It takes 5 ingredients to make a decent sourdough loaf: Flour, salt and water are the 3 main ones, but it would be impossible without natural, so called ‘wild’ yeasts - and time. Time, is crucial in developing the flavour, in getting the gluten to work, in the enzymes doing their job to digest the gliadin (the natural gut irritant in flour). Many people react badly to commercial loaves, not I suspect, because many more people are gluten intolerant, but because commercial loaves are made in the blink of an eye. Massive high speed whisks whip air into nutrient deficient loaves, which are then often frozen and baked in store. That’s modern bread-making for you - speed above all. Because time equals money and the less you use, the more profit you make. A slew of ingredients you may never have heard of -and mostly you certainly won’t have at home - bolster this product to make it look, taste and feel like ‘proper’ bread, but it’s a phony. Real bread takes time. Time makes it taste better - gives it a better depth of flavour - improves the texture and, as previously mentioned, breaks down those pesky irritants.
Bread is not the only food product where time improves it. With cheese and wine, time is essential to cultivate the produce we know and love. Properly crafted spirits, like malt whisky, take time to mature, to lose the raw fire, so they are drinkable.
In this time deprived world, time becomes a precious commodity. For parents, those who hold multiple jobs, carers and a whole raft of other people in this busy society, time slips through the fingers like sand, unable to be saved. When I was working full time, running a house, looking after my family and studying at college, I seemed to have more time than I do now, as semi-retired baker/writer/artist, which is nonsense, of course. I was just better organised, because time was precious and I knew it. I didn’t spend an hour on social media, I didn’t have the luxury of reading in the afternoon or getting 30 winks if I was tired. All meals had to be made and on the table in 30 minutes or so. Luxury was the weekends when I might have time to bake or make something that took a bit longer.
Time is a vital ingredient in other things too: hobbies, talents and relationships. If you don’t give something the time it needs and deserves it can fail to thrive. It’s hard to carve out time, for ourselves, our partners and the activities that we know add value and meaning to our lives, but we have to try, don’t we? The benefits are many and failing to give over time to the things that really matter will not end in good results. Be it bread, your children, your partner, or that novel you’re planning to write, they all need your time.
Time is a vital ingredient in other things too: hobbies, talents and relationships. If you don’t give something the time it needs and deserves it can fail to thrive. It’s hard to carve out time, for ourselves, our partners and the activities that we know add value and meaning to our lives, but we need to try. The benefits are many and failing to give over time to the things that really matter will not end in good results. Be it bread, your children, your partner, or that novel you’re planning to write, they need your time.
So agree with this. Like you I’ve retired & wonder how I found the time to do everything when I was working full time. I now realise that what I skimped on was time for myself so am now working at remedying that!