Real bread: a slice from the archives

The recent launch of Sustain’s laudable Real Bread Campaign reminded me of a visit I made in 2002 to a truly masterful baker, Norman Olley of North Elmham Bakery in deepest Norfolk.

I scurried to my archives to fill in the detail of the memory and unearthed this piece I wrote for local magazine Suffolk Norfolk Life (bear with me and wade through the first few paragraphs of digression to get to the bread!):

Dereham

I love to think on thee, pretty, quiet D___, thou pattern of an English country town, with thy clean but narrow streets branching out from thy modest market place, with thine old-fashioned houses, with here and there a roof of venerable thatch…

George Borrow, one of Dereham’s best known and most eccentric sons, penned this fitting eulogy to the town at the very heart of Norfolk. Written in 1851, his words still ring true today. With two weekly markets (Tuesday and Friday), recently a monthly farmers’ market (the second Saturday of the month, at the Railway Station) and a good range of independent shops, Dereham is a model market town. One feels that Borrow would still be proud.

Writer, wanderer, linguist and student of gypsies, Borrow travelled and wrote widely. Just the titles of his most remembered works – The Bible In Spain, Lavengro, Wild Wales and Zincali, An Account of the Gypsies in Spain – are enough to convey his eclecticism. In Lavengro – the curious title simply a gypsy word for linguist – he wrote fondly of his native Norfolk. His later years were spent almost back in the county, at Oulton, to which he retired with his wife. Even then he was liable to announce that he was out for a walk and set off for several months.

The best dumplings in the world

In Wild Wales, Borrow recounts an incident in which, speaking in Welsh to the locals, he was mistaken for a native of Wales. He leapt swiftly to the defence of his roots,

I am not a man of Llydaw’ said I, in English, ‘but of Norfolk where the people eat the best dumplings in the world, and speak the purest English.

The best bread in the world?

At North Elmham, five miles north of Dereham, the people might well claim to eat some of the best bread in the world, for the village is home to the excellent North Elmham bakery. As soon as he speaks, Norman Olley’s deep love for bread is clear. His approach is simple – the best ingredients, the simplest of recipes and plenty of time are all it takes to make good, honest English bread.

Choosing flour

Norman’s insistence on using only the finest ingredients leads him to use only 100% strong Canadian flour, the hardest available, for his white dough. European wheat has a protein content of between 7 and 11%, whilst the short, sharp summer growing season of the Canadian prairies, and the varieties cultivated there, give protein contents up to 14%. Protein is crucial to the chemistry of bread, specifically the glutenin and gliadin which form gluten, the long strands of which absorb water and give a light, even texture. The higher the protein content, the more the dough absorbs moisture and the better the texture.

While other bakers may use blended flours that might contain 60-70% hard wheat, Norman insists on 100% strong flour. This comes at a price around double that of the cheapest bread flour and Norman reckons he’s probably the only baker in the country to use it.

Following tradition

Norman makes his dough according to the traditional “one stone” recipe – 14lb flour, 4oz fat, 2oz salt plus water and yeast – kneaded in a twin-arm mixer for 25 to 30 minutes, and left to stand for an hour. The action of time is important and if the dough hasn’t doubled in size after an hour, Norman leaves it and comes back later. Once it’s risen sufficiently, the dough can be shaped or put into tins, and then baked in the 3 tier brick-clad oven. The oven’s 1700 bricks ensure a gentle, even heat that gives a slow and mellow bake impossible in modern convector ovens. Even the 28 year-old patina of the bread tins contributes to the end result, just as an ancient teapot often gives a better brew.

Besides the white dough, Norman makes a wholemeal and “Norfolk crunch”, with malt and whole seeds. (Norfolk crunch is similar to “Granary”, but as the flour isn’t from Rank Hovis MacDougall, who own the rights to that name, it can’t be so called.) Though he only works with these three basic doughs, each can be shaped into any one of over 200 shapes and sizes to give a distinct flavour and texture. It’s easy to think that bread is bread, but this approach reveals the same complexity in simple materials that Italian cooks recognise in their hundreds of pasta shapes.

Daily bread

Bread is one of the most basic, but potentially most delicious, foods with a place at the heart of our culture. From its part in Christian prayer and worship, to our use of the word “bread” for money, it is clearly of great value to us. A true baker, like Norman, brings no complication or sophistication to the making of bread, just a dedication to the fine details of an age-old process. Mass production cuts corners – on quality of ingredients, time and method – and compensates with additives and marketing that try desperately to paper over the product’s failings.

Millions may be spent persuading us to eat the latest garishly packaged creation, but to taste properly made bread, containing only the most basic of ingredients, is to realise that some so-called progress should be stubbornly resisted. Norman’s bread is as simple as it comes but as delicious as any and has a surprising complexity in its flavours. The soft, springy texture, slight sweetness of taste and delicate yeasty aromas of the middle are matched by the gentle bite and hint of caramel in the crust. It’s better than sliced bread.

Norman spreads the word about good bread by giving talks through the county. He also introduces children to the joys of proper bread by bringing school groups into the bakery and teaching them to bake their own loaves. The teachers are often amazed at the enthusiasm with which the children throw themselves into the process and their eager taste for the end result, as they come to realise that bread can be delicious in itself and not just a tasteless base for the latest spread.

Tough times for real bread

Nonetheless, the business of selling proper bread is increasingly tough. The bakery once had several shops around central Norfolk but has had to scale back to selling from just the bakery itself and one shop in Norwich St, Dereham, with wholesale deliveries to other independent outlets. In the 1950s there were 9 bakeries in Dereham alone; today, there are just 6 in the whole of Breckland. Only 4% of the population buy their bread from small bakeries, but most of them are loyal customers.