No pain no gain!

Been thinking lately about my craft, that being cooking and the other love baking! Seems I am stuck in the former because I do also love it? Confused?

So am I but that is not what is irking me, its learning. By seeing others fine examples of baked goods and recently have had an urge to go German rather than the standard French or Italian maybe rye! Why? well it tastes so good, first of all and second it's about as challenging to make a flour that doesn't rate superior to wheat, the other blade or grain whatever you prefer to call it. In the past few weeks I have been following articles and threads of various sorts that spoke of the bakers of this world trying to find or re-incorporate the methods that once were the way they baked in the past.Interesting to me was the fact that while in pursuit  of that rye loaf that spoke to my memory of great brotchen and  landbrot I had while living in Germany, this bread was not what it was in the past!I was intrigued and fascinated first by the shortened proofing times, of course that being because rye is a fermenting machine! Well I bought a book and I needed help on some translation, I left Europe when I was going on 5 yrs. old, not to return till my teens and finally live there some three yrs.,courtesy of Uncle Sam! So I got some translation and what do you know, there are bakers ferment and these strange hippie like enzymes developed by some bio guru in these recipes, sounds like a cult right? So I asked mein freunde, was gibt? Why can't I just avoid the whole rigamorooo and just use a rye sourdough? You can, just tinker here and there and you might get some decent loaves!

Why do we tinker with the product that was tested by our forefathers, and if we do shouldn't we remind ourselves maybe to write down the specifics of those progenerators of great breads? So I will avoid the urge to try those pre-fab ferments and stick with my home made loaves, trying to capture that flavour of old!No other choice, not too many German bakers here in NYC!