Pete and I have always enjoyed the rustic crusty bread we first discovered in Italy over 20 years ago. When we lived in the northwest we were fortunate to find really good artisan bread which came close to the bread in Italy from Grand Central Bakery. Sadly we haven’t found a replacement since moving to Florida.
Shortly after moving to Florida I retired and suddenly had a lot of time on my hands because our plans to return to Italy had to be put on hold due to Covid. I decided to try my hand at bread making, which I haven’t had time for since college, with the hopes of coming close to that bread we tasted in Italy many years ago. I started reading blogs and books on bread making and discovered that traditional Italian bread is made with natural leavening (lievitazione naturale). Natural starter is most commonly fermented flour and water activated by the wild yeast in the air and on the wheat but can also be made from fruit or a gluten free version from cornmeal, buckwheat or other gluten free flour. Advantages of fermented starters is that they have prebiotics that feed the good bacteria in your gut, are more easily digested, low-glycemic so it won’t spike your blood sugar and stays fresher longer than bread made with packaged yeast. Our friend Elisa graciously shared some of her sourdough starter she made from einkorn wheat with me and I spent the next week growing the starter so I had enough to bake with. For those who are unfamiliar, einkorn is an ancient grain humans have been eating for over 12,000 years and archaeologists believe it was used to make the first loaves of bread; it is still cultivated in Tuscany. I am definitely an amateur baker and have a lot to learn, but my first loaf of sourdough hooked me completely
After a long wait we have returned to Italy to spend the next 3 months exploring 3 regions, Puglia, Umbria and Emilia-Romagna. Our first month was in a nice apartment in the center of Trani which turned out to be exactly the right place to experience the local food at its best. Neighborhood produce markets with just picked vegetables and fruits, bakeries, small butchers each featuring their own specialties, and seafood direct from the fishermen as they pulled in to the dock, all a short walk from our apartment. One morning while we were doing our daily shopping we were drawn into Vin. Enzo’s Bakery by some beautiful chocolate Easter eggs on display in the window. Behind the counter was a bin AntonellaPaneChocolatDiVzoCrocettaCSnc rustic round bread that looked promising so we tucked one in our shopping bag and headed home to make lunch.
At long last we had found that rustic crusty bread we had longed for and were hooked. This bread was ridiculously good. You can hear how crusty it was on the video but the center was soft with a complex flavor that comes from the natural starter; it stayed fresh and fed us for a week becoming incredible toast for breakfast and accompanying the fresh tomatoes, fava beans and pecorino cheese for lunch. Pete and I ate more bread in a month in Trani than we had in the 3 years prior.
We’re excited to explore more in the coming months.
