The Bakery Workshop at Camphill Milton Keynes

Maria Simon runs the Bakery workshop in Camphill Milton Keynes. On Sunday 11^th August she gave a talk on bread and the bakery workshop. There are several different types of bread produced in the bakery which are sold in the shop and the cafe and that we can also eat. These include sourdough, wholemeal bread, Mediterranean, sunflower loafs, multi-seed bread, white bread, ciabatta’s and pretzels. Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods. Bread may be served in different forms at any meal of the day, eaten as a snack, and is even used as an ingredient in other meal preparations. As a basic food worldwide, bread has come to take on significance beyond mere nutrition, evolving into a fixture in religious rituals, secular cultural life, and language. Evidence from 30,000 years ago in Europe revealed starch residue on rocks used for pounding plants. It is possible that during this time, starch extract from the roots of plants, such as cattails and ferns, was spread on a flat rock, placed over a fire and cooked into a primitive form of flat bread. Around 10,000 BC, with the dawn of the Neolithic age and the spread of agriculture, grains became the mainstay of making bread.

Alex Fox