I’ve grown up eating bread for breakfast. My in-laws are usually appalled at this because down south, bread is what people eat when they are sick . But in my house, bread and eggs, toasts, French or just buttered, was always a massive hit and we don’t quite know how to work without it. So with much respect to Poha, Upma and Sabudana khichdi, we also want our bread, thank you very much.
But then came the big food revolution. Suddenly, we were no longer eating food that was simple, in season, affordable, freshly made and that made us happy. Suddenly, food was “this is too much starch” or “I need more protein” and “Dear lord, that’s dripping cholesterol” as against “wow, that was delicious and made me so happy.” Suddenly, food had become a bunch of ridiculous laboratory derived names, components only students of medicine probably threw at you.
And along came brown bread. We should have known something was amiss there. Before we realised that brown did not mean whole wheat, just brown coloured, we had already indecent amounts of bad bread thinking it has “more fibre”.
Thankfully, there is technology and people from across the globe told us that where bread comes from, it is barely eaten the way we are currently eating it. Of course, there is commercial bread, which is more or less uniform across, but real bread? The way it was really made in cultures of great antiquity? How did they make it? How did they eat it? What was the texture really like? Store it at room temperature or in the fridge?
We now know that there is such a thing as artisan bread. Real bread, hand crafted, rustic, bursting with flavour and goodness, made with strong wheat flour, often in combination with whole grains and flavour variations. And once you have eaten artisan bread in all its honesty, you are probably going to feel miserable about commercially available breads.
So now meet your saviours. Those of you who bake, you have already built your bridges. Those of you who do not, try The Baker’s Dozen. I recently had the privilege of visiting their workshop in Wadala, where they start working on their breads at 5 am every morning, churning out breads made to order. Spearheaded by Aditi and Sneh Jain, the bread couple. They are here every morning with their sous chefs, baking artisan breads, sending out deliveries and making people very happy with fresh, wholesome breads.
They operate at the moment only on the Central Line till Matunga and Navi Mumbai line too, although they are expanding their operations gradually so Western peeps, hold your horses.
They also have a store in Prabhadevi. I am likely to haunt this place. They have a multigrain bread, yes, for those of you who want a bread for your BLTs or just a simple toast.
But why would you settle for that when you have a choice of focaccia with fresh green olives, Le Pain Aux Levaine with walnuts and raisins or apricots and cherries?
Aditi learnt her bread baking from the International Culinary Institute in New York. Thankfully, she decided to come back to Mumbai because had she not, I’d have been deeply unhappy.
I’d say grab your phone if you are on the Central Line. Get their breads. That is definitely one way to be honest with your bread. Respectfully.
Reema Prasanna is a Search Engine Marketing expert, Xoogler, baking expert and blogger. More about her here http://about.me/reema.prasanna