Traveling on Zambian Time

Time is kind of a loose concept here in Zambia, especially when transport -- of whatever sort -- is involved. We were planning to visit farms about three hours away from the city. Pick-up time was 7 a.m. We hoped to attend some meetings starting at 11 a.m.

My friend arrived about 7:30, then we had to go downtown to pick up another person. Traffic was horrendous and took us nearly an hour. We didn’t hit the road until 9 or so, with traffic clogging the two-lane roads. We stopped to get a spare tire fixed because we were heading out to the bush. Then we stopped for a bite. Then to see a conservation farming project on the side of the road. We finally pulled into the town we were heading for at 1:30 p.m. and the person we were meeting was not there -- he was out at a meeting with farmers.

So we piled back into the car, drove about 20 miles down a dirt road to a small town. There we texted him. (Yes, mobile coverage is probably better here than the US). As it turned out, we had passed him on the road so had to wait for him to catch up. Then he led us down even narrower dirt roads for about another hour, until we came to the farmer we were going to meet. But he wanted us to see his corn fields, so we climbed back in the cars, went down an even narrower dirt farm road, following his tractor (the only mechanized equipment for about 1,000 farming families). We road the 4-wheelers through shallow streams, past a 5-year-old boy herding cattle with a stick, and then to the field. By the time we arrived, it was 4:30 p.m. 

So what do you do traveling down dirt roads for hours at a time, dodging pot holes? Well, if you're my friend James Luhana, a Zambian who works on a US AID project, you buy a knock-off Luther Vandross compilation from the boys at a gas station and pop it in the CD player. Then you proceed to sing along with "Nights in Harlem," as well as every other cut on the Mp3. James amazingly knew every word. So there we were, music blaring, roaring down a dirt road past village huts, with James laughing and singing.  

 

We were the only ones with vehicles. Most people walk, or if they are lucky have a bicycle. Women strap infants and young kids to their backs. I have not seen one stroller my entire stay in Zambia, even in the cities. But I did see a family of four riding together on one bicycle.

Transport is difficult, which is why those who can manage to buy a tractor are better off. They can make money not just tilling fields for other farmers, but hauling -- whether grain sacks, people or beer. (I'll be writing about this in more depth for this Worldwatch project). 

When it comes to transport, you see many novel things, like those two goats lashed to the back of a bicycle that a farmer was taking down the road. Yes, the goats were alive.

How Do You Prevent a Garden Pest, The Elephant?

 
This past weekend, I took time off from work and headed up to Kafue National Park, the largest park in Africa roughly the size of Switzerland. It was my one shot to see animals I’ve only seen in the zoo, like elephants, impalas, and lions. And we did see a lot, including a pride of lions that was only 20 feet away. Luckily, they were not interested in us from a culinary perspective.

 

We stayed at Mukambi Safari Lodge on the banks of the Kafue river, which I recommend the next time you’re in Zambia (I know, it's a long shot).

 

Anyway, on the lodge grounds, I noticed a small, sad, vegetable garden.

So, of course, I get to thinking. It rains just 3-1/2 months a year and then it is bone dry and sunny. But the lodge has the advantage of being right next to the river. The water could irrigate the garden and it would get full sun. It would be the Central Valley of California! Tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, potatoes would thrive.

So I took my idea to Linda, the friendly lodge manager, who listened to me politely.

“Yes we grow all our own herbs,” she said.

“But you could do so much more,” I replied enthusiastically.

Then she told me about the elephant. Apparently, one nearby likes tomatoes. As well as everything else they’ve tried to grow in the garden.

"We much prefer the hippos. They just graze on the grass."

“Have you tried a fence?”

“Yes, he knocked it down. Now we’re thinking of building a cinder block wall, but he will probably topple that as well.”

“Well, maybe you should spread some scat from a predator.”

“The elephant has no predators.”

“What about planting a crop that will repel him?”

“Yes, we heard cayenne repels elephants. This one seems to eat the peppers. We even tried spreading ground-up peppers on the fencing. It didn’t work.”

“Hum, interesting problem,” I replied.

So much for importing my gardening ideas to Africa. But if anyone has an effective elephant repellent for a vegetable garden let me know and I’ll pass it on to Linda.

Update: Apparently, bees repel elephants, or even the sound of bees. Researchers are trying this in Africa.

- Samuel Fromartz

Field Notes from Zambia

The biggest current problem in Zambia? A food surplus. Rains were verygood this year and there's now a bumper crop of corn hitting the markets. Prices to farmers will drop drastically, leaving smallholder farmers who grow 80% of the crop without much cash. So the government is stepping in and buying the crop. Too much food a problem? Yet food insecurity in some pockets and malnourished children? Africa kind of puts all your assumptions to a test.

Driving down the road west of the capital of Lusaka, you see small fields of cotton that are the equivalent of a suburban backyard in the US. Yet these farmers are growing for the world market. Despite the high quality of the crop, though, it's hard to get a fair price. Blame it on “market inefficiencies.” Smallholder farmers don't really know what their crop is worth, because there's no open exchange. So they just sell it to the guy who arrives on a truck and take what they can get.

On the side of the road, you can see huge corn sacks filled with black rock, with wire over the top securing the load. Why were so many people selling rocks I wondered? My driver told me they weren’t rocks. They were charcoal. The people in the country burn trees to make charcoal, which is then trucked into the city. “People cook food with charcoal in Lusaka?” I asked. As it turns out, many do, with obvious ramifications for deforestation.

Zambia is not cheap. In fact, I’ve found food prices just a bit cheaper than in Washington. A lunch of chicken kebob and rice cost around $8. Bottled water runs around $1.25. A nice vegetarian Indian meal with chickpeas, vegetables and paneer cost about $20. The equivalent food in DC would run $5 or $10 more. The only thing I’ve found that’s cheap is local cell phone service. You buy time in increments of 4000 kwacha, or 80 cents, and it seems to last quite a long time.

With 5,000 kwacha to the dollar, you start calculating into the millions for a hotel bill. I think it would be easier if the nation just lopped all the zeros off its currency and started again. But I’m probably not the first one to think of that.

- Samuel Fromartz

Tracking the trends at Sustainable Foods Institute

For a few years, I’ve attended the Sustainable Foods Institute, an annual conference at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It’s one of those rare events that brings together a cross-section of scientists, journalists, chefs, food producers and businesses to discuss the food system -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- with an eye on fixing it. 

A lot of common themes come up, but each year I find I get a valuable nugget from someone who brings up something really new, or is doing something surprising.

This year, a couple of really stood one. One was the Wholesome Wave Foundation, whose mission is to get more fresh fruits and vegetables into underserved, low-income communities at an affordable price. The group does so by doubling the value of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) coupons, an especially valuable task at a time when the recession is still running deep. So if a customer has $5 in SNAP food vouchers, they can buy $10 worth of produce.

I heard Michel Nischan, the chef behind the effort, speak about this two years ago. At the time, he had a model farmers market in Connecticut where he was showing some success, with the market getting a steady stream of customers. But what really surprised me was how much the organization has grown since then, expanding into 18 states and more than 160 markets. Right now, the money to double the coupons’ value is coming from private donors, but Nischan said local government is stepping in as well.

He also disabused two widely accepted notions -- that poor people don’t want to eat fresh fruits and vegetables and there is no economic value for businesses in these communities. Instead, these communities are generating income for farmers and getting produce they might not otherwise afford. 

Marion Nestle, the food policy and nutrition guru at New York University, pointed to a graph in a keynote she gave showing a gradual upward slope in the price of fresh produce since the 1980s and a general downward trend in the price of packaged goods over the past two decades. The price signal is clear to low-income people: buy more processed food, which is linked to higher rates of diabetes and heart disease. 

Packaged goods are often made from highly subsidized crops (corn, soybeans), while fresh fruits and vegetables get no subsidies. Wholesome Wave’s program works to address that, though a major shift in the $20 billion farm subsidy program (which mostly goes to wealthy and big farmers) would have a major effect too.

Feed the World?

There were also dramatic contrasts. Pamela Ronald, a professor of plant pathology at UC Davis, gave a talk about the need for genetically modified food to “feed the world” -- a familiar talking point in industrial agriculture circles -- but she twinned it with a companion message that GMOs weren’t incompatible with organic farming. In fact, that GMO technology could produce seeds suited to an organic farming system. (A factoid: Pam and I overlapped in our years at Reed College, a school that values debate from alternative perspectives!). 

She came at this from the angle of a GMO seed breeder who is interested in reducing pesticide poisonings in the developing world and in boosting food production -- both noble goals. But her assertions on how to do so were left hanging in the air and could have benefitted from another perspective or counterpoint. I did get one, however, when the conference bused out to Earthbound Farm - the organic produce company I wrote about in my book, Organic Inc.

I discussed the issue with Stan Pura, a farmer and partner at Earthbound who has grown both organic and conventional produce (though not the corn and soy where GMOs are prevalent). After years of farming with both methods on a commercial scale, he told me he sees very little difference in yield between the two at least in many of the crops he grows.

In produce, Pura’s company Mission Ranches is breeding seeds to combat specific plant diseases, though not by using genetic engineering. Plus, he relies on familiar organic techniques such as crop rotation, keeping buffers of beneficial habitat to attract good insects (which eat the harmful ones). He didn’t think organic was harder than conventional farming, but it had to be learned, and like anything, as your learning curve improved, so did your results.

In fresh produce, Pura thought the argument that organic requires a far greater amount of land or has drastically lower yields doesn’t hold water. Nor does the argument make economic sense in the Salinas Valley, which has among the most expensive farmland in the world. If organic were so inferior and troublesome, why would Pura grow it on such valuable land?

In fact, in the spring mix salad market, organic is now 50% of the marketplace. Why? Because it can be produced at parity with conventional lettuce -- that is, at a similar cost and yield. That might not occur in every crop, in all conditions. Some crops may do worse, others better.

But in corn and soybeans, the economics of production are distorted by the $20 billion farm program. If the healthy produce were valued as much as grains, Wholesome Wave might have a far easier job than it does now shifting purchases away from processed food. The low-income customers of Wholesome Wave’s innovative program would begin to see vast change in their spending power.

And come to think of it, those farmers that Ronald is working with in the developing world would benefit as well, since they would no longer face competition from subsidized U.S. crops. Better seeds mean nothing if the farmer has no incentive to grow them. In short, what's often presented as a scientific silver bullet is far more complicated when it meets the real world.

I hope to offer more thoughts in this issue in the coming week, during a trip to Zambia to see innovative projects with small-holder farmers. 

- Samuel Fromartz

Notes From a Slaughterhouse: Proposed USDA Rules Could Crimp Local Meat

The following post was submitted by Joe Cloud, partner in T&E Meats, a small-scale locally focused slaughterhouse in Harrisonburg, Va. I wrote about T&E in the WaPo and invited Joe to post his thoughts on this blog. - SF

 By Joe Cloud

This is usually the slowest time of the year for butchering, but T&E Meats is booked months in advance, like the other small meat processing plants in Virginia. We’re working at almost full capacity to bring locally grown, pasture-raised, and humanely slaughtered quality meats to market. 

But, right now, our future is looking tenuous due to newly proposed regulations from the USDA.

Picture an hourglass and you’ll understand the local, sustainable meat crisis: there are plenty of willing consumers looking for humanely raised, quality local meats, and there are more and more farmers looking to “meat” that consumer demand (sorry – couldn’t help myself!), but the real bottle neck is processing capacity. Small, community-based meat processing plants have become an endangered species in America, done in by an ocean of super-cheap industrial meat and the challenges and costs of meeting one-size-fits-all regulations.

Although species go extinct on earth on a regular basis, every so often there is a major event that comes along and wipes out 40% or 50%. The same happens in the small business world. A few businesses fold every year due to retirement, poor management, and changes in the market, and that is quite normal. But then every so often a catastrophic event comes along that causes a wholesale wipeout.

In the small meat businesses in America, catastrophic events result from changes high up in the regulatory food chain that make it very difficult for small plants to adapt. The most recent extinction event occurred at the turn of the millennium when Small and Very Small USDA-inspected slaughter and processing plants were required to adopt the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point Plan) system. It has been estimated that over 20%, perhaps more, of existing small plants went out of business when HACCP was first instituted. Now, proposed changes to HACCP threaten to take down many of the remaining local plants, making the availability of healthy, local meats a rare commodity.

This is ironic given the USDA's new emphasis on promoting local food production. The department's Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Program web site says it wants to "foster the viability and growth of small and mid-size farms and ranches, and we want to create new opportunities for farmers and ranchers by promoting locally produced foods." But the newly proposed regulations from the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the inspection arm of the USDA, will reduce local opportunities for ranchers, never mind create new ones.

The intent of HACCP is to prevent contamination of meat by harmful pathogens. It does so by instituting well-recognized, established processes and controls set by the USDA itself. At T&E, we have had a HACCP Plan in place since 1999, and it works. We undergo extensive E.Coli testing every year, and have never had a positive sample.

But on March 19, the FSIS published a Draft Guidance on HACCP System Validation, outlining new rules which would institute much more intensive testing of all meats, whether or not a problem has been identified. These requirements will cost small plants tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, every year -- a financial burden appears great enough to force many to shutter.

Now, the reason these rules are being proposed is clear: millions of pounds of recalled hamburger, e. coli food poisoning incidents and distrust by consumers and foreign trading partners of U.S. produced meat. But these problems have arisen at plants that handle thousands of animals a day in extremely fast-moving production lines.

Small plants operate quite differently. At T&E, for example, we process around 20 animals a day. I know which farmer delivered each animal, often because that same farmer wants his butchered animal back so he can sell it. We're not mixing thousands of animals of unknown provenance into piles of hamburger meat and then sending it all around the country. 

Perhaps a large plant slaughtering 5,000 animals per day can afford its own lab and microbiology staff, and can pass the cost along to the consumer. And perhaps they should, given the recalls arising from these large-scale facilities. But most small plants can’t handle it.

The USDA needs to recognize that "One Size Fits All" inspection no longer works. The risks arising from mega agribusiness plants are far different from community-based plants and they should be regulated appropriately. This does not mean lowering the hurdles for small processors. Rather it means tailoring regulations to the scale and risks of an operation. That way we can provide what the consumer wants – safe AND local food, not just the shrink-wrapped anonymous meat in the supermarket.

The USDA is accepting comments on this matter until June 19th, 2010. The original deadline was April 19. You can learn more at the Association of American Meat Processors web site, or the Niche Meat Processors Assistance Network.

Please submit a comment if you care about community-based meat processing and humanely produced meats. Your comments really do matter. Submit your comments to the email address DraftValidationGuideComments@fsis.usda.gov or to the Docket Clerk, USDA, FSIS, Room 2-2127, 5601 Sunnyside Avenue, Beltsville, MD 20705.

Jose Andres Sniffs His Giant Paella

Here's Chef Jose Andres taking a whiff of his giant paella at the opening of the White House Farmers Market  last week. 

I was skeptical it would be good, because he was making a paella for hundreds. But it was actually delicious. By the way, that's a huge mushroom on the plate.

 
 

15 Steps to Avoid Toxic Chemicals -- As Highlighted by the President's Cancer Panel

The President's Cancer Panel made quite a stir this week when it released a report (pdf) on environmental cancer risk. It said what many health researchers, doctors and advocates have been saying for a long time -- that we face increased health risks from exposure to chemicals, only a fraction of which have been tested. It also advocated buying organic food without using the word (it said food grown without pesticides instead).

Though it got little attention, here is what the panel recommended to avoid exposure to toxic chemicals:

1. Choose foods, house and garden products, play spaces, toys, medicines and medical tests that will minimize children's exposure to toxics.
2. Reduce exposure to occupational chemicals by removing shoes before entering the home and washing clothes separate from other family laundry.
3. Filter home tap or well water to reduce exposure to known carcinogens and endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Use filtered tap water rather than commercial bottled water.
4. Store and carry water in stainless steel, glass or BPA- and phthalate-free containers.
5. Microwave food and beverages in ceramic or glass -- not plastic -- containers.
6. Choose food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers and wash conventionally grown produce to remove residues.
7. Eat meat produced without antibiotics and added growth hormones.
8. Avoid or minimize consumption of processed, charred, and well-done meats.
9. Wear a headset when using a cell phone and keep calls brief.
10. Check home radon levels.
11. Reduce or eliminate exposure to second-hand smoke.
12. Discuss the need for tests or procedures that involve radiation exposure with your doctor.
13. Create a record of all imaging or nuclear medicine tests received and if known, the estimated radiation dose for each test.
14. Avoid overexposure to UV-rays by wearing protective clothing and sunscreens and avoiding the sun when it's most intense.
15. Become an advocate by strongly supporting environmental cancer research and measures to remove toxins from the environment.

Factory Farm "sounded like children being tortured. And it didn't stop."

Jane Black of the Washington Post interviewed David Kirby, author of 'Animal Factory' . This one passage really stuck out.

Q: Of all the shocking statistics and stories in the book, what is the one that affected you most?

A: I visited 20 states. I saw things I never thought I would see. I smelled things I never thought I would smell in my life. But one night, I was at a small family farm in Illinois that raised pigs. Across the street was a pig factory. It was at night. The workers had gone home. And as soon as it got dark, you could hear the screams and the squealing and the crying. It was not like one pig over there. Like hundreds.

Q: Did something happen? 

A: No. This was just a night on a factory farm. Because the pigs get bigger and bigger and the pens don't. And they fight. It sounded like children being tortured. And it didn't stop. It was the most haunting and most tragic sound I've ever heard. And I think it was because it didn't stop. If there had been a commotion in the barn and they all started making noise, I might have forgotten about it. But this was arresting. That tells me these are really unhealthy animals, that there are too many animals and that they really are stressed out.

- Samuel Fromartz

Behind the Taste and Health Quotient of Whole Grains

   

Image: Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies, source Washington Post.

Truth be told, I was a little worried by the recipe testing I did for my story, "Whole New Ballgame for Whole Grains," in the WaPo. I was baking out of Kim Boyce's recently published Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours, which represents a kind of culinary watershed in whole grain baking, because she takes a dozen underused grains from amaranth to teff in entirely new directions. 

But Boyce, a former pastry chef at Spago and Campanile in Los Angeles, does not shy away from butter. Now I like butter, but in baking muffins, scones, pancakes and waffles steadily for about three weeks, I was eating a lot of the stuff. (Yes, it adds incomparable flavor to baked goods). I was also eating more sugar than I usually do, though Boyce relies on dark sweeteners like brown sugar and unsulphured molasses, though does not shy away from white sugar when needed. Here's the nutritional information for the rather large-size whole wheat chocolate chip cookie pictured above: 240 calories, 7 grams saturated fat. And yes, it tastes phenomenal.

So does this defeat one of the oft-stated purposes of whole grains, which is to boost the health quotient in your diet? As we know, whole grains add fiber, minerals, antioxidents and vitamins, most of which are lost in refined white flour.

I have two thoughts about this. Yes, the added saturated fat and sweeteners do reduce the health  of the baked good. On the other hand, they do end up higher on the health spectrum than a baked good made with white flour, butter and white sugar. And this is especially true of baked goods that you buy in the store, which I often find are far more loaded with sugar than these recipes. 

But, more importantly, consider the purpose of Boyce's exercise. She wasn't aiming to make a health cookie. As I wrote in the article, "Although purists might bristle at her use of white flour, butter and sugar, it's important to remember that Boyce is not aiming for low-fat and sugar-free. She is aiming for taste: a new kind of taste arising from these under-used grains." And that emphasis on taste may open the uninitiated to the flavors of these grains.

The bottom line -- these pastries are delicious, the kind of thing you'd make on the weekend or a special occasion. The carrot muffin would be a slam dunk on Mother's Day, for example. But there are healthier ways to get whole grains, through porridges and breads that  Boyce also dabbles with in the book. Another direction, try the risottos or salads or stews that Lorna Sass has in Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way. It also includes good basic information on cooking whole grains. 

I consume whole grains largely through breads, made with a mix of flours, water, salt and yeast or sourdough starter. But I often make barley risotto (high in soluble fiber) and usually have cooked whole grains in the refrigerator that can be easily added to a salad. I'm also starting to experiment with sprouted whole grains. And I'll be posting on a spelt pizza dough recipe so check back soon.

By the way, I was also thrilled that my friend Barry Estabrook (aka Politics of the Plate) was right next to me in the food section. He just won a well-deserved Beard Award for his story on slavery in Florida's tomato fields. 

- Samuel Fromartz

On Sale Now!!! Mark Bittman iPhone App, and Such a Deal!

 
 This is hard to pass up -- the Mark Bittman ouvre, How to Cook Everything, which is $21 and change over at Amazon, for the bargain basement price of $1.99 in an iPhone app -- that is, if you've already spent hundreds on the iPhone itself.

Mark Bittman? There's an App for That - Slashfood .

How to get our Bittman fix? Let us count the ways: There's his New York Times "Minimalist" column, of course; his expert contributions at KitchenDaily.com; his health and fitness articles for Runner's World and Men's Health; and, lest one forget, his 1044-page tome How to Cook Everything. I happen to own that $35 behemoth myself; I thumb through it compulsively, getting Bittman's take on everything from scrambled eggs to bouillabaisse. But now the book's contents can be downloaded to your iPhone -- for less than two bucks.

Culinate, the smart food site, is apparently behind the app. What a great idea. I can't wait for more.

Oh, wait there already is more. Michael Ruhlman has an iPhone app too, based on his book Ratio. It helps you calculate ingredients in "all fundamental culinary preparations."

Now, Rodale, where are the organic gardening apps? J.I. Rodale would have been all over this. 

- Samuel Fromartz

This Organic Loaf: Sourdough Spelt with Flax Seeds

 
Imagine if Matisse limited himself to one color. His paintings wouldn't be quite so beautiful. It's the same with whole grains. Once you start cooking with them, you realize white flour is kind of monochromatic.  Whole grains extend the range of flavors and textures in baking, but you need to know how to use them. Take spelt, for example. This grain goes back at least 7000 years, which means bakers had a lot of time to play with it. Unlike whole wheat flour, it doesn't have bitter notes -- in fact, it is slightly sweet -- and it creates a tremendously rich, nutty crust. For these reasons, I recommend starting with spelt rather than whole wheat flour if you're new to whole grains.

Now whole grains have the reputation of being heavy, leaden, bombs, but that needn't be the case. This loaf was light and airy, not dense at all (though the crumb was fairly tight). While open-hole ciabatta loaves are all the rage these days, this loaf can make a nice sandwich or toast. The flax seeds add an assertive bite and crunchiness. Paired with spelt, they complement one another. 

When I bake, I aim for taste, texture and the experience of a stellar loaf, but that said, this bread packs a nutritional punch. One serving of spelt contains 8 grams of fiber and a whopping 10.7 grams of protein. Flax seeds are chock full of omega-3 fatty acids and are also extremely high in fiber. Since the loaf contains 50% white bread flour, those figures are reduced, but still, a couple of slices for breakfast will last you until lunch.

I use a stiff sourdough starter in this dough, which helps build up the mild acidic flavor notes. The bread flour adds structure, so the loaf isn't too dense, but as you get used to spelt you can try reducing the percentage of white flour. For those who work with bakers percentages, this dough has a roughly 70% hydration (excluding the flax seed soaker). 

Can this loaf be made with instant yeast instead of sourdough starter? Probably, though I haven't tried it. Thinking out loud, I would make a biga starter with 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast, 106 grams water and 80 grams of each type of flour. Then I would try adding another 1/2 to 1 teaspoon instant yeast to the final dough. If you try this, let me know how it works out.

This recipe makes two large batards or boules.

Sourdough
70 grams stiff starter
80 grams water
60 grams organic white bread flour
60 grams organic spelt flour

Flax Seed Soaker
1/2 cup (85 grams) organic flax seeds
75 grams water to barely cover the seeds

Final Dough
250 grams sourdough
Flax seed soaker
280 organic white bread flour
280 organic spelt flour
400 grams water
14 grams coarse sea salt

1. Mix starter, cover and let sit overnight (8-12 hours) at room temperature of about 75 F degrees. Pour the flax seeds into a separate bowl and just barely cover with water, then cover the bowl. By the morning, the flax seeds will have absorbed all the water. (In a pinch, even 2 hours of soaking will do). Ideally, the starter will have risen fully and then just started to deflate. 

2. Combine the starter and water in a bowl and mix it up with a wooden spoon or spatula until combined. Add the flours and using a plastic bench scraper, spoon or mixer with dough hook, mix the dough until all the lumps of flour are gone. This will take about 2 minutes. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes.

3. Add salt and mix on a slow speed, about 4 minutes. If kneading by hand, do so until the salt is mixed throughout and the dough is starting to take on a smooth appearance, about 5 minutes. Add the flax seed soaker and using your hands or the mixer, continue mixing until the seeds are evenly distributed. 

4. Form into a ball and place in a clean, oiled bowl and cover for the first rise. Assuming the temperature is around 75F, turn the dough out onto the counter and fold it at 50 minutes. Be careful not to tear the skin of the dough. Fold again at another 50 minutes. Let it rest for another 50 minutes, for a total rise of 2.5 hours. 

5. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured counter, divide in two and form into rough batards or boules. Let rest for 15 minutes, then finish shaping the loaves. Place them in a floured towel inside a bowl, or a floured couche for batards and cover with a towel or plastic wrap.

6. The final rise should take 90 minutes. Or, to build up the flavor of the loaf, cover the loaves then let them sit for 30 minutes before putting them in the refrigerator in a closed plastic bag. (I use Ziploc Big Bags ). Retard the loaves for 8-12 hours, or longer if you want a pronounced sour flavor.

7. When ready to bake, check the loaves. They should have risen by about 75%. If they have risen sufficiently in the refrigerator, keep them there until baking. Otherwise, remove one loaf and let it rise at room temperature for another hour as the oven is preheating.Turn the oven to 460 F with a baking stone in the middle of the oven and a rimmed sheet pan on the bottom. Preheat for at least one hour. 

8. When ready to bake, slash the loaf in a square pattern with a bread knife or blade, then place in the oven on the heated stone. (Batards can be slashed lengthwise). Pour 2/3 cup of water into the sheet pan and close the door. Bake for 30 minutes. Turn down the oven to 420 F and keep baking for another 15 minutes. Check the loaf. It is done when you rasp it on the bottom with your knuckle and it makes a distinct hollow sound. If not yet done, turn down oven to 400 F and keep baking for 10 minutes. Then turn off the oven, open the door slightly and let the loaf sit for another 10 minutes. Repeat with the second loaf.

9. Allow the loaf to cool for at least one hour before cutting it open.

Check out this loaf and others on yeastspotting. 

- Samuel Fromartz