Today's program is brought to you by Nettle Meadow Farm Cheese and Spirits Pairing, taking place on Saturday, June 18th at Nettle Meadow Farm. For more information, visit nettle meadow cheese and spirits.com. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey, I'm Jimmy Carboni from Beer Sessions Radio. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick Brooklyn.
If you like this program, visit Heritage Radio Network.org for thousands more. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network from Robert's Pizzeria in Bushwick. Brrrr Brooklyn every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245, 1250. Have with me today the okay, so first of all, got Jackie Molecules, thank goodness, is in the booth.
We don't have him for that much longer in the booth because he's gonna go out uh, you know, touring on the road there. How you doing, Jack? I'm good. You know who you don't have in the studio today? Two people that we don't have in the studio today that we're supposed to have in the studio are Nastasia DeHammer Lopez.
Now, Nastasia, uh her sister graduated from uh Yale this week. Congrats. Yeah, congrats. So uh she uh was driving back from Connecticut and uh the hydraulic clutch in the car she borrowed from her buddy. Who who lives in New York and has a uh uh a stick shift?
It's freaking. It's really funny you bring that up because I'm looking for somebody with a stick shift because I have to drive stick in Iceland and I don't know how. I can't find anybody with a stick shift in New York. You know why? To prove your boys, yeah, right.
Exactly. It gets you off the when a light turns green. You're always the first one to, you know, if you have to vie with another car for position. If you have a stick shift, even if it's like a VW bug, you will beat any top of the line sports car with the acceleration from first to second. Boom, you can you just go back to the code.
What about what about when you're stop and go on the FDR? Then you get like hip problems over many years. Yeah, anyway. So what I'm saying is so it it burns out, and so she's not she's not here right now. I think I think uh she lost hydraulic pressure.
It's a hydraulic uh clutch in the car that she was driving. Anyways, uh but is she okay? Yeah, yeah, she's fine. Like she's changing. She didn't get hit or no, no, she's pulled off the side of the road.
Uh what was not working, the accelerator, the brake? No, so if you're if you so the hydraulic system on the on the clutch, if you basically if there's a leak in the system, it just leaks pressure the and the clutch pedal falls to the floor. Now ordinarily you can still kind of get moving. Um she smelled burning, which at first she thought was the the plate actually burning during driving, but you know, after further thinking, we we think it's probably the uh burning oil that was leaking out that she was smelling. Um but you you a lot of times with a hydraulic clutch when it goes, you can you can get it to run.
You just can't use the clutch, but you can get it to run and go, but she wasn't able to get it to go. But here's the good part. So for those of you that know our section of the country, the East Coast, uh I-95 is the road that runs. It's it's a flaming sack of crap. It's it's there's usually two or three trucks on fire at any given time.
Often literally a flaming sack of crap, yes. Uh so anyway, so for those of you that drive like through Connecticut along I-85 or the merit, I-95 or the merit, there is a town with a sign that I love. It's my anus. And my anus is gonna say this. Yeah, yeah.
It's next to Koscob. So you can literally do like cornhole myanus jokes constantly. And whenever there's traffic in in my anus, I never ever stop fail to say, heavy traffic through my anus. Oh like every single time. Even if it's just my dog in the car with me, I say it every time.
So literally, her car, she had a breakdown in my anus. Oh wow, what are the chances? Yeah, that's good. She's gonna be the butt of a lot of the jokes, that's for sure. Oh nice, nice thought.
Nice. So uh instead of uh Nastasia, we have uh our fearless leader, Patrick Martins here. I will be like Nastasia, I will say next to nothing. Wow. And make scary faces.
Boom. Uh now, who we don't have uh in the studio right now, and I tweeted out twice that he would be here, so hopefully he will arrive. I don't know, Jack, maybe we can try to call him on the telephone and see what's up. We'll put the search team out for the case. Yeah, put the put the search team out of the year.
Now, Jack, do you have a connection to Mr. Leahy through a certain babysitting gig? Is this well let's tell the people who it is first? We got Jim Leahy, supposed to be here right now. Jim Leahy is uh the guy who started uh Sullivan Street bakery over over 20 years ago now, I think.
Yeah, we have no need for Jim today. But we'll get to that in a minute. This is like pun central right here going on. But the uh so the the point is is that um you know, for those of you that are, you know, my age or so, like you know, in your forties, you can remember what New York was like when the bread here pretty much sucked. I mean, there were people who baked good bread, but like in general, the bread game in New York.
It was Wonder Bread in the mid 70s. I mean, the first guy on the Upper East Side, which is a very wealthy neighborhood, was Eli Zabar. He had a place called EAT on 80th and Madison, and that was the first place that really baked uh, you know, fresh bread, you know, past a few loaves at a kind of uh cookie store or something like that. But yes, you could not find fresh bread, even in New York City back then. No, I mean then in the nineties you had like uh I guess was I guess when he started, right?
The nineties? No, uh well, Elizabeth was uh I think in 80 oh uh Jim. Jim Sullivan Street. Twenty, twenty-five years, I think. Yeah, I mean, at the same time you had like Amy's starting.
Remember Amy's Amy's bread started around the same time on the street. Sarah Betts Kitchen was a kind of area, but I don't know if they sold loaves to go. Anyway, Amy's Amy's had a wholesale and uh and a retail. Um Amy's famous bread was the cornmeal one with raisins in it. Oh yeah, I used to get that on Saturday, because I used to live right by her bakery.
Anyway, point is is that back in the day nowadays you it used to be when you traveled to New York, you're like, hey, it's a great town. Bread sucks. You know what I mean? Seriously, like you would say that. You would expect that the bread you got on the table at a restaurant would suck.
You would expect that the bread you would get out at uh uh a place, even a cheese shop, you'd expect I mean don't even start on the cheese shops, you would expect that they would suck, right? And it was like Tuscany over here. Well, which is what we're supposed to be talking about today. But so anyway, so Jim Jim Leahy was one of the uh kind of early people making decent bread here in uh in New York and Sullivan Street. I remember was a a revelation when I had it the first time I went there in the in the nineties, uh mid mid-90s, I guess, I had their Bianca, their pizza bianca, and it was the only thing like what I had had over on my honeymoon in Italy.
It was uh it was good stuff. Anyway, so very crusty bread, right? Uh for the most part. What his breads, yeah. Oh, so like the stuff his signature breads he's known for now are probably like the Pulliesi style, the filoni, which is the huge one, and the semi de sesimo, which is the basically Pulesi with sesame seeds all over the outside, which is my personal favorite.
So these are the signature breads that you'll see a lot at a lot of restaurants, and there's a you know, he they had a split, so there's another bakery, another couple of bakeries that make his particular style of bread here in New York. He became famous generally among you know folks, people, uh, for uh his no need with a K, not no need to bake bread. Like there's no necessity to bake bread. He needs to do that. Yeah, yeah.
But uh a no need, uh no need, which is, you know, my editor actually, Marie Guanar Shelley did his book also at Norton, and she's the one that came up with the tagline underneath it, no work, no need, no work bread. So it sold more bread books than anyone's ever sold in the past. Because it was like bread, no work, bread? What? You know what I mean?
And so they sold so many of these things. Um but the the guy oh did did he did he did he get here? No. No, no, no. We're gonna look for him though.
So the um anyway, the point being that he kind of uh championed this uh this style, uh which I don't you know, I actually don't know where he came up with it, whether it was taught to him or or what. If he ever shows up, we'll ask him. I think he is a self-made man. I think he learned it all myself. Although I'm saying that with no knowledge of the issue whatsoever.
I think it's a self-made man. But you say but you have no actual knowledge of the cooking issue. None whatsoever. Yeah. So the uh so, anyways, the the point being is uh very influential uh person in the world of bread.
In fact, uh you know, most people I know so first of all, there's there's two things that happen. This this no need thing came at a time when a lot of people, especially uh pizza people that I because I don't know as many bet bread bakers as I knew, kind of people who in the kind of pizza world, they you know were shifting to extreme long fermentations and retarding of dough when they're when they're making it. Uh and um obviously the longer you let something rise, the less you need to need, right? And so I think that we've all shifted towards this kind of a lot of people have shifted towards these longer time format breads with less needing and less w less work, because the only thing it takes is a little bit of foresight. So why do they do it?
Just for the work issue or for a gastronomic reason as well. In other words, no, no, no. No, I mean look, the thing about the the no the no-need style, and I wish he was you know here to like talk about it, he hopefully will be, is the um is that if you just let the bread rise for a long time, two things happen. One, the the longer, like a short ferment means that you have a lot of uh yeast in it, right? And so this tends to produce a relatively um single simple profile taste, right?
Because there's uh less kind of uh the the yeast yeast is doing less to work on the base product, which is the flour. So the longer you you raise, uh the longer it takes to to um ferment, usually the more complicated complex the flavor is. And more the flour has a chance to express itself. That's an interesting way. See, this this is this is why Patrick Martins was the founder of Slow Food USA, because he comes up with these poetic terms like the flour expressing himself.
You know what I mean? It's like for me, I'm like such a technical head, like you know, I don't do the you know the the poetic that's why we should come more often, give you the the poetry of the flower. Slow food, yeah. Well we play each other up. Remember our sizzle together?
We did good. We played. I'm like the old school guy, you're like the new school guy. Yeah, yeah. I got a caller if we want to do that while we wait.
Uh uh, okay, caller, you're on the air. Caller, caller you there. You're on the air. Oh, hey, sorry about that. Um as a former cook and uh current restaurant manager, I get a lot of questions about gluten-free and gluten-friendly.
And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about um how that breaks down under high heat specifically in pizza ovens or deep fryers and deep fryers. You mean how gluten-free, how gluten-free coatings work in frying? Well, so like if I'm putting items into a deep fryer that are not gluten-free, like how does that gluten that comes off those items break down in the fryer, if at all? Oh, I gotcha. Uh so you're worried about the fact that you use the same fryer for your regular products as you use for your gluten-free stuff.
Um, the bread's here, by the way. You know what? I've never thought about it before. My guess is that it's not uh a problem because the the gluten uh while it's not really water soluble, I also don't think it's oil soluble. I think it's just non-soluble.
So I don't think you're gonna soluble the gluten in uh in your in your fat oil. You do get particles, so it all depends on how clear your uh you know your fat is. But I I would guess that your main problem is going to be a straight up uh straight up contamination. So if you're having um straight up contamination product problems, but you know, assuming in in a commercial frying situation, you're frying in a tube fryer that has a cold zone, and most of that stuff is sifting down to the bottom of your fryer anyway. So I would say, and considering the fact that that gluten, um, even like straight up celiac, oh my god, Jim brought my favorite oil.
How the hell did you know that was my favorite oil? What is wrong with you? Um the uh from DiPalos, my favorite place on earth. Oh my goodness. To conclude, the good news is you never have to wash your fryer.
No, no, no, no, no. So my point is is that uh most people's responses to gluten is uh are are mediated. In other words, it's in other words, it's like it's not that like it's not that a tiny amount of uh gluten is going to wipe them out. Uh but that said, I think that if you're worried about it, it's always prudent to add this kind of thing fried in a fryer that also fries items with gluten. And then you're gold.
You know what I mean? Like push it back on. In other words, like I wouldn't be worried that you're actually gonna hurt somebody, but I would also push it back onto the consumer so that you're not trying to hide anything from them. I think that's always the safest way to go. What uh what do you what do you think?
Anyone? Um yeah, it's sounds good. I mean, I didn't I wasn't too worried about it, but I didn't have a very good answer for people that were gonna ask me either. Yeah, I mean the fact of the matter is is that I mean you know, look, a lot of people have never cooked before, so they don't really understand how it works. They've never fried before.
So it's true. When you're frying something that, you know, especially if you do any dry fry stuff uh that's not a batter, like even a battery you're throwing stuff off of the batter stuff when it when it especially when it first goes in. But anyone who's ever fried before knows that there's extra pre-dust on the outside, there's extra stuff. It's usually a lot of fried items, aren't a straight liquid batter. And even in a straight liquid batter, let's say you're going tempura on on it, right?
You're getting all those little blebs of crap that fry off. And I don't know anyone on earth who's ever fried anything that hasn't gotten a piece of the last fry occasionally in their life stuck onto the fry that they have now, right? I mean, come on, let's be honest. But the fact of the matter is it's a small amount, I think as long as you're and if you know you're frying something that is gluten-free, you can be pretty scrupulous about the skim beforehand. And once the stuff is skimmed, all the rest of the stuff falls to the bottom of the cold zone, and uh, you're not gonna do the person uh I don't think uh any any any harm.
Red? Okay, anyone? Anyway, so uh thanks for that. But now we we have to talk about uh the bread. And if you have any no-need bread questions, we have what?
Oh my god, he comes in, he brings but now he has to pee. You like this is all right, so we'll we'll we'll we'll hold off. I'll I'll fill any more bread questions. What? Before we talk, I'll wash my hands.
Okay, okay. He's gonna, even though he's not an employee of Roberta's gym later. He's still gonna wash his hands. Well, you say he's not gonna wash his hands? He will wash his hands.
He's in no urine facility. Uh his bread has no urine in it. Which is great. Okay, so no patina virine. This happens to the label.
If this is the oil that I'm thinking of. Why is it your favorite? That's so because of the breed of olive, of course. It's the favorite. So here's what happens.
Every year, it's not oil's an agricultural crop. So it goes up and down. It goes up and down and changes. So for a bunch of years, my favorite oil was uh made by uh I forget the guy's name was um starts with a G. Like he used to make the oil for Fontana Salsa, which was the supplier in Sicily that made this mix of Nocholara, um uh my God, what was the other one?
No Cholara and two other olives that they grow in in Sicily, and that was like my favorite oil because I like I I'm heavy on I like green, I like like herby, grassy green with a lot of bite, typically, not always, but anyway, so like and so whenever I go to uh buy a new thing of uh oil, of like finishing oil or eating oil, I'm just like, hey, what do you got that I like? And like this is one of the ones, I think if it's the one I'm thinking of, this is um where do you shop for your oil? I used to go to Fairway because I always loved Steve Jenkins, but I don't think he does anything with Fairway anymore. I'm pretty sure he doesn't. Yeah, I know he doesn't.
Yeah, fairway has changed. I mean, then they just find out. Yeah, file for bankruptcy, too. For real? Yeah.
Well, I thought they were still expanding. But they're not closing somehow it was a restructuring, but they did file for bankruptcy. That's good. Um so it's um it's uh I buy it at DePalos. Listen, if you're ever in New York City, right, and you like Italian products, then you have to go to DiPalos on uh on Grand Street and Mott.
I mean they've been there for eight million years. Well, like 90. They they moved across the street is as far as as far as they went. And um But I always ask Ann, my wife who's a cheesemonger, if if uh their European cheeses are the best of their kind. Are they there?
Because I mean some of these old historic places, they don't get the best cheeses that you're producing. In other words, it's like it's like the best DiPos will get the best that is legally legally available. Okay. Like Lou and Sal and Marie, who are the for the you know, the most of the family that runs along with their wives, the kids, and the cousins, and and Renee, which is another guy there who works there. They're have this thing where they don't like to break the law.
And so, unlike a lot of other uh cheese folks, they won't like on the sly bring in stuff that's not legal or not. Raw milk or yeah, yeah. They also like will never lie to you. They'll also never sell you a product that's over the hill. So, like the fact of the matter is, and you know what's coming in today, the D'Palos.
I don't know if I'd known you were going. Do you know the Marcellin's in today? No, it's not. Oh, it's not in? That's what I was going for.
Oh, really? The Marcellino? Oh. Am I on? I wanted the Marcelino, right?
That's what I was going for because I realized that in order to show off this really mediocre example of Tuscan bread. And by mediocre example of Tuscan bread, I mean it's just like you would get in Tuscany. So mediocre and so to to understand the bread, you have to understand the cuisine that's that it's that it functions for, that it lives for it. So I I think that's my approach. Now, on a scale of one to ten, I would I would rate this for my tusk, my best Tusking game, like a four.
Wait, so what's your best Tuskin game rate? Well, like I would say I'm very well I mean I'm you know, if I can get a seven on any loaf of bread, I'm really happy. I'm very contented. An eight or nine is is, you know. Sometimes happens, but you know, I mean at the end of the day, as we all know in the food business, it's all about consistency, right?
Yeah. And as we all know, good cooks, good bakers, all hate themselves. Oh come on, please. No, because you ha you you never think you never think he just hates you, dude. You never think for the same thing.
You never think you're perfect. You never you never think you've reached anything. Wait we we can always there's always room for improvement. It's like that last cocktail that you just mixed. That you were you were you know, you you taste and you're like, you know, I just gotta like put a little bit more vermouth in that in that uh in that uh um give me a vermouth drink, uh David.
Martini. A martini. Yeah, you're uh my fucking bag. So why why can't you duplicate a nine all the time? Before we get this, two things.
One people want to know is the character in trailer park boys named after you? Wait, I'm gonna do one thing real quick. I like the That's the bread being sliced. And two, don't go through your knee. Oh my god.
Special special time that's ever happened in the studio. So the uh oh my god, you know what? They do you remember like in college when those people who'd never sliced bagels before started slicing bagels and they would slice the bagel into their hand and bleed all over everything? Yeah. Awesome touch.
And listen, I learned I learned uh to have incredible respect for meat slicers at the age of 15, because I cut my fingertip off. Oh, yeah, yeah, me too. The only real damage I've done, yeah, I did uh thumb into the meat slicer once. Slide down, boom. It's because I was on the cell phone, though.
It was my fault. And and never use a knife that's dull. That's a worse. To try to take out an avocado pit. Oh, what you glance off?
No, I I I I I cut cut my thumb wide open. Ah, because it the knife didn't go, the blade didn't hit the seed. Right. Bounced off and then took a chunk of my my my my head off. Okay, so let me set this up real quick.
So we're at the Museum of Food and Drinks benefit and MoFad and Patrick and Jim are at the same table, and they were arguing over who was the straight man in the team. And that which is kind of like an interesting thing. And I said, hey, uh, you know, your your I love your bread, obviously. Uh have for a long time. Uh don't you think Tuscan bread sucks?
And because expecting a yes, because everyone thinks it sucks because it contains no salt. Yeah. It's like nobody I said I said nobody likes Tuscan bread. Tuscans don't like Tuscan bread. The epicenter of where dining at tables began, ground zero, as far as his uh food historians know, of where the ritual uh ritualized meal of everyone sitting around a table was born.
Also the Italian language itself was born out of Tuscany. A lot came out of that place. I forgot. So you guys can't see uh what I'm uh looking at, but this looks like a Tuscan loaf, i.e. the crust looks terrible and the crumb is not nearly as nice as the normal crumb in the Sullivan Street bread.
You have to qualify your your your your your language at the end of the day, it's beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Yeah, it's it's okay, let me put it this way. I won't say anything. It is it is is sallow and dry looking. But but it's but by the way.
It's like on a mop. It like it sucks uh sauce up. It's also duty. Consider it this. I mean, this did not ferment.
This is an organic wheat from a small mill in Minneapolis called Sunrise Flower Mill. And I I didn't, I'm not used to working with it. It's not like my uh I don't work with this flower. I was sent a sample of some wheat for Mofab, um, which which it which it went into those loaves that we made for the event. But delicious.
Wow, and I and I've had that seed. And I missed my mark by about 20 minutes to a half an hour in terms of ideal fermentation, which would have made uh a real big difference in terms of what you see in terms of the crumb structure. However, that being said, when you eat bread in Tuscany, and if it's made from local grain, and this is also an argument about the aesthetics of bread and our expectations about bread, especially bread made in a local or regional grain economy, where the quality of the wheats are not going to be um consistent from season to season, and oftentimes, especially with weather like we have today, when it occurs in like August or September during harvest season, uh harvest harvest periods will most likely lead to wheat that has uh uh a a lesser quality protein uh in terms of its ability to ferment because when there's humidity, you end up uh on on dry wheat stalks, uh you oftentimes end up with like incidental uh germination, and that germination destroys the quality. It doesn't doesn't cut into the percentage of protein in the flour and isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's natural.
It's what really occurs when you you really farm and you're not spraying glyphosate in your crops two weeks before harvesting to kind of make them more sellable, you know. Which is so charmingly inconsistent, you would say. Do you ever b bake with germinator sprouted grains? Um sometimes for f for like you know for my own head, man. You know?
Am I allowed to just taste this as is or something? Yeah, I mean we can taste it as is. Do I need a spiel to make us taste good? I don't want to like, oh, this is grown in like, you know, some like farm uh upstate New York in the in the Champlain River Valley and da da duh, whatever. I mean, I could go off on this whole fucking story, but at the end of it's a family show.
I'm sorry, is it? No more kind of thing. Family show. Is it? I have a collar on the line.
For Jim. For gym actually. Okay, I'm in the wrong place. We have a collar on the air, but before the collar gets on, let me just give I'll give you the taste description. Do I need to put this?
Yeah, put it on. Put it on so you can hear. This is it's it's it's more fermented than most Tuscan loaves I've had. Now it's got a higher uh turn. Can you turn the headphones up on Jim's I think?
It turn it down. Oh turn it down. It's more um it's it's got more acidity than most of Tuscan loaves that I've had. And true to form, it tastes like it needs some freaking salt in it. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, well, there is I would say I was just calculated just calculating. There's about a um a third of one percent of salt. So isn't isn't even a percent of salt uh but based on the the batch, maybe even uh a tenth of a percent of salt in the dough. And what's your normal salt percentage? Um breads in general that we're used to eating anywhere from a percent and a half to two and a half sometimes.
Are you part of that more modern two and a half percent? I'm more a percent and a half. I'm I'm not a one percenter, but I'm more in the a percent and a half. I I I like to taste the grain. And were you a one percenter, would you be a Wall Street one percenter or a motorcycle gain one percent or I mean it's well here's the thing, there's it's really not the one percent, it's the one-tenth.
I'm gonna sound I'm gonna sound like Bernie Sanders now. It's the one-tenth of the of the one percent that control 48% of the wealth of our nation. And you didn't realize you're gonna have Bernie Sanders in person, right? You can you also do the uh the art mark? Can you also do the artvark from the Ant-Li Ardvark cartoon?
I forgot. There's a there's a colour, there's a colour. I don't want to miss a caller, you're on the air for Jim. Hi, uh Jim and Dave. This is Jeffrey in Costa Mesa.
Dude. How's it going? Good. How are you? Doing well.
Uh so I'm I've been baking a lot of bread and uh uh both kind of straight Levant style or whatever term you you like to use, and then also hybrid using, you know, incorporating some commercial yeast. And uh specifically been interested in in trying to manipulate how the the starter or the ferment is is fed, held, what hydration it's kept at. Uh because there's a lot of there are a lot of claims out there, let's say, about uh how that will affect structure, flavor, complexity. And so I I traveled down that's a good thing. Yeah, I was gonna say that again.
Viscosity is a uh a there's no like fixed thing on viscosity. As I was saying before with regional wheats, if you want to control the outward appearance of the product and your wheat, for example, varies in protein percent or quality, which can in turn change the absorption. One of the factors that can change and alter the absorption, which therefore effects the viscoelasticity of the dough, i.e., its texture when it's when a when a very precise amount of liquid has been added to it. Um I would be more concerned as a bread baker or craft baker with the apparent viscoelasticity of the dough than getting caught up with, whoa, I put exactly you know, uh 85% hydration, because you might get a great bread out of 75% hydration if the wheat is of a different quality. And I think that, you know, and in terms of how you hold uh a sourdough starter, uh the thicker and drier the preferment, the more gradual and slower the rate of uh uh fermentation.
The more water, the quick the the the more uh the faster it will ferment. So wetter things ferment. Because I tried to start testing variables specifically with that and realize, like doing side by side and realize it would just take an eternity to actually nail down the way all of these could potentially affect each other. So I'm wondering if you can speak to specifically uh how how feeding, holding, and and the hydration level or the viscosity, like you're saying, of the actual preferment and how that's let's let's take a look and how can that affect the the specifically the balance of lactic acid. Uh well let's let's go let's go this way.
Um if you if you go online, you can buy these really cool pH meters that you can attach to your iPhone, and it can upload an app. Do those work? Do those work? They do. If if they're calibrate, my assistant's shaking his head is like no fucking way.
You can also buy, there are there are uh uh pH meters that you can use to test the pH of the dough. You will find a correlation between in a finished dough, you'll find a range or correlation between um the pH of the dough, because you know what happens, you mix the dough together, and the pH will initially dip a little bit, like within the first 15 to 20 minutes, and then it will go up, it will arc upward, like like say six percent. I said uh uh uh like six pH. And then eventually over. All dough.
Whenever you add flour and water together and you allow and and you have some agent fermenting agent, be it commercial yeast. Or if I was like Bernie Sanders, if you want to fermentation agent. I'm sorry. I've been on this whole Bernie Sanders kick lately. You know that he's the only electable.
I know I'm getting even more headshakes for my he's the only not a political show. Oh shit, okay. Um negative ads won't stick with him, but they're gonna stick with Hillary. But we'll go back to um uh uh go back to fermentation. So if you measure the pH, you'll you'll see that there's a a really precise correlation between the pH of the dough, the length of time it takes for the dough to leaven, for example, under whatever constant constant conditions, i.e., if your house temperature, room temperature, whatever it is, or you use your your home oven with the pilot light on as like an incubator.
Um I don't know to what degree you're uh uh of a bread geek you are, but you sound like pretty much uh uh you know uh a bread bread nerd severe uh because you're you're obsessed, which is good, we're we're all there. Um and then um and then you'll see like an end result, you'll see a correlation between the pH and the the flavor profile. You see a correlation between uh the pH and the effect that the acidity has on the dough's ability to the yeasts that exist within the dough's ability to to leaven um uh the bread. Because at a certain pH is the yeasts become inactive, i.e. uh in the lab they say 4.4.
Uh but in in like practically it's like more like 4. When you're at like 4.6, at least in New York City bread baking, if you're doing sourdough. Um you're pretty much you know dealing with bread that's pretty sour. Um there's also another factor which is the tap water, because tap water varies uh from pH uh 6.6 in environments that are extremely acidic. Um and tap water in municipalities can go, I think as high as uh uh eight.
Um uh but but you know I know how buffered are those though? Won't the won't the actual biological system of the bread take over the tap water pretty quickly or no? Um well I mean you have to factor in the pH of the flour, the pH of the water, and then the rate of the the effect of the ferments on the dough, but at least everything that I've read is that when the pH is 4.4, um that fermentation stops, even if there's available glucose or materials to ferment, it's just the acidity itself, which is why a lot of people who maintain and hold starters at too high of a temperature and create these acid cultures are like, I don't know why, keep adding the starter to the dough, but it like just doesn't do anything. It just kind of gets all kind of slack and they make the bread and it tastes really tart because what's going on is it there's no fungal, it's just bacterial. It's like uh a f a flora.
You know, you just got to you have to maintain the right flora for the starter. And in terms of to answer your question in a s circumlocucious way, peripatetic way. Um it's really just about, you know, uh yeasts and microbes are constantly mutating and they will adapt and and become tolerant to conditions that you establish. Um the ones that we like, the ones that make bread and wine taste good, or the ones that are kind of in the 55 to 68 degree range. And then once you start getting above 60 degrees Fahrenheit, you're gonna start noticing other types of microbes.
It's not to say that you can't maintain a starter for a couple weeks at 75 degrees Fahrenheit, but eventually it's gonna acidify. And that that balance between the symbiotic relationship between those classes of uh saccharmes and those classes of lactobacilli will change. Okay. Is that is that cool? And do you find it to be a uh kind of a one-to-one uh balance of if the yeast is more active, the the lactobacilla are are less active, and vice versa?
I mean, there's the other thing is that you know it's w you know, when it's feeding time at the zoo, when it's feeding time at the zoo, you know, um a uh uh a starter with a lower pH that's younger, it will r react differently with the the finished dough. And even that ratio or proportion of preferment to the finished dough, uh, you know, uh if I had uh like a half uh five hundred grams, uh we're gonna talk metric, right? Oh yeah. So like let's say I had 500 grams of flour and I added 500 grams of of like preferment, levan, liquid, a stiff kind of dough, uh like what we call I call biga. Um and the pH of that dough was like four point five, four point three, whatever.
Um hopefully not three point seven or lower, because then it's so acid that the actual pH of the dough, there's a very the the window would be too small. Um but if you add like a large ratio of preferment to finished dough, um you could even add uh like uh 300 grams of flour if the pH of the preferment is on the higher side, like 4.6 and up, you could make a dough where there's actually the the the largest component would be the preferment, and then the f you're just adding a little bit of flour and salt to kind of put it together. And your your fermentation time would be reduced to like an hour, an hour and a half, say. Okay. Um or like a la nonid or a la the methods that I prescribe, mostly for practical purposes, maybe not so practical after all.
Um but if you use a small percentage, let's say that that curve, that window of fermentation is a lot longer, and there's more chances of manipulating it or coaxing it to get the right end result that you want. Wait, but Jim, to go back to what you were saying, and I mean to cut into this, but the the low the the low the lower the amount of starter that you're pitching in, right, the less the initial actual acidity matters, but the still the balance of flora in the starter is gonna be different if you start with a really acid. If you put like an acid, if you put a a highly acidic starter in a dough that was being m maintained at like 75 degrees, and it's like just basically a bacterial starter. It's not designed, it's not that won't function to leaven the bread. It will function to cause the the flour to become the the the paste, the dough, the pasta, to become acidic.
And that's all it's gonna do. I mean I've seen bakers in in Italy that keep their natural leavening in their bake shop at like you know like a hundred degrees all the time, and it's like just inedible acidic crap. By the way, Jim hates Italian bread in general, right? No, I love I love it. No, that's not true.
I love Italian bread. I love it. Didn't you didn't you go to Italy and tell them that they're all garbage? No, it's uh I uh No, I went there uh and I and I and I told them that um that they have a crisis. Carlo Petrini said the same thing.
He said the the biggest uh free fall in terms of Italian quality products with either the fast food culture we live in or modernization is with bread. He said they're in a crisis. He said that in 1998, 2000 already. Well, I said it last year. I'm sorry, I'm eating some Toshican bread with some broth new rob.
He also said the same about cheese. And uh although he was very much responsible for getting Barolo and Barbaresco up. I mean, literally one vineyard trip at a time, he was like, You should age the grapes longer, you should do all these things, cut off the bad grapes and not use them in the wine. I mean, Barolo and Barbaresco were pretty mediocre wines in the 70s, 80s. So yeah, Carlo was saying it about that.
I've had some I've had some Barolo from that era that was freaking delicious. Well, Nebbiolo grape, that whole region of barbaresco and stuff. Yeah, some could be delicious, of course, but by the way, the uh the uh the meat that you brought here is really barnyardy, huh? Patrick loves it. Patrick loves some barnyard as meat.
This is amazing. This is uh obviously from Di Paolo's because I can always tell when something's made in Europe with my wife's cheeses. I'm like, this is a great American French. This is domestic. I'm very surprised.
Um it's excellent. Well, I mean, I'm not anymore. I mean, I was gonna bring you some of my piggy. My my um Were you buying a whole pig or something? No, I raised three pigs last.
I've been doing it for the last three years. What breed? Tamarth. Oh wow. Oh, you like Tam?
Well, Tams are good mothers, right? So they're easy, they're easier to raise because they won't like squash their kids and like they can feed themselves. My my neighbors and I usually get like five piglets. I take three. And then during the summertime, because I have a house upstate in Sullivan County, I I like any time we're cooking every day, usually at the end of the day, I head over to the the I don't want to call it a pig style because they have like a little bit of a yard, but then they've got like two acres of woods to forage in.
So the animals, you know, go the summer eating vegetable scraps and whatever critters they find as they're rooting up the earth. It's a great bacon hog the tamper. Yeah yeah it's a phenomenal meat. I I don't they don't muscle up though right yeah they're a leaner hog. It's very rare that I actually buy um I buy pork from from I mean I I only I only eat my own well that'll explain why we haven't gotten any orders from you in the past four minutes.
Sorry about that. Listen before like before this is over we should talk about the Tuscan bread. Now listen why I want you to sell me now now do you see what I'm saying though about the Tuscan bread's function is really a blank canvas with the food. I don't I'm not buying it here's the thing canvas right you can't eat the pecorino and you can't eat the oil without wishing instead that we were eating your like semi decesimal. I'm like you know what I wish I wish I just had the semi-desesimal.
For me there's there's the the act or a polycy or everyone for me this is very nostalgic and I actually kind of in some ways like my favorite breakfast is Tuscan bread saltless butter and honey. Is that is that like saying that I also like Twinkies? That's even more cruel saltless butter too. Can is there any way I can get a beer that you're drinking looks really and you know we have we have a a a PhD here in in anthropology and sociology, Costus Gunis, who's flown in all the way from Crete to share with us his insights and thoughts about about this discussion. So hi, so give us give us some thoughts on the on the d on the discussion.
From a Cretan perspective. I won't get confused. No. It's out of my it's on my field. Let me ask you this.
I'm enjoying it. This is your chance to bash it. Let me ask you this. The the bread in Crete, they put salt in it. Do they not?
Yes, they do. What do you think of this particular You know how good Jim's bread is. Right. What do you think of this? Um interesting.
I mean diplomatic. Blend. Also, the crust doesn't have the same thing. It doesn't have the way it should have. It's like mushy or uh stretchy.
It's dry. Dry. The way Taskin bread is baked. It's baked with no salt or a little or no salt. It's uh baked, usually initially the everything, every bakery that does it the the traditional way tries to maintain a dry oven for the first three to seven minutes of the bake, where whereby the dough, in this case, because the dough was um underfermented, it kind of rounds out a little bit, lifts off the floor of the oven, forms a crust or skin on the dough, the opposite of what you would think.
Right. Like you're not looking for humidity. And then how do they how do they do that? Do they use a low load in the oven? Or you know, the whole, and then it's baked at between 380 and 400 degrees, depending upon the bakery, for a lot longer than you would normally bake.
So you end up with this loaf of bread that actually kind of is kind of semi-stale in a way. Right. To begin with, but it doesn't really stale. Like I can ha eat this bread in three days, and it's textually not that different than it is today. It's like and starts off as two-day old, but it stays.
Yeah, but it doesn't, you know, but the idea of what is staleness, staleness is a perceptual thing. That's an elasticity of the crust though. No, it's I I I mean, yes, chewier. But then there's technical explanations, and then there's when you eat it, does it taste like garbage? Well, that's well, no, that's well, that's subjective when you say that something tastes like garbage, it's all relative.
I mean, for me, Oscar something is garbage. I'm not saying this is garbage, it's not a big thing. I mean, like one of my favorite snacks would be like this bread. Like I didn't bring uh I was gonna bring some garlic in a toaster oven, but I I I couldn't couldn't bring all that stuff with me. But just to do fitunta, you know, just to do to the bread toasted, rubber garlic, a little bit of olive oil.
I go one step further. I like to put vinegar on my bread because I just like veneer. So you're saying this is actually baked longer, even though the crust color is a lot lower than what it would normally be because of the my my daughter doesn't like it when I talk with food in my mouth, but I'm gonna go go for it. Two-minute morning, Dave. All right, right, yeah, come on.
The bread is baked at a lower temperature, which is why the color of the bread is the way it is. Right, right. If there was a higher quantity of salt or any percentage of salt over over one percent, you would end up with the scarring that takes I call it salt scoring, where the little alveoli that are along the surface of the dough would kind of uh become places where the salt will crystallize. So you end up having like you end up seeing you ever seen like bread that's kind of like kind of like pale and white, but it's like overcooked? Yes.
That's like I'll call I my name for it is salt scarring. And you see like the little white dots. Like if you see dough that's slow fermented or fermented in refrigerators, which is very popular these days. Oh, you don't like do you don't like refrigeration retarding? I just uh well I think it's I think it's a little retarded.
Ha ha I think it's um I think it's yeah, I mean I yeah, I guess I What if someone doesn't do it every day and they realize it's rising too fast, they need to slow it down a little bit? Um it's really convenient that we have refrigeration. It's lovely that we have it. I'm a big supporter. I'm a big yes, you're you're in the meat biz.
Um I mean you wouldn't say like throw it and throw it in the fridge and the next time pitch less in or what? Well, I mean, you know, as as a uh uh a thing of convenience, yeah, we have refrigeration, but uh in general I like I like live baking. I like the element of risk. I like that I have to kind of be kind of connected to the the process of the fermentation so that I I can control it without necessarily having to employ uh like whatever a battery of refrigerators and increase my carbon footprint. Right.
Can I ask one last question? Because it was so interesting to HRNN News. Did you say, I'm just wanting to make uh quote if it's possible, that climate change and El Nino and global warming could perhaps be negatively affecting the quality of artisan bread around the world. Is there a direct correlation? Did I hear you kind of ended that?
No. No, because it's too much. I am El Nino. No, of course. But I thought you said weather affects the bread.
It could lower the quality of local graineries ingredients. There's a reason why during our colonial period. Excuse me, one second. Oh. Fucking broccoli raw.
One minute day. During During our colonial period, wheat was grown everywhere. Brooklyn was like the epicenter of wheat agriculture in in at least in this state. Yeah, and one of the great apples in the world came out of there, but now it's Spitzenberg? Spitzerburg, yeah.
So right now, uh, you know, we can grow wheat here. It's just that our expectation about what good bread is. It's like you can't fit square pegs into round holes without kind of losing a little bit of the squareness, a little bit of the roundness of each. And so I think that our idea about what good bread is needs to change. Like are we still kind of stuck in this dialogue of like, does it have big holes and stuff?
And like, does it you know? You know you know what we didn't get to pissing me off. Everyone wants to know where do they go after the no need technique so that they can use your technique but build up to make different styles of bread. We're not gonna have time to get into it. I have a new book coming out, and it and it has a whole thing on using natural leavening for no need.
I'm doing it with when's it coming out? God knows. Um I'm doing it with Maria. Yeah. Well, okay, so look out for the look out for that.
Secondly. But but you know, it's it is it is it is it is it will it will come out. I know that we're like at the uh final phases of retesting recipes, and hopefully by next year. Do you do you believe in labeling? Uh huh.
Do you like to label things in the kitchen? Um I I personally love labeling. I think it's a bit more. Thank you, cooking issues, blue tape keychain. Oh, it's so cute.
Thank you. Yeah, thanks for coming on cookie. Wait, on the on the way out, as they're playing the theme. What is the most alarming piece of garbage in the bread world today? What's the worst thing that's happening in front of it?
By the way, Jim Jim has taught us, Jim has taught us it's not bad, it's different. It's not different. It's different. Love things for what they are. What they are, but what is what is what Martin's potato rolls?
Oh that they they do taste good, but I mean I'm not like a I just think bad bread is bad bread. I mean gosh food is fast food. I'm sorry, I don't care what corporation is behind it. Wow, cooking issues. I know.
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