Wonder Bread

Is there a Nobel Prize for baking? If not, why not? Splitting the atom was nice, but you can't eat it.

Since there probably isn’t a Nobel Prize for food, I nominate Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street bakery for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Also for the Nobel Peace Prize, which seems to go to whoever has most improved human existence in some tangible way. Move over Al Gore. This man is a hero and a national treasure.

In case you’ve been preoccupied with electioneering matters for the last two years, Jim Lahey is the guy who invented the famous no-knead slow-rise bread that has swept the globe. The recipe first came out in the New York Times two years ago. It has since been featured in Vogue and been re-printed in the food sections of most decent newspapers. It is on U-tube. It is easy as pie (way easier actually) and freakishly delicious. The original New York Times article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html.

Everyone knows that gluten is what makes good bread good. Gluten gives bread chewiness and texture and makes those big holes in the crumb possible. Conventional bread baking develops gluten mechanically, by kneading. Mr. Lahey figured out that you can skip the kneading and develop gluten chemically by letting the bread rise slowly, slowly for about 12-18 hours. I say “chemically” in the breeziest possible meaning of that word. The gluten molecule lengthens and strengthens and complicates itself in some marvelous way if you just leave it alone to rise slowly. Mr. Lahey’s recipe calls for just a pinch of yeast to slow the rising. His genius was to get out of the way and let nature do its work.

Then there’s the crust. Mr. Lahey’s dough is very wet. You put this wet, slowly risen dough in a ceramic or cast iron lidded pot pre-heated to about 450 degrees, and the wetness of the dough and the super-hotness of the pot create the crustiest, chewiest crust you ever saw or tasted. I’m sure there’s chemistry to that part too, but I don’t know what it is. I do know that it works. It is not just like the best old world artisan bread, it IS that.

The technique is radical. The product is classical. This bread is what Jesus ate. Make that Moses. It is ancient, basic, staff-of-life stuff. It’s as if someone discovered a simple and significant improvement in the design of the wheel. How surprising. How wonderful. It lights up the world a little bit.

(Photo credit, Todd Anderson; baking credit, Annie Anderson.)