I dedicate this post to my dearest friends Simas and Audronė who run a bakery of Lithuanian bread in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Today I ate most delicious dark bread in Hotel Pušynas in Druskininkai, Lithuania. It is such a joy to have a piece of bread in own hands and appreciate its quality, fragrance and taste.
I have never baked bread myself, only cakes at most. My brother Vytenis used to bake when he was studying in USA. I remember visiting him and helping in the process and eating afterwards.
Banana Bread by Vytenis
My wife Lina in her childhood was helping grandmother shaping bread, before it was pushed in the oven.
Good friends Sarah and Gregou now in down-under Sidney are baking bread and have huuuge book of recipes I had pleasure to look though.
There is amazing quality of bread baked in Salantai town in Lithuania. Huge loafs of bread, enough for a family for a week.
Friend Jolita lived in the same dormitory as I in Denmark, and she shared her work at Danish Technical University on preventing bread to age, or to grow fungus.
Last Friday while driving for business I watched the following TED talk by Peter Reinhart from TASTE3 conference on bread baking. It made me excited, thinking and appreciating. I invite you to watch it as well and re-discover your own connection to what bread is to you and how it keeps transforming as it always did in material and spiritual way, along with technologies involved in making it tasty and healthy.
Note: Language sometimes can get too specific for non-native English speakers.
Thank you my life and the powers above for providing me with delicious bread today!
I would definitely agree about the bread baked in Salantai town. I could eat it whole in one night because of such a good taste, therefor my grandparents used to hide and lock it that we could have it for the whole week
Interesting, do Salantai Bakery still exists?
Salantai bakery still exists, and doing well. It cost around 10 Litas for a loaf. There are at least 2 shops selling the bread, several times I visited they were out of bread, but most of the time – you get fresh bread there still!
Bread is all about life. It is like the origin of food. Now I have an oven, and I bought some rye flour a while ago. Still I just didn’t get around doing it – baking. But I better be quick before the hot Barcelona summer starts and the thought of heating the oven becomes unbearable. Ah, it’s been years since I last did it… Vilius, you should start. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just start with something simple and advance as you become more confident. That is what I will do. Tomorrow… or maybe already tonight. Thanks for the inspiration.