Oxford SlowFoodStudent

Bread. The staff of life. And yet, in Britain, it’s a staff that’s often remarkably weak and unsupportive. It’s pappy, pale and generally pathetic. I could spend this entire article complaining about it, in fact, and convincing you that eating this rubbish is one of the worst things you can do: but I won’t.

Instead, I’ll get it done in one paragraph. I promise.

What’s wrong with our bread?

First and foremost, it doesn’t taste good. Or, more precisely, it doesn’t taste of anything. Our obsession with Supermarket shopping and the idea of the loaf that keeps for a week means that bread in Britain is almost always adulterated with cruddy chemicals, packaged and suffocated in plastic, and thoroughly unadventurous to boot. ‘Seeded loaves’ and ‘granary breads’ in supermarkets are indeed “healthier, better and tastier”, but you’ll note that the advertising slogans use the comparative without indicating what such bread is superior to. It is, to be fair, better than the standard white-sliced, but to anyone who’s ever lived abroad, it too is guilty of being weak and gutless, lacking in crust, crunch or taste, and, most importantly, not fresh.

What should bread be, then?

For bread should be fresh. It should have a decent crust and, preferably, be still warm when you cut into it. Furthermore, it should go stale quickly. If it doesn’t, it means that somebody’s been adding chemicals to the simple mixture of water, flour, salt, and yeast that should suffice. Oils, butter, milk, nuts, seeds and dried fruits are about the only other things to be countenanced. White loaves should go stale within a day, or two if fats were used in the baking, and if they don’t, be suspicious. The miracle loaf-for-a-week is not really a miracle; it’s a nutritionally dubious charlatan. Darker loaves, especially those with rye will, in fact, keep for a few days quite naturally anyway; so if you don’t have the time or inclination to procure fresh bread every day, just go brown.

And remember: bread going stale is nothing bad. If it’s kept dry, it will go stale without mould, and can then be used for all sorts of things, depending on its age. A few days in, you can still make nice toast, or crostini, or croutons. A bit further along, and you can still do all sorts of fine things involving milk, eggs, butter and the application of heat. Finally, when it’s gone rock-hard, you can grind it down into breadcrumbs that can be used for everything from gratins to dumplings. In fact, I’m often tempted to leave more than half a loaf to go stale ‘by accident’ simply for the pleasure of French toast…

Apart from fresh, there are very things bread should be. It can be dense and chewy. It can be light and airy (‘alvioliated’ as the French idiom would have it). It can be salty, sweet, salty-sweet, nutty, fruity, crunchy, springy… You should be able to get the kind of bread you want for whatever occasion. Sweet, dark rye is lovely with sharp crème-fraiche whilst a good white bloomer makes an unbeatable ham sandwich. Toast and marmalade is wonderful, but you might want to try toasting nut breads for an extra flavour dimension. There are no – well, hardly any – rules. Simply freshness and simplicity.

The other thing bread should be, actually, is nutritious. Bread is, pound for pound, the best way of getting carbohydrates into your body, so it’s great for sportsmen and active people. If it’s good, fibrous stuff, it shouldn’t give you the infamous four-o’-clock-low, either, and will give you iron and other useful substances. But don’t bother buying pre-packaged white-loaves with iron added: just buy wholemeal, since the iron added back in is only what is taken out when flour is too refined.

If you source good bread, you’ll find yourself enjoying its flavour for itself. You’ll base meals around it, like the German Abendbrot, an evening meal where huge quantities of ham, cheese and salad are piled high onto quality rye breads. Or French country stews, served with nought but good, crusty bread. But can you imagine serving your guests a selection of standard white-sliced and granary at dinner? No, you wouldn’t do it. That’s why British cookery seems to so favour potatoes, and why a British cheese board is served with biscuits; the bread is simply not reliable. OK, I’m convinced that I should eat fresh bread… but how, damnit man?!

In fact, it was not always this way. The ploughman’s is an avatar of a simpler age when bread might have actually been baked near to where it was consumed, when it could be put shamelessly alongside good English cheddar and fresh local apples. How can we do that in Oxford, though?

Well, the good news is that you can do it more easily than in most other places in the UK. Although a French or German city of 100,000 might have around one hundred bakeries, and although Oxford only boasts a couple, this puts its streets ahead of other UK towns and cities. And what really makes the difference is that, although bakers may be scarce, good bread is available in some surprising places.

Where to buy

Nash’s Bakery, Covered Market: OK, so the cakes look somewhat dubious and the wood panelling is enough to put anyone off, but this place is the kind of British bakery that disappeared with the advent of supermarkets in the 60s and 70s. You won’t find fancy rye-breads, but some very fine English classics (baps, rolls, bloomers) and a good selection of nice, healthy wholemeal.

Palm’s, Covered Market: Generally an expensive rip-off merchants trading on the implied idea of locally-sourced produce without actually having any, Palm’s do quite well on bread, offering a series of loaves that keep for several days. This means that there’s lots of bread baked with oil (ciabatta) and molasses (Milwaukee rye), but no very, very fresh bread. In one of its few genuinely praiseworthy moves, Palm’s does not throw away stale bread without first selling it half-price. So if you need bread to toast or use for breadcrumbs, stop by and load up.

The Oxford Cheese Shop, Covered Market: There’s good bread to be had, but with two caveats. Firstly, the lovely selection of country breads is only delivered and sold on Saturdays. Secondly, the owner of the shop can be exceptionally rude. But, provided that you bear this counsel in mind, you could land some top-quality loaves…

The Oxford Cheese Company, St Giles (Woodstock Road): A truly varied selection of lovely, exciting breads on sale every day.

Gastro’s Deli, Walton Street: Up and down on getting stock in at the right times, but good loaves available most days, and comes organic certified.

Baking your own

So that’s where I’d recommend in central Oxford, but even with all of this choice, sometimes you’ll have problems getting the right loaf on the right day. To avoid panic, increase your choice, and guarantee a lack of additives and packaging, your best bet is to bake your own.

Now, before you stop reading, know two things: one, we are nearing the end of the article; two, baking your own bread really is remarkably simple.

You really need remarkably little. A functioning oven is a good start (although actually not a complete necessity for fresh bread), and you’ll need a tap. Add to this heady mix some flour, some salt, and some yeast, and you’re a for away.

Once you’ve learned how to make a dough, and understood about rising and knocking back, baking bread will not take you very long, either. Admittedly, you’ll need to be around at certain times to care for it, but you can, and should, fit it in around your day. You might make and knead a loaf before breakfast (ten minutes), return to it for a knock-back and second kneading a few hours later (five minutes), and then bake it off in time for lunch (half an hour, provided you turned the oven on after the second kneading. So, a total time of 45 minutes (and you can be doing other stuff while it’s in the oven), and you’ve got fresh bread.

The biggest incentive to get baking, though, is not time. No, it’s money. Six bags of flour and two packs of dried yeast will set you back about £10 and give you break for a whole term. Add another £5 for additional ingredients (seed mix and a few nuts), and you’ve got a total of £15 over eight weeks. Now, a decent loaf of bread will set you back around a pound wherever you go…