bigger, better, stronger

9 weeks in.

When I first arrived, one of my first jobs was to help refresh the starter or the mother everyday. The job is also known as Feeding The Bitch.

The Bitch

The starter is what gives the bread its unique taste and character. The starter is where organisms are given the chance to come alive, to do the fine work required and is eventually spent of all it has got. Without the all important starter, there is simply no bread. End of.

Bubbles mean the fermentation is underway and the Bitch is alive and well.

It is an important moment. One that can't be fucked up because there are different flours required for different starters - strong white / gluten free rice flour / spelt / medium rye etc. Messing it up is not 'like' it is messing the recipe. IT IS. It's changing a 23 year old history.

For such a crucial part of the process, it should be a revered, inhale and do not make any sudden movement, cue the organs, hark the herald angels kind of moment. Not.

It is important but it is hardly as exciting as holding on to your first born right out of the womb. Which is possibly why I got to do the job of refreshing it.

Anyways, the job involves mixing a fair amount of water and flour into lots of buckets. The biggest batch that needs doing up is 7 litres of water and 4.3kg of flour. When I first arrived, I could only hold about 500g of flour in the scoop each time which was pathetic and embarassing. Now, I am able to hold about 1 to 1.2kg which is a fairly full scoop.

Gyorgy mixing the starter by hand. He goes 'My hands are better than machine.'

My arms are stronger from the lifting, my wrists fuller from the rounding, my fingers are thicker and I have gained quite a lot of muscle in the upper body....notably in the chest area. I know because I can't quite see the top of my ribcage anymore.

I think most of this comes from working on a bench that is perfect for an XXL Hungarian baker like Gyorgy but not a weak Asian with shrinking bones. Every time I'm rounding on the bench it feels like I'm doing push-ups. So I'm definitely bigger, not too sure if it's all better.

I was hoping to end up as a schtonking baker, not a stocky one.