wild yeast, these women, though I suspect of the nine of them, maybe one will still have a viable starter in her refrigerator by year’s end. Caring for yeast is like nurturing a beloved family pet, a puppy needing to be fed, watered, housebroken, one that whimpers all night and is lonely even though its owner wraps a ticking clock in a blanket in its kennel, hoping it will be comforted by a sound reminiscent of its mother’s heart. It never works, and I tell them so. They laugh, not believing me, though several of them have tried to culture sourdough and failed. They think it’s bad flour, or chlorine in their tap water, or the fact they stirred the mixture with a metal spoon. They’re here to learn the trick. How much work can flour and water and a billion microorganisms truly be? Most of life is unforgiving, and there are no shortcuts when it comes to wild yeast.

“There are plenty of bread myths,” I say. “A metal spoon will not react with the culture. You can use all the metal spoons you want, even in the dough. I just happen to prefer wooden ones because my mother and grandmother used them.”

The women take notes. I compartmentalize them; after three years of teaching these classes, I can read their reasons for being here. Two are here because they believe commercial yeast destroys the gut and causes a multitude of health problems. Three are friends, housewives, mothers, looking for a life-enriching class while the kids are in school. Two are skilled home bakers who haven’t yet conquered sourdough; one will be self-satisfied with the success in her own kitchen, the other wants to sell her bread at medieval Renaissance fairs. Of the remaining students, one is addicted to learning, to trying new things, to the excitement of accomplishment. By next month her starter will be forgotten, the expensive bannetons and proofing box stored in the closet, waiting to be sold at her summer garage sale, and she’ll have moved on to cake decorating or stained glass. The last woman doesn’t know why she’s here, except she saw an advertisement in the newspaper and felt called. She’s never made a loaf of yeasted bread in her life. People like her are wild cards, the seeds in the parable of the sower. She may come to love baking and, even more so, excel at it, or her culture may die on the counter as she forgets it, concerned more with her sick father and credit card debt and her son’s behavior problems at Boy Scouts. She may decide even a once-a-week feeding is too much effort, or at class end, she may think, Why on earth did I figure I’d enjoy this?

Isn’t it that way in all things, though? The birds, the thorns, the lack of soil—all reasons to give up, to fade out of life and find the easiest way to deal with all those disappointing things people, as children, never expect will come to them.

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