In Search of the Perfect Loaf
A Home Baker's Odyssey
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- $23.99
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
"An invaluable guide for beginning bakers." –Sam Sifton, The New York Times
In 2009, journalist Samuel Fromartz was offered the assignment of a lifetime: to travel to France to work in a boulangerie. So began his quest to hone not just his homemade baguette—which later beat out professional bakeries to win the “Best Baguette of D.C.”—but his knowledge of bread, from seed to table.
For 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 wheat in the South of France. Along the way, he met historians, millers, farmers, wheat geneticists, sourdough biochemists, and everyone in between, learning about the history of breadmaking, the science of fermentation, and more. The result is an informative yet personal account of bread and breadbaking, complete with detailed recipes, tips, and beautiful photographs.
Entertaining and inspiring, this book will be a touchstone for a new generation of bakers and a must-read for anyone who wants to take a deeper look at this deceptively ordinary, exceptionally delicious staple: handmade bread.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this fun and informative memoir, Fromartz, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and avid baker, recounts his journeys to Paris, Northern California, and other regions in pursuit of the craft of well-made bread. As a teenager in New York City, Fromartz picked up bread from neighborhood bakeries whose loaves "defined bread for me when I was growing up." Living in D.C. as an adult, the city's lack of freshly baked bread leads Fromartz to Paris, where he does a stint in an old school boulangerie in an attempt to learn how to make a baguette. Along the way, he provides a fascinating miniature course on the techniques involved in making different varieties (how much flour to sprinkle on a counter and how much time is required for leavening); baking methods used by our ancestors (slow fermentation) instead of the mechanized mass production that utilizes baker's yeast; and even a little history on grains and practices dating back to the Fertile Crescent.
