[Sca-cooks] British Museum and a Roman Bread recipe

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

Perhaps the most striking thing about the actual Roman grain which has been 
 found (including at Herculaneum) is how infested it was - lots of beasties 
in  almost every find.
 
 
 
Le  pain des Romains à l'apogée de l'Empire. Bilan entomo- et  
botano-archéologique 

http://persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/crai_0065-0536_2005_num_1
49_1_22827

Want to make REAL Roman bread? Go get some parasites to put in the  dough.
 
 
Jim  Chevallier
_www.chezjim.com_ (http://www.chezjim.com/) 

FRENCH BREAD HISTORY:  Late medieval bread outside  Paris
http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2015/07/french-bread-history-late-medieval.html









In a message dated 8/13/2015 7:53:42 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
t.d.decker at att.net writes:

"Biga"  isn't just sourdough starter.  It can also refer to a sponge 
produced  
from yeast, flour and water.  It is worth noting that the written  recipe 
calls for biga acida (sourdough).

Whole meal is whole wheat  flour, but you would be advised to use something 
like King Arthur's White  Whole Wheat or a pastry flour rather than a 
coarser 
milling.  Using  the spelt and the whole wheat flours is valid, but the 
Roman 
meal would  likely have been from emmer rather than modern common wheat. 
Buckwheat is  almost certainly out.

Locatelli's dough is fairly soft for a period  bread dough, which means the 
baker's mark will make a deeper impression  than in a stiffer dough.

I've got to do some looking in my  references.  I've done some Roman breads 
and I may have a period  recipe that meets the criteria for the preserved 
loaf.  However, I'm  in Gold Canyon, AZ at the minute and about 2 weeks 
from 
my  notebooks.

Bear


hmm… in the video, Locatelli uses buckwheat  flour; the Museum written 
recipe 
says spelt & "whole meal" (American  would be whole wheat, yes?) and adds 
gluten.

in the video,  Locatelli uses just "biga" -- sourdough. The Museum written 
recipe adds  modern yeast and gluten, as well as "biga".

Any ideas on why the Museum  made so many changes to Locatelli's version? 
Does drive us crazy (at our  house), when the Museums and Universities do 
this kind of thing -- they  have a perfectly good object and then 
"reproduce" 
it with weird and  unnecessary changes and tell the public the result is 
"authentic".  argh!!  (particularly, the bread RECIPE is absolutely NOT 
"older than  the Colosseum"!)

I thought the string and stamp things were marvelous,  although Locatelli's 
maker's mark weight was obviously much too  heavy.

very interesting. makes me think I might want to try it a couple  of times, 
with all the variations. I have sourdoughs (3), that's probably  the 
biggest 
stumbling block for most "modern" home bakers. anybody else?  (maybe I can 
just be lazy and wait for other's results?  8-)   )

chimene & gerek


On Aug 13, 2015, at 6:59 AM, Johnna  Holloway <johnnae at mac.com> wrote:

> "On August 24 in 79 A.D.,  just before Mount Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii 
and 
> Herculaneum and  preserved their ruins in ash, a baker put his last loaf 
of 
> bread into  the oven. The baker would not live to see the final product. 
> But now,  millennia later, archaeologists discovered it in an oven. With 
> the  help of the British Museum's instructional video, you can re-create 
>  this ancient loaf of bread and eat like the ancient Pompeians.
>
>  The British Museum commissioned this re-creation from Giorgio Locatelli, 
 
> an Italian chef based in the United Kingdom. His recipe calls for  three 
> kinds of flour, yeast, salt, water and gluten; the full recipe  can be 
> found on the British Museum's site. Unless your oven measures  in 
> centigrade, you may need some help converting."
>
>  
HTTP://WWW.FOODANDWINE.COM/FWX/BREAD-RECIPE-OLDER-COLOSSEUM?XID=NL_FWX081315THISBREADRECIPE
>
>
>  http://tinyurl.com/ljjau45 for the British Museum recipe and  video.
>
>  Johnnae
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