The Way of Bread - musings and recollections
It's an early Spring morning, still cool, but with the promise of a balmy warmth later on. I have bread baking, a mongrel loaf of whatever's left: organic unbleached flour, oatbran and polenta with a skerrick of Indian besan flour and a pinch of sea salt thrown in. It'll be heavy but I'm hoping, golden and nutty and, toasted, an excellent accompaniment to spring vegie soup.
I've recently been dipping into the online writings of an Oregon woman, Risa Bear. She's articulate and prolific and, like me, 50 something and living with transexualism. I particularly find myself drawn to a series of her essays entitled "Viewing Jasper Mountain".
She writes about living in view of a fir-covered ridge or bluff and recounts the various aspects of landscape, external and internal, that she encounters and experiences. Her words picked me, middle-aged, corporate, urban woman, up and transported me back thirty years. Back to a mythical-seeming time when first I launched the little boat of my life, hippie-clad and romance-dreaming, out into the turbulent waters of the early seventies and my misspent youth.
Memories flooded in...of unleavened bread and brown rice; roach clips and magic mushrooms; of Judy Collins and Creedence Clearwater; of Sand County Almanac and the Last Whole Earth Catalog; of sleeping out under shooting stars on a north Queensland hillside; of long, gear-crashing semi rides along the Hume highway, nodding asleep to Johnny Cash.
Mmm! I hear the breadmaker start its clunky kneading cycle and I think back to other bread-making days...
Early spring days just like this, 1974, Tasmania. Slipping out of an opshop 40's salmon swamee nightdress and donning either king gee's and jumper or circle skirt and peasant blouse, depending on the temperature and what I had planned for the day and whether or not the compost needed turning.
Those days I ground my own wheat, purchased by the sack with a friend going halves. My friend was a big Birmingham lad who built himself, single-handedly, a log cabin on the hills overlooking the Huon. Well, I do remember helping him adze some logs but mostly I'd sit, wan and delicate, while he carved out his dream. While I feel a swooning affinity with the earth and sky, strong, capable earth-mother I ain't!
But yes, I did grind my own wheat, using one of those metal, meat-grinder style thingos that were so common back then. I had it clamped to the back steps of the converted stable-cum artist's den in which I lived. I must have made a sight - long Indian squaw plaits swinging wildly as I swung the handle round; our two chooks watching intently from the sidelines, swooping in, whenever they could, to snavel a grain or two.
Grew my own yeast, too. A tangy, bubbling gloop fermenting away on the sideboard. And added other goodies to my loaves - buckwheat and millet, barley and oats. I'd do a marathon bake-in every Saturday - to last me the week and to take to friends. The currency of the hippie! Home-baked bread and apple-crumbles! With the bread in the oven I'd start on home-made bourghul and apple-pies! Hey! Who says I was a bulimic, food-obsessed, macrobiotic hermit?
These days I do it differently! Breville electric breadmaker (just like my washing machine - chuck in the load and choose the cycle) and supermarket (albeit wholegrain) breadmixes. Still like my Tree of Life Indian skirts...but alas! no chooks! And no plaits - I seem to have lost the touch for those (right one of the middle one; left one over the middle one). Tanks Gott! you say!
I was always a bit of a psuedo-hippie; a psuedo bohemian - as Penny Arcade calls it - always making sure my little safety line was attached. To what? Not sure...destiny probably!
How else could I have gotten here?
I've recently been dipping into the online writings of an Oregon woman, Risa Bear. She's articulate and prolific and, like me, 50 something and living with transexualism. I particularly find myself drawn to a series of her essays entitled "Viewing Jasper Mountain".
She writes about living in view of a fir-covered ridge or bluff and recounts the various aspects of landscape, external and internal, that she encounters and experiences. Her words picked me, middle-aged, corporate, urban woman, up and transported me back thirty years. Back to a mythical-seeming time when first I launched the little boat of my life, hippie-clad and romance-dreaming, out into the turbulent waters of the early seventies and my misspent youth.
Memories flooded in...of unleavened bread and brown rice; roach clips and magic mushrooms; of Judy Collins and Creedence Clearwater; of Sand County Almanac and the Last Whole Earth Catalog; of sleeping out under shooting stars on a north Queensland hillside; of long, gear-crashing semi rides along the Hume highway, nodding asleep to Johnny Cash.
Mmm! I hear the breadmaker start its clunky kneading cycle and I think back to other bread-making days...
Early spring days just like this, 1974, Tasmania. Slipping out of an opshop 40's salmon swamee nightdress and donning either king gee's and jumper or circle skirt and peasant blouse, depending on the temperature and what I had planned for the day and whether or not the compost needed turning.
Those days I ground my own wheat, purchased by the sack with a friend going halves. My friend was a big Birmingham lad who built himself, single-handedly, a log cabin on the hills overlooking the Huon. Well, I do remember helping him adze some logs but mostly I'd sit, wan and delicate, while he carved out his dream. While I feel a swooning affinity with the earth and sky, strong, capable earth-mother I ain't!
But yes, I did grind my own wheat, using one of those metal, meat-grinder style thingos that were so common back then. I had it clamped to the back steps of the converted stable-cum artist's den in which I lived. I must have made a sight - long Indian squaw plaits swinging wildly as I swung the handle round; our two chooks watching intently from the sidelines, swooping in, whenever they could, to snavel a grain or two.
Grew my own yeast, too. A tangy, bubbling gloop fermenting away on the sideboard. And added other goodies to my loaves - buckwheat and millet, barley and oats. I'd do a marathon bake-in every Saturday - to last me the week and to take to friends. The currency of the hippie! Home-baked bread and apple-crumbles! With the bread in the oven I'd start on home-made bourghul and apple-pies! Hey! Who says I was a bulimic, food-obsessed, macrobiotic hermit?
These days I do it differently! Breville electric breadmaker (just like my washing machine - chuck in the load and choose the cycle) and supermarket (albeit wholegrain) breadmixes. Still like my Tree of Life Indian skirts...but alas! no chooks! And no plaits - I seem to have lost the touch for those (right one of the middle one; left one over the middle one). Tanks Gott! you say!
I was always a bit of a psuedo-hippie; a psuedo bohemian - as Penny Arcade calls it - always making sure my little safety line was attached. To what? Not sure...destiny probably!
How else could I have gotten here?
posted by Paula at
4:06 pm
1 Comments:
Cheers Paula!
Hmmm ... you've transported me to a different time, space and place. I was born way to late for hippiedom - was but a mere child so my only real experience with it was wearing flared pants and colourful tops of the early-mid seventies. The only other throw back of that hippish time that I can recall with clarity and wonder is the family Tequila parties my Aunt used to host with regularity in the summer. Strange times those. So despite my youth I am not a product of the Hippie era - although I suppose I could now be considered the new generation - but not 100% though - more in thought and spirit than actual body and actions.
As for baking bread - ughhh ... I so suck at that! I'm an excellent cook, and a fair cakes and cookies kinda gal, but I just don't have 'the touch' for pastry and bread, despite my mother being extremely adept at this. Obviously not something passed along to this generation.
I'm marveling at your prowess and I can smell the rich, yeasty warmth as the golden smell fills the kitchen. Damn woman - I'm drooling! LoL ;p
NC
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home