It’s a crazy world.
And we’ve all experienced the private and work-place
squabbles aired in mass emails and via other electronic means of gossip and
slander.
Our answer to all this (aside from not having cell phones or
internet at our farm) has always been to make bread.
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| little flower farm sourdough |
Bread and Libel are similar. You take practically nothing
and make something sensational with it. The difference is, while in character
defamation you are tearing somebody down, in proffering bread you are literally
building a body up.
My first success with a sourdough starter came when I read
Chad Robertson (of Tartine, San Francisco fame) talking about how you’ve got to
mix your flour and water with your very own hands. The baker has to get his
hands dirty, to give something of (off of!) himself to make for fostering that
wonderfully vibrant world of micro-organisms that will naturally leaven a loaf
and lend the unique aroma and taste of your own home place.
In dealing with dough, all the things required of a mature
adult when one is slammed on social media, or disgruntled by the recent
newsfeed are exercised: patience, time, rest, observation, careful measurement
and deliberation, kneading (or folding)- which can be cathartic and feel like
taking out aggression while in actuality it is the building up of
something-namely gluten to create good rise and crumb.
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| shaping the loaves |
Like farming, making bread is a matter of setting up the
conditions for favorable growth, and regularly checking in to lend a timely
hand to the process that will never cease to humble and amaze as the magic of
life and the internal design of living things manifests itself in new creations
and fruition.
It’s a much better alternative to crafting a scathing reply
on your iphone.
First you start making bread, and then you begin to be
bread.
“Give yourself….You
must be as good as bread, which for everyone rests on the table and from which
everyone, if hungry, may cut himself a piece for nourishment.”
-Albert Chmielowski
St. Albert Chmielowski, was a one-legged painter turned
Franciscan. Born in Poland, he lost a leg in an uprising in 1863 and became a
prisoner of war, narrowly escaping exile to Siberia and the death penalty. He
then became a painter in Paris and Munich, and then, eventually became
disenchanted with the never-ending race to achieve self-fulfillment through
talent, something which he called the “most foolish and despicable form of
idolatry”. He became inspired by Francis
of Assisi and his call to “rebuild the church”. He began to repair and renovate
neglected wayside shrines, and preserve ancient oil paintings in the churches
of Poland.
“I can no longer stand the evil which the world feeds us. I
can no longer wear the heavy chain. The world like a thief strips the heart of
everything that is good; every day and every hour it pilfers love from people
and steals serenity and happiness…”
Soon he was taking in the homeless into his own small studio
apartment. Many of them were fellow war veterans. Eventually he went to live
among the poor in filthy municipal shelters, where the conditions were morally
and physically wretched. saying:
“To prop up a wobbly table, you cannot weight it down at the
top; you have to stoop down and support it from the bottom. The same is true of
human indigence. To save the poor you must avoid burdening them with
reprimands, rebukes, and sermons on morality, while you are well-fed and
well-dressed; you must become poorer than the poorest among them in order to
lift them up.”
This was a guy who made a lot of bread. He’s an inspiration
for our farm because his quest for beauty in art led him to the beauty in his
fellow human beings, and the call to nourish it, and thus nourish his own soul.
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| painting by Albert Chmielowski |
We are currently offering bread for special order. Contact
us via email for details. We are making weekly deliveries to the Twin Cities
and suburbs.
Our regular Bread Share program is something we are gearing
up for the Winter season, when the fields and animals require less of our
attention. Our farmhouse sourdough is rapidly becoming our signature bread,
which fits with our sustainable farming philosophy. Sourdough is the perfect
compliment to vegetables harvested fresh
on nutrient dense local ground without the aid of chemicals. Baking with
naturally leavened dough is a way to both respect the grain and the body’s
health.
From Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions:
“Baking with natural leaven is in harmony with nature and
maintains the integrity and nutrition of the cereal grains used….The process
helps to increase and reinforce our body’s absorption of the cereal’s
nutrients. Unlike yeasted bread that diminishes, even destroys much of the
grains’s nutritional value, naturally leavend bread does not stale and, as it
ages, maintains it original moisture much longer.”
-Jacques DeLangre
“May you never be without bread,
May you always be as good as bread.
May you ever be as sustaining as bread
May you allow others to cut you as bread.”
-Br. Albert
LITTLE FLOWER FARM
SOURDOUGH
$6.50/loaf
Email to order.
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