BREAD MATTERS - the state of modern bread and a definitive guide to baking your own by Andrew Whitley

?Andrew Whitley's passion for bread had its genesis in a student trip to Russia in the late 60s with five friends. Due to a misunderstanding about the exchange rate, the six had to live on rations for three - which did not stretch much beyond dark Russian sourdough rye bread. After the initial revulsion, Andrew, at least, was converted - not just to Russian rye, but to bread as the staff of life. After a spell as a producer in the BBC Russian Service, he hied to a Cumbrian smallholding where he could grow his own food and bake his own bread.

In 1976 he started the Village Bakery, baking wholemeal bread with locally stone- ground flour at a time when industrially made white breads were still regarded as perfectly nutritionally adequate by both the medical and the scientific authorities.

As the Village Bakery began to gain recognition as a ‘craft’ bakery in the late 1980s an awareness of food allergy/intolerance was also emerging. In his search for interesting breads and techniques, Andrew experimented with unusual flours, many either wheat or gluten-free. Soon he was receiving enquiries from wheat and gluten allergics seeking an alternative to brick hard, grey prescription loaves.

Not one to turn down a baking challenge, Andrew embarked on an in-depth investigation of baking without gluten, wheat or baker’s yeast. By the late 90s the Village Bakery was almost as well known for its gluten, wheat and yeast-free breads as for its original craft-baked loaves. Indeed, when he finally decided to sell the bakery in 2002 it was to a local company, Bells of Lazonby, who not only wanted to continue with the Village Bakery ‘special diet’ range, but to build a dedicated gluten-free facility to launch a second GF/WF range, OK Foods.

Bread Matters, has, as Andrew says in his introduction, been fermenting for the 30 years that he has been making bread - and pondering on why it is that people have often chosen, or been forced to eat, bread that is not very good for them.

Why and how this can be he investigates at some length for us elsewhere - click here to read more.

However the bulk of the book is about baking itself. The tools that you need, the flours, the raising agents, mixing, kneading, proving and baking. Detailed instructions are followed by detailed recipes for everything from his beloved Russian rye to ciabattas and croissants.

His descriptions of how to set about it will enthuse even the most heavy handed - and even if you cannot bring yourself to actually get baking, just reading about it is rivetting.

Although much of the book is devoted to mainstream breads, there is a lengthy chapter at the end on gluten-free baking - a whole art in itself. Andrew’s rules and the pizza base recipe opposite give an excellent flavour of his lateral approach and his excellent techniques.

Published by Fourth Estate- ISBN 0 00 720374 8
Recommended retail price: £20

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ACTIVE AGAIN by Heather Stott

Coeliac disease is thought of only in terms of gluten exclusion. But Heather Stott’s story illustrates only too vividly that untreated Coeliac disease can lead not just to gluten exclusion but to a complete immune system collapse, micro nutrient ‘malnutrition’, multiple allergies and many ‘lost’ years. Heather’s tale of her journey from 10 mile walks across the hills to being bed bound in constant pain - and then, gradually, via gluten exclusion, EPD, neutralisation and magnesium supplementation, back to near normality - makes inspiring, and salutary, reading.

Published by Tulip Press - ISBN 0-9542 4090 1
Recommended retail price: £10

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