The village loaves

A whole season has passed since my post on our Roman adventure in our suburban garden – the building of our wood-fired oven.

Spring is now but days away; bright yellow freesias have snuck their coquettish heads from the earth, the garden beds have more silverbeet than we know what to do with, and the wood-fire oven has produced its first loaves.  Despite it still not being quite finished.

But I’m running ahead of myself. Let me backtrack to a few weeks ago. Before we could have loaves, we needed fire. On the first lighting, daughter Dolores and husband George go through a whole box of matches before they look at each other, concerned. How does one light a fire?

I muscle my way between them. Perhaps I even say in a patronising voice, ‘The woman might have left the village, but the village hasn't left the woman’.  I feel confident that I can channel my mother and grandmother here, tap into my deeply-ingrained Greek rural roots.

I bundle up bits of The Age, dry rosemary braches and kindling in an arrangement I remember from my sepia-toned Greek school reader, circa 1977. With the lighting of the first match, the fire takes hold. My husband and daughter are impressed – I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but I can see a look of admiration in Dolores’ eyes. Mum knows how to light a fire.

As I watch the flames getting bigger, I feel a deep-seated pleasure. On this, the first day of firing, George and I tend to the fire in turns. I stoke it carefully, blowing it when it threatens to die down; exulting as the flames reel up when I place another log onto it. I push the fire around the hearth, curing the virgin bricks. All of this feels strangely right. The smell gets into the wool of my jumper, into my hair, so that the fire follows me even when I leave it.

If I’m undisputed queen of fire, George is the undisputed king of bread: he’s been baking since Dolores was a baby. A week later, when the bricks have cured after a few slow firings, we brave making bread. George prepares ten plump loaves, which he leaves to rise under blankets on the kitchen table. When the oven temperature reaches 300°C, he places them gently into the oven with his new long-handled spatula. And, as we don’t yet have a door, he seals the oven with fireproof bricks. Like eager childrem, we watch the temperature gauge to see if the oven will retain the heat. It does.  

Fourty minutes later, George removes the bricks. The smell that exudes from the oven takes me instantly, blissfully back to my grandmother’s village, where I had watched her bake bread more than thirty years ago. And the loaves, oh the loaves – hot orbs of crusty, doughy bliss.

Now I know without a doubt - it's been worth the wait.

George has been using Tom Jaine’s Making Bread at Home book for many years -  it's covered in dried bits of dough. For more on Tom Jaine and his philosophy and obsession with bread, as well as numerous recipes, see this article in  The Independant.

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Comments

[Bruce Esplin]

Spiri,

Great writing - I feel I was right there with you inhaling first the smell of the rosemary burning as you lit the fire - then the wonderful aroma of freshly baked bread!

You've made my morning!

Bruce

[Spiri Tsintziras]

Thank you Bruce for your kind comments - it was quite a moving experience lighting the fire for the first time, and tasting our first loaves. I feel sure that we're going to have some wonderful culinary adventures with this wood-fired oven of ours - looking forward to describing them in all their glorious detail in upcoming posts! Best, Spiri

[Katya]

Thank you for your beautiful post. I feel like building an oven like that myself now... I'm also the queen of fires and can relate how you felt by getting it going for the first time. It's an old ritual that should be handed down to the next generation. Hopefully Dolores watched and will be able to light a fire herself soon. Well done.. Enjoy the lovely bread.
Katya

[Spiri Tsintziras]

Thank you the lovely Katya for your insightful comments - I can just imagine you being a fire queen! I think the joy is in getting back to something that is very primal and earthy. Hopefully you too can enjoy the lovely bread with us very soon. xxSpiri