Baking Making 2000 year old bread

[Josie]

I came across this youtube video and found it interesting. In 79 A.D. a baker in a small town in Italy put a loaf of bread into the oven to bake. Shortly thereafter, Mt. Vesuvius erupted burying the baker, his oven and the loaf of bread. In the 1930, excavation was done in the town of Herculaneum and the bread was unearthed. Chef Giorgio Locatelli was tasked by the British museum to recreate the bread. Here is what he came up with.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYTuNXq1eBk

 

[Hfcomms]

I'm pretty sure I had 2000 year old bread pretty much every day in elementary school....at least that is how I remember it.

 

[Melodi]

I've made a version of this bread for decades (using the same picture) but never figured out what the groove was for - I used to have an old Pizza Hut deep dish pan that would make the groove when the bread rose over the top but the string idea makes a lot of sense. I also enjoyed the speculation they had early "bread machines" that burned because they were made of wood, I can believe it as I was able to pick up a bunch of what were obviously huge ovens when we visited the site years ago and later that night I saw an identical one in the traditional Italian eating place we were taken to by friends. Some wood did survive the volcanic activity but not all of it by any means and simple animal or human powered kneading machines were still in use at many US bakeries when I was a child (I have a small version of one).

I usually use a sour dough recipe written down on the back of an envelope by the cook book author from an actual shepherd in the 1970's called Basque's Shepherd's Bread - it is a sour dough based bread and traditionally shaped the same way (and cooked in a Dutch Oven though I usually use an old skillet). The last few years I've tried it with spelt which was another common Roman grain and it works very well for this - I may try the string for an SCA cooking entry but I've never had a loaf be that round without a pan myself, I'm not that talented in bread shaping.

 

[Pinecone]

Thanks, Josie. That was interesting. The string is quite the prepper idea!

 

[Melodi]

Made some tonight and forgot just how "oozy" the spelt flour can be - used white flour, whole-wheat spelt and rye flour for this one - I had it raising in the oven in an old skillet with thankfully a baking sheet underneath; it was still a massive mess. I managed to salvage enough dough to knead in some flour and formed a smaller loaf (cutting the 8ths to rise with it as I didn't have time to wait around by that point) meanwhile after an hour I had most of the mess sorted and cooked the bread. It is lovely, tastes fantastic (the overnight proof was great and I recommend the 1847 starter if you have it as a base) and even looked pretty good (but I ate some before thinking of a picture).

I'm most posting to remind people that if you use the alternative flours and the loaf is too big, instead of going up it may very well go sideways and spill everywhere - which is a lot of unfun ...

 

[mourningdove]

That was intersting. I enjoyed that. Thanks for sharing, Josie.

 

[SAPPHIRE]

GRAZIE............

 

[gizbe]

Nice video and very informative! I would like to try the recipe out some day! Thanks Josie!