Bread Matters: The State of Modern Bread and a Definitive Guide to Baking Your Own [Hardcover]

This author is quite simply passionate about bread! He is very openly on a mission to open the eyes of the public to the empty calories and harmful chemicals that have been masquerading as bread for decades now.

The first quarter of the book may turn some readers off since it is quite 'dry', but it is probably the most important part of the book!The author details the modern process of commercial breadmaking with all it's faults and dangers. Then he moves one to reiterate that making bread is not the mystery so many of us think it to be. The layout, while dull to look at, is chock full of excellent information on tools, methods, bread making steps and descriptions of ingredients. The explanations are clear and in a simple language that makes the book accessible to most readers.

The 50 bread making recipes in this book are scattered in chapters titled :
First bread and rolls
Simple Sourdough
Bread-a meal in itself
Of crust and crumb
Sweet breads and celebrations
Easy as pie
(and Miraculously!) Gluten Free baking!!

(on a personal note the last chapter will be a lifesaver for me since, two weeks after getting this book, I discoverd that my son is allergic to Gluten!)

I have tried out a few of the recipes in the 'first breads' chapter (Basic bread, Milk Bread) and one from the Sweet breads chapter. All turned out great although, having baked bread before, I was skeptical of the consistency of some of the doughs. What was great about the book is that the author forsees the questions that will pop up in the novice or experienced baker's mind (shouldn't I add some flour now? This is way too sticky!) and addresses them promptly in the recipe.

I especially enjoyed the section on the rubbishy instructions that some of the bread baking cookbooks include that make the whole process so complicated. On the other hand, the author is a strong believer in weighing your ingredients so, if you don't have a kitchen scale, you may want one after reading this book.

I can't help feeling that a slight change of format might have made this book appear a less intimidating to readers new to the idea of home made bread. The layout of the pages looks like a cookbook from the 50's or 60's and the color pictures are clustered in color plate sections instead of being scattered throughout the book and placed next to the relevant recipes. However, if you look beyond just the appearance of the text, this book is well worth it.

The best thing about this book is that it is an intelligent discussion of the 'how' of breadmaking. The author credits the reader with the intelligence to understand the steps without simply telling us what to and makes the entire process of breadmaking accessible and enjoyable to everyone.

Bread Matters is a punny title, the kind loved by the British, who we learn quickly now eat forty-five per cent less bread than fifty years ago. Yet they are beginning to look American. SO Mr. Whitley is writing for his people lest they cruise the American path of morbidly cheap "food". Criticisms of America are mine only. The polite Mr. Whitley has the decency to scold only his own.

Bread was good for us before we let go of it to the corporate bakers. If you are interested in corporate malpractice, this book is for you. If you want to understand, for good and for bad, bread as a nutritionist would, this book is for you. The information here is important if you imagine carbohydrates to be bad. If you worry about glycemic response there is food here for thought and for life. If you just want to make a good loaf of bread, you can use this book to learn how, but it is only half the reason to buy it at most.

Ultrafast dough, used by corporate bakers is as pernicious as every other "ultra" facet of our ultra marketed ultra miserable society. Ultra fast dough is the product of ultra fast chemicals that puts you into that ultra dirt nap.

Bread is not to be hurried. Mix ingredients and let them rest rather than jumping straight into kneading. Give your little enzymes a head start and they will help you back by developing structure while you knead later.

Go slowly to load enough water. Enjoy icky sticky by lofting your dough and kneading in the air. The dough will leggo your fingers soon enough.

Same with rising. Slow. I even take extra days to make a new starter when I move to let the local yeasties find it and add their tang. Beers used to be so local because their own yeasts had a natural radius of around 25 miles. Carlsberg had the longest lived culture last time I checked. For bread, there is a Russian colony in California; and the oldest culture I have found is in Damascus. Once I started culturing my locals, I noticed a stronger flavor and a gradual acceleration in their activity.

Mr. Whitley will keep you busy with a good assortment of recipes for at least six months. As always, I am delighted by something new, especially when it is really old. He quotes a Russian baker, explaining that you will know the right time to put a loaf in the oven if you let it proof in a pail of water, summer river temperature. When it floats toss it in the oven. I cannot wait. Besides it stops the skin from drying out, a challenge in Phoenix.

In general, Mr. Whitley goes with a two day cycle. Mine are usually longer. If you like this basic approach, you can progress to Brother Juniper and Peter Reinhart. If you care nothing for all these political, economic and health topics and just want to learn how to make real breads, go right to Reinhart. I expanded to Bernard Clayton for real English Muffins, Scottish Scones and Jewish Bagels. I count eighteen volumes in my collection devoted to bread, now nineteen. And nobody has ever improved on the perfect instructions, eleven pages of them, published for basic French Baguettes by Julia.

The book is well made with a good binding that lays flat its broad pages on your counter. The layout is superior. Good job, Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC of Kansas City.

Although this book does explain baking, and does contain recipes, it is in large part an attack on industrial bread production, and a call for everyone to eat bread baked from organically grown, whole grain, stone ground, flour; preferably baked yourself, otherwise bought from a local bakery. Parts of his argument are strong and well supported, others less well so. One thing I noticed as he builds his story is that for some parts of his chain of argument he cites studies to support his point, while other parts are argued largely by assertion. If you read the book, watch for this.

In the 1950s bread sales in Britain (from where he writes) and America began to be dominated by industrially-produced bread. Time is money, and the large bakers wanted to turn out the product quickly, not wait all day for the dough to rise. They modified the product by using additives and large amounts of single-culture yeast to speed production; in the process, they changed the nature of the bread.

Additives are a big deal to Whitley. Although all of the additives used in breads are considered safe by health authorities, he presents evidence that some additives are not necessarily good for you. But that isn't enough for him, he finds fault with every additive he identifies as used in bread. In some cases it's merely that they add no nutritional value or might be made from genetically modified plants. In these cases he fails to show that they are harmful, they just fall outside his paradigm of what is right.

Whitley discuss the various milling methods and resulting content of flour. In the case of wheat, I think it is well known that white flour is significantly deficient in nutrients compared to the original wheat. He digs deeper, noting that stone ground flour contains all of the original kernel; white flour was originally produced by sifting the flour. Modern roller milling separates the components of the grain, which can then be recombined to produce the type of flour desired. White flours can therefore be whiter (and even less nutritious). He objects to whole wheat flour produced this way because some of the oils are not blended back into the flour, the intent being to produce a flour with a longer shelf life by reducing the fats that quickly go rancid. But there is a legitimate trade off here: while a bakery may go through flour quickly enough to not worry about it spoiling, many home bakers, even if nutritionally aware, may consider a small loss in nutritional quality a reasonable cost for longer shelf life. At times the author seems so focused on his ideal bread world that he unable to evaluate real world constraints that encourage compromise.

His arguments for organically grown grain are also weak. While he mentions limited studies arguing organic wheat is more wholesome, natural products (however grown) vary in makeup, and I'm not familiar with evidence that there is a widespread difference in the quality of organically grown and non-organically grown grain.

His discussion of slow rising bread is very interesting. At one time the rising process included lactic acid bacteria. It turns out that these bacteria break down gliadin, a component of the gluten found in wheat. This is also what people with Celiac disease react to, making them unable to eat bread containing gluten. (Glutens are the proteins that provide the elasticity that allows dough to trap gas and rise.) Celiac disease became known about the time industrial bread making became common. While some sufferers are sufficiently sensitive to gliadin that they can't tolerate any exposure to wheat, there is evidence that some people with Celiac disease can tolerate sourdough breads where the lactic fermentation has broken down most of the gliadin. It is at least possible that Celiac disease is largely a product of industrial baking. (Exposure to large quantities of an irritant can trigger sensitivity that people would not otherwise have. So there may be people who would not have developed Celiac disease if not exposed to large amounts of gliadin, but who are now so sensitive that they can't tolerate it at all.)

Another advantage of long rises is that these bacteria partly digest the dough, which may make some nutrients more accessible to the human digestive system.There are parallels to how cooking makes many foods easier to digest; Richard Wrangham has recently written an excellent book on this topic.*

All in all, Whitley makes a strong case that industrial baking has produced an inferior food product, and that some changes in baking practice would lead to healthier bread. His case against all additives and for organic, stone ground, flour is weaker. Even if his ideal world of bread really does represent the best way to bake for human consumption, it is not realistic. While I can, fortunately, afford to eat such exalted bread if I choose to, not everyone can. We can't feed over six billion people with the kind of labor-intensive cultivation, processing, and baking he prefers. We may be able to do better than we currently are at a reasonable price, but the best possible bread at a price many people can't afford is not the solution. (The core plot of "Les Miserables" grows from a theft of bread. Jean Valjean didn't steal the bread because he wanted to be a criminal, he stole it because he couldn't afford it, and his family was hungry.)

Beyond the polemic, the book does cover baking. It has the typical, and decently done, sections on ingredients, techniques, and tools, as well as a recipes. The number of recipes for wheat bread is modest compared to many baking books. What will appeal to some people is his discussion of gluten-free flours and a good selection of recipes for gluten-free bread.

I struggled between three and four stars. I chose three because I think this could have been a solid four-star, possibly even a five-star, book if the author had managed more balance.

For more extensive collections of recipes consider:

The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook

King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains

For another take on baking, consider:

No Need to Knead: Handmade Italian Breads in 90 Minutes

*Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 49 reviews  4.2 out of 5 stars