Tuesday: Making Bread In The Mountains

In the 14 trips I've made to Austria since 2003, this turned out to be one the most memorable and enjoyable days I've spent.

But it started off in a humorously fucked-up way, when I got trapped in the shower and couldn't get out.

In Austria (and maybe all of Europe) the room you shit/piss in is different from the room you bathe in. There's the toilet and the bath. We had a very inexpensive (but very nice) room so the bath-shower rooms were in the hall adjacent to where we slept. I got into the shower and noticed the door consisted of three panels of equal size, which when open collapsed together like an old fashioned spyglass; when you want to close the door, you pull on the first panel which in theory then brings the middle panel along, leaving the final panel at the starting end, everything "telescoping" out, thereby sealing the opening so water won't splash out.

Except only one of the panels would slide closed. Well, fine---I just aimed the shower so no water splashed out. But when I was finished, I couldn't get the panel to slide back. The opening was 2/3 closed and I couldn't step through the narrow opening. I tried and tried but I couldn't get the panel to slide back. I was trapped in the fucking shower cursing constantly, until with one final frustrated "Fuck this shit!" I reached down and yanked on the bottom track, which pulled out enough to let me slide the door back.

"Why didn't you call for help?" B asked me, when I was safely back in the room.

"Are you kidding? Standing there naked shouting 'Help me!' I'd rather break the door..."

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Memorable as that might have been, the best part came later in the morning when we drove several miles to the nearby (and I predict soon-to-be-world-famous) Schule am Berg...School on the Mountain. Later in this post I'll link to a documentary they made about the lady who runs the school, and you can watch it free on Vimeo.

B heard about the school on the radio, in a discussion of people who operate successful businesses despite the economic downturn. Roswitha (pronounced rose-VEET-uh) Huber, the former schoolteacher / farmer's wife who operates the school, was one of the people profiled.

Roswitha by her wood-fired outdoor stone oven.

Little John X was going to get a taste of life on an alpine meadow; the school is also Roswitha's home. The directions in the brochure actually said "When you get to the big manure pile, turn right," but hell, this is alpine cow country and they have to pile it somewhere; so much so that it becomes a landmark.

Along the road to the school, we saw this shrine. They're common in the Alps.

We arrived. There were already a few people there and we were waiting for a few more. In the end there were more than a dozen of us---a woman from Germany, an Austrian woman now living in Brooklyn but back for a visit, an American from California who's been living in Austria for 16 years, a young Austrian couple, a woman friend of the American, Roswitha's protege, and B and me. There were also assorted young children, kids of the various participants.

We gathered outside by the oven and introduced ourselves and our relationship with bread. I basically said bread in America is shit, except when it's not----and then it's fucking expensive, like $6 a loaf. And even then it ain't exactly right. Even the Austrian living in Brooklyn agreed with me, and you'd think she could get a decent bread in NYC.

Roswitha threw a bunch of wood into the oven and lit it. "When we have good red coals, we scrape them out and put the dough right on the stone floor," she said. The stones hold the heat. Meantime, we went inside. Our teacher gave me a bottle of champagne and asked me to open and pour it---she was celebrating a publisher's acceptance of her bread book.That done, we sipped and listened as she explained all about sourdough starter, rye flour, the proper proportions, etc. There was a huge pile of dough in a plastic tub on the table. Also on the table were the publisher's proofs of Roswitha's book, which is due this fall. Only in German, but maybe that will change with future editions. Lots of great pics and text...

After a while of kneading and talking, R. asked if anyone else wanted to knead. I did, and a young girl. We washed our hands and went to work. The dough was kind of rubbery and extremely sticky, like construction adhesive. While we kneaded side by side, R. kept telling us about dough and bread while B. translated for me. I thought: If you want forearms like Popeye, knead dough a couple of times a week. It can be a workout. The dough was so sticky it took me about five minutes to completely clean my hands, and I had to use a metal pot scrubber to get all the dough off.

We made little flat breads to start with, rolling some dough flat like a tortilla. Put it in the oven a few minutes, pull it out, brush it with olive oil or butter and add some rosemary from the garden. Perfect.

Baby steps. Not bread, but a crispy treat nonetheless.

While the dough was rising, we prepared for lunch. Several of us helped set the table outside, bring the food out, etc. It was a good group, everyone at ease with each other and helpful. The weather was sunny and warm and the view was unbeatable up there. We sat down and dug in---pork roast (made in the stone oven earlier in the day), cheese, and the flat bread we'd made. Also some fresh mountain water from a pitcher into which sprigs of mint had been soaking for an hour or so.

Not exactly tea---no boiling required---but still tasty. Freshness makes a difference.

After lunch the dough had risen sufficiently so we could begin shaping our loafs. We all stood around a long table and kneaded our loafs. There were various seeds you could mix into your dough or put on top, but I walked over to the garden and grabbed some rosemary and mixed it into my dough. Not enough, it later turned out, but the idea was good.

It's smart to mark your bread otherwise you won't know which one is yours----B made an elaborate "B" on her loaf, I put a single pumpkin seed on top of mine, someone else made a smiley face out of seeds. That done, we put our dough into shallow baskets and put them back inside to rise once more, covering the baskets with a big towel to keep the flies off. (Alpine meadow + cows + cow shit = flies. Not exactly calculus or trig, but I think the equation stands up to scrutiny.)

Because we were, according to Roswitha "One of her best groups yet, very inquisitive and curious" about the ins and outs of bread science, we were running late and the oven temperature had dropped too low. So we added more wood and stood around jabbering for a while. Then we brought the loaves out and placed them on a long table by the oven. I scraped the coals out into a big tub, then R. wrapped a wet towel on the scraper so I could wipe the ashes out. You have to do this quickly so as not to lose the heat while the door is open. No fucking around.

Then came the insertion of the loaves, a three person job. One person puts the loaf on a long flat wooden paddle, held by another person, and the door is opened and closed quickly by the third person. Place loaf, open door, slide loaf in, remove paddle, close door. Repeat 12 times.

Waiting for the bread to bake, we talked among ourselves. I took pictures.

Dough goes in, bread comes out.

One of three cute kittens who had the run of the place.

The view the kittens enjoy.

Where we ate lunch; the Cosmic Patio.

This young boy was contemplating his place in the universe.

The long and winding road that leads to Schule am Berg.

We also made butter. Take some full-fat cream that's gone sour, put it in a jar, leaving enough room for good movement of the liquid while you shake it. Shake for a while and you start seeing butterfat forming. Keep doing this until you get a layer that looks kind of like a cross between cottage cheese and yogurt. Scoop that out and put it into a bowl of cold water and gather the butter together with a spoon; then scoop it out into little butter molds, turn the molds upside down and voila! Little pats of butter with cute flowers on them. The California lady and I agreed that just a hint of salt would have been nice, but the butter was delicious.

The bread had baked long enough, so the only other guy there volunteered to remove the loaves. Everyone stood around and oohed and aahhed while the loaves came out and were placed on the table and identified. Then Roswitha thumped all the loaves and talked about their characteristics, explaining that we have to do a lot of experimenting to get our bread just the way we want it. There are a lot of variables----the kind of oven, the temperature, the dough, etc. The main thing was to keep trying.

We arrived about 10:30 and left about 4. The course cost 35 Euro per person, or about $45. Not bad considering the instruction, the materials, and the lunch. Not to mention the setting.

When the bread comes out, you don't want to slice it right away. You should let it cool down a while. We put our loaves into paper bags and bid a fond farewell to our fellow bread makers.

Roswitha was the subject of a documentary called The Bread Maverick. It was shown recently at the 4th Annual NYC Food Film Festival. Roswitha and some of her family flew to NY for the festival. Happily, the video is available online in its entirety, in German but with English subtitles.

It's interesting to me to watch this film, knowing that just a few days ago I was mixing dough in that tub, adding water from that bucket, scraping the embers out of that stove, etc. Roswitha reminds me of my friend Ron F., another auto-didactic guy who built his own home from salvaged materials and learned the ins and outs of organic gardening.

Finally: thanks to B for discovering this wonderful school and arranging to enroll us, and driving us all over Austria. What a fantastic gift she has been to me, and what fantastic gifts she gives.