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An engrossing and entertaining tour of the astonishing global effort required to bring home one loaf of bread, in the tradition of John McPhee.
How many people does it take to make a loaf of bread? Proud “breadhead” and environmental science professor Eric Pallant, whose previous book, Sourdough Culture, detailed how baking sourdough bread has been integral to human history for six thousand years, is uniquely equipped to try to answer this dizzying question.
In Loaf, Pallant traces the path of a single loaf of bread, from the wheat fields of Pennsylvania to you and your sandwich. The journey stops in surprising places: agriculture scientists studying wheat varieties in a Sugar Cookie Test lab in Ohio; yeast strains meticulously selected and raised in France and flown to Iowa on dry ice; phosphate that travels from mines in the Western Sahara to the eastern Atlantic coast via the world’s longest conveyor belt.
Rigorous, ambitious, and charming, this book reveals the vast but hidden web of people, places, and processes that support all of modern consumption. It’s about bread, but it’s also about everything else—the costs and benefits of globalization, the impact of every product on our climate, and whose work should be tallied when we all depend on one another to survive. As Pallant readily admits, “there are just too many people to count” involved in a loaf (or an orange, or a Q-tip, or a cell phone). But someone has to try.
Praise for Sourdough Culture:
"If you only ever read one book about bread, this is the book. Expansive, authoritative, charming, fascinating, delicious, and leavened with stories, Pallant's Sourdough Culture is a must read." —Rob Dunn, author of Delicious: The Evolution of Flavor and How It Made Us Human
“Perfect for history buffs, food science nerds and bread eaters alike. It will inevitably have sourdough-proficient readers feeding their starters in preparation for a baking bonanza and is bound to inspire novices to begin a sourdough journey of their own." —Shelf Awareness
“For the passionate baker with a serious itch to know more about the history, culture, and intricacies of sourdough, I highly recommend the well-researched and well-written Sourdough Culture by Eric Pallant. Eric's scholarly approach to understanding the nuances of bread will inspire both the novice and experienced baker.” —Daniel Leader, author of Bread Alone, Local Breads, Living Bread and founder and chair of Bread Alone bakery
“Pallant deftly covers a wide breadth of time and place in Sourdough Culture, interweaving experts’ research with his own travels, research, and experiments.” —Pittsburgh City Paper
“Ferment your mind with Sourdough Culture. A necessary read for anyone obsessed with sourdough. Rich in history and crafted with the precision each baker strives for in their crumb. If you’re not already in love with bread making, you will be after this book.” —Iliana Regan, author of Burn the Place and founder and owner of Milkweed Inn
“A great book.” —WNYC’s Science Friday
“It is an enjoyable read. . . I love the book.” —Linda Pelaccio, A Taste of the Past
“Sourdough Culture is a tour de force of social, economic, political, and gastronomic history that is both meticulously researched and highly readable. This is a book that not only presents sourdough culture in rich detail, but also connects each bite of bread we take with the hundreds of generations that have come before us.” —Stanley Ginsberg, author of The Rye Baker
“Pallant elegantly proves that sourdough matters! A truly fascinating read—this book serves as the cultural and historic sourdough prism for anyone with a miniscule interest in the innumerable magnitudes of importance that sourdough culture has offered its eaters and civilizations throughout millennia. Sourdough Culture transforms and levels your perception of breaking bread and, essentially, your own intimate interaction with what seems to be just four basic ingredients." —Jonas Astrup, master baker at Meyers, Copenhagen
“Bread is one of the greatest human inventions; it has allowed [humankind] to build empires and become the society we are today. More than 250 generations have passed on the knowledge of baking. Testing out some of the recipes Eric shares in this book [has been] fun and makes [one] realize that the breads that we make today are probably the best in history. If you like baking, history, and science, this book will likely keep you busy. It did with me!” —Karl De Smedt, sourdough librarian at the Puratos Sourdough Library
"More than a history of bread baking, Sourdough Culture is a culinary mystery story leavened with Pallant's passion, charm, and devotion to the ageless allure of the risen loaf." —Aaron Bobrow-Strain, author of White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf
Eric Pallant is a serious amateur baker, two-time Fulbright Scholar, award-winning professor, and the Christine Scott Nelson Endowed Professor of Environmental Science and Sustainability at Allegheny College. He is acknowledged for his skill in weaving research narratives into compelling stories for Ted-like talks (Grisham Lecture Series, London), bread symposia, podcasts, and articles for magazines such as Gastronomica, Sierra, and Science. He is the author of Sourdough Culture (Agate Surrey, 2021).
Foreword
Introduction
Karen and Joe
Earth
Air and Fire
Seeds
Life and Death in the Fields
Trains, Trucks, Ships, Barges, Bankers, and Brokers
Making Bread
Ashes to Ashes
The Last Slice
Endnotes