Dr Rupy: Today's podcast is slightly different, which is why I'm releasing it as a bonus episode. I have a great conversation with Roly Allen who's written an amazing book, How to Raise a Loaf and Fall in Love with Sourdough. And today's podcast is just a very relaxed, slow-paced conversation between two guys making bread. Now, sourdough has been hugely impactful in Roly Allen's life. He only learned how to make his first sourdough loaf in his mid-forties after being made redundant and needed a pursuit to distract him from the many distractions that we have in the world, but also personal issues that we go into later in the pod. And one of the first things that he discovered was actually sourdough making is quite overcomplicated when it comes to what you can find out there on the internet. And the simple process of slow cooking is something that we need to re-establish a relationship with as a society. We have a conversation about a number of different topics, not just the nutritional benefits and the nutritional issues of bread that you can find in typical supermarkets, but also Roly's experience, his past and his other pursuits as well. I find this a really endearing conversation and we baked an amazing loaf of bread during the pod as well, which I just find awesome and it's definitely going to be one of those memorable experiences for me. But I suggest you sit back, listen to this pod whilst you're making your own loaf of bread perhaps. And I really hope you enjoy the conversation that we're putting out this week as well. So without further ado, I will let me and Roly take it away.
Roly Allen: I'd always liked cooking, I'd always been enjoyed making food for myself and for the family, but I'd never baked bread or made bread by hand until I was actually made redundant at the beginning of 2019. And it came as a real shock. I'd worked for 20 years basically in the same industry, for the same company for about 10 years, and I lost all of that, all of the support network as well as the actual job itself and the income and all that. So I was kind of thrown back into my flat on my own and needed something to do. And my fatal flaw is that I quite like pubs and I needed to do things which kept me out of the pub essentially. And baking bread seemed like a bit of a challenge. Sourdough was the coming thing. It sounded quite interesting. I'd worked for a cookbook publisher so I could put my hands on some sourdough baking books. And I tried it and it was a disaster. It was horrible and I made these discuses. Quite a lot of people make these discuses for their first few loaves, which are really dense, they're flat and round, they look like little hills. Lots of crust and not much crumb, the bit in the middle. But fortunately, because I had time on my hands, I was able to sort of put a little effort into refining it and working out how everything worked. And it took a little time, but what I actually realised was that it's simpler than you think. You go online and you can get sucked into rabbit holes of people arguing over the kind of water to use or when you add the, when you mix the flour and the water and when you add the starter. People, it seems there are only four ingredients in sourdough bread, but there are as many ways to make sourdough bread as there are molecules in the universe, I think. It can be really overcomplicated. So eventually what I was able to do is wade through it all and boil it down to the essentials, just for my own way of doing it. And taking little bits from here and there, found out that it could be really easy and really simple. And then as soon as I found that, suddenly the loaves started popping up, they started looking like loaves instead of slabs, and they were light and tasty and had all that sort of sourdough stuff which you really you want, the quality of the bread. And then I guess the book came about because I had time on my hands and I was talking to, talking about this with an editor I knew. And I said to her, this is such a good thing to do and it's really much easier than you think. And if you have a look at all the books on the market at the moment, they do tend to make it a bit more complicated than it needs to be. And her reply, and I quote, was, well, if you're so clever, then why don't you write the book? So, so essentially, I was goaded into writing the book about it, which obviously was more difficult than it seemed. And, but it was just a fascinating experience because that meant that I had to look at other things, other ways of doing it, other ingredients that you can put in, other grains, putting things like apple or beetroot or porridge oats, chocolate into your loaves, raisins, practically anything can go into a loaf of bread. And it turned into a lot of fun. And then just before the book was supposed to come out, so this is about a year later, I'm still unemployed, suddenly the rest of the world catches up with me, if you like. Everyone else is at home, nothing to do, worried about their income and all that sort of stuff with lockdown, and the world goes sourdough crazy, essentially for the same reasons, initial reasons that I had. But I think that the reasons, I suppose there's reasons why people do it and then there's the benefits that they enjoy afterwards having started. And the benefits, I think, are really not so much to do with the food that you make, but the process of making it and just the act of making it, because it is this thing which is really, really simple, but also demands a lot of care. You can't slam it all in, like I like to cook a stew or a curry or whatever it is, and you can chop, chop, chop, chop, fry, fry, mix it up, and there you are. Whereas with bread, it's about being very conscious of how you're working with the dough, how it feels, almost listening to it. I think we'll talk in a bit about dough being a living thing. I also like to think of starters as being a living thing. There's a starter for you. You can keep that if you like. But it occurred to me a starter is a lot like a Tamagotchi. You keep it in the fridge and you have to feed it.
Dr Rupy: For those of you who are not old enough to know what a Tamagotchi is, it was this huge craze, probably in the 90s now, where it was like just this little plastic egg with a little computer in it. And it was essentially a pet, a digital pet that you had to remind yourself to feed, remind yourself to walk and do all these other things. And if you didn't look after it, it just died. And the number of Tamagotchis I had to reset because I just killed them. But yeah, so I haven't heard that Tamagotchi in so long.
Roly Allen: Yeah, and it's the same appeal. You can look at it and because it's, you can tell how healthy a starter is by looking at it and smelling it. And if it's nice and bubbly and doesn't smell sour, then it's all healthy. And if it smells like it's curdled and it's gone flat and liquid.
Dr Rupy: Can I smell this?
Roly Allen: Yeah, do. That shouldn't smell of very much because that's super fresh.
Dr Rupy: Oh yeah, that is.
Roly Allen: It should be a bit aromatic and yeasty, but not.
Dr Rupy: Smells, smells if you go into the back of a bread shop. Yeah, that's, that's kind of a faint smell. It's not very overpowering at all.
Roly Allen: No, exactly. And that's actually just a bit of dough from one of the loaves we're going to make here.
Dr Rupy: Oh right, okay, nice.
Roly Allen: Because that's all it needs to be.
Dr Rupy: It's got the, yeah, oh right.
Roly Allen: And that, but that'll, if you put that in the fridge now, that'll live, go into hibernation basically and live forever, so long as it's in the fridge.
Dr Rupy: Really? Oh wow. See, I'm so new to all of this stuff. Like I always feel like I don't have enough time to do bread. I've done a whole bunch of bread baking courses, but I'm just, I've never got into it, even during lockdown. I suppose for different reasons because I was pulled into hospital a bit more. Um, so I definitely didn't have time to do it, but it's amazing how many people are now starting to bake. You mentioned before that it was sort of your distraction. What, can you talk a bit more about that?
Roly Allen: Yeah, well, and so initially it was like a challenge. And I then found in sort of taking on the challenge that it had become not about that at all, but that it was just such a really, such a good thing for me to be doing for myself for all sorts of reasons. I guess I, it's easy to get a bit cynical when people use the mindfulness word, but there is something about you have to be completely present in that moment when you're working with dough. You can't really switch off for those moments when you're doing it. And therefore you're in a state of flow, it is super relaxing when you've done it. So that's a part of it. The other part of it is this interaction with this living thing, which you don't get from other kinds of cooking. And then there's all of the, I think that bread is such a loaded food stuff for us. It's so full of significance. So loads of religions have, you know, bread metaphors or bread as part of their rituals. And it is a particularly symbolic thing being able to make bread and put it in front of your family and your kids, girlfriends, etc. So having that sort of achievement as well, this feeling that you've made something, but also it's completely transitory. The next day you really just have to do it again. You can't make, sourdough will last for about four or five days, it's good for about four or five days and then you've just got to go again. And starting afresh all the time is, but also at the same time you're returning to the starter which is like my little Tamagotchi. So, it's a really healthy, it just, I realised that it's a really, really good thing for your head.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. That's great. I mean, I haven't come across that sort of analogy before. I suppose it's kind of like what monks do in monasteries, they sweep all day long because that's, you know, that's an action, it has a purpose. In this case, the purpose is, you know, to feed yourself. But just taking your attention away from all the different distractions that we have and focusing on this wonderful living thing, I can totally see the appeal.
Roly Allen: Yeah. And interestingly, so my dad, my mum had a stroke a few years back and my dad's her carer. So he has, you know, a, every day is hard work for him. And it got even worse initially when lockdown happened because the carers who would come and visit, the therapists who would come and visit, or that they would go and see, it all was just stopped immediately. And he and my mum were in complete isolation at home without any of this network which they'd come to work with. And, and at the same time, I just sent him a copy of the book because it was just coming out. Here you go. And he got into it and it's just been fantastic for him all through lockdown. He's had a loaf on the go basically. And my mum says, oh, he's always rushing back to the kitchen to check his loaf. And I go there now, we're out of lockdown, and he's producing this bread which could have come from a baker's, you know, it's just wonderful. It's really, really good and it's interesting grains that he uses and things like that. And I asked him last night, you know, what is it? And he just said, well, it's creative. You know, he said it's like gardening. But obviously it's a kind of gardening that he can do now under really constrained circumstances. So, and that I thought was, you know, quite a, a very simple thing to say, but really very powerful. And for me, obviously he's my father, really very moving that he'd found this thing to be so good.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, and the sense of pride or sense of accomplishment I think he feels is quite funny. There was a phase when he'd started baking and he would call me up every day and he'd say something like, oh, it's gone flat, what's gone wrong? I don't know. Could be this, could be that. And then after about a month, the calls stopped and then I just realised, yeah, he's probably a way better baker now than I am. And I should be asking him the questions. But yeah, so that was a really nice process to watch.
Dr Rupy: Do you think that's why it just suddenly swept the world? Like everyone just started baking and sourdough was a form of gardening when you don't have.
Roly Allen: Yeah, you can do it in a tiny flat. Yeah. It is a nice, it is a nice thought. Yeah, it's the same kind of thing. The flower, except the flower comes up the same day. So you don't have to wait.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. It's this gardening, gardening on steroids, I love it. So we've got a loaf here that you've prepped.
Roly Allen: So, well we've got two loaves at different stages. So, and well why don't you describe how they look?
Dr Rupy: Okay, well we've got one in a plastic Tupperware that looks like, for want of a better word, gooey cement, I guess. It looks, it's kind of like if you made porridge and you left it out for two days. It's, it doesn't look appetising. The other one is in a very pretty basket, which is thatched and it, I imagine this is the proving process. So it's, it looks a lot more voluptuous, velvety on top and there's a light dusting of flour on the top of it.
Roly Allen: Yeah. And these are two loaves with exactly the same or very, very similar composition. And all that has happened between this being a horrible mess which you described very well of wet cement and this being dry and soft and sort of cool to the touch and floury is working, manipulation with the hands. So that's taken that mess of flour and water and starter and turned it into a loaf. So this loaf is ready to bake. So what I'd like to do with you is just get it in the oven and talk about it a bit while we prep it.
Dr Rupy: Sure.
Roly Allen: You need a baking tray. He's already feeling the benefit.
Dr Rupy: I hope you enjoyed that podcast. You can find Roly Allen on social media and across all the socials. We'll put the links for that on the show notes. And I hope you start baking some bread. It's an amazing activity that I'm only just going to get into myself. I've tried in the past, but I think having a one-to-one tutorial like I just had was really, really useful. So yeah, I'm looking forward to baking a bit more and sharing the love. Thank you so much for listening to the pod and I will see you here next week.
