March 3, 2024 - 6:12am
Advancements in bread making techniques post pandemic
Hello friends.
I propose a discussion about Bread making techniques, beginning at the industrial revolution to the present day post pandemic era.
Points of discussion
1. Note worthy breakthrough ideologies that changed the face of bread making.
2. Discussion of the positive & negative effects of the new post pandemic Renaissance in bread making.
3. Who are the noteworthy, up and coming post pandemic boulangers?
3. Has the art of bread making reached its Pinnacle? Has the cuminatuon of knowledge and advancement reach the point where there is nothing left to learn or improve?
The Arizona East Valley Sourdough Foundation thanks you for your participation.
Kind regards
Will Falzon
Photo strictly for attention.
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Thanks for the thought starters.
1. Bread is a good, healthy and natural part of the human diet. As it as been for thousands of years.
2. Most commercially available bread is low quality, in the North American consumer retail space. Bread made at home is among the highest quality and healthiest types of bread available.
3.
4. Not at the pinnacle. Breadmaking, as with everything throughout all of history, is constantly evolving. Breadmaking will continue to evolve forever.
Regarding the continued evolution of the craft of bread making. What if any impact do you think highly genetically modified grains will have? I can forsee countries such as France banning the use of such grains in products such as the famous baguette.
I think you are right about French regulations for some kinds of breads. Otherwise I think the matter of modified wheats is going to be up in the air for a long time. For example, take the new perennial wheats. They could end up playing an important role in what is being called (regenerative agriculture). King Arthur is offering at least one flour that contains them, I suppose as an experiment.
Regenerative practices seem likely to play an important, even crucial role in the future. So there will be a tension between a desire for better practices in conflict with pushback against genetically modified plants. It's hard to know how that will all play out.
Perhaps more interesting will be when genetic engineering techniques become cheaper and more easy to do. Then there will be a possibility for small organizations to try to create varieties that have better taste and baking qualities than what we have now. That's in contrast to the huge companies like Monsanto who have no incentive to create anything other than for the mass markets.
I was totally unaware of the fact that we have already entered the age of flours of modified grains which are fundamentalay, and radically different than evolutionary developed offerings. I am not sure if "evolutionary" is correct. I refer to either naturally occuring or lab made hybrids. Thanks for your thought provoking contribution.
Here's a (long) Wikipedia about perennial wheats -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_grain
I had not been sure if these perennial varieties counted as being developed with actual genetic engineering techniques. According to the Wikipedia article apparently not, so far. Still, the perennial varieties are quite different from historical varieties.
So far as I know (and I'm in no way an expert) there is no commercially grown genetically modified wheat - to date. There are experimental GM wheat varieties. But modern wheats have been developed to the point that they are quite different from their ancestors of even 100 years ago - using techniques that do modify the genome, but by selection, crossing variants, and so.
Monsanto did use genetic engineering methods to create a roundup-resistant wheat variety and it was allowed to undertake field trials. But ultimately there was too much pushback and approval for commercialization was not granted. But a number of farm fields have been discovered with a small number of the resistant wheat plants growing, and now one seems to know how they got there. See
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/biotechnology/hot_topics/glyphosate_resistant_wheat/wheat_investigation
Anyone who knows any up-to-date information, please jump in here.
Depending on one's definitions, all modern crop plants have been developed by "genetic" engineering, just not by modern techniques of working directly on individual genes. Hand selection of "good" individuals, and selective cross-breeding techniques, have been used since the beginning of agriculture. These all result in a changed genome.
Taking advantage of new versions created by nature is part of the art, as well. From time to time nature will create some relatively large change, like transferring a gene from one plant to another or doubling the number of chromosomes. Farmers would jump to plant any plants like this if they seemed better in some way.
I am more open to and excepting of hybridization the "natural" way. Though selective propagation. As opposed to methods done I'm the lab that go directly to splicing of genes. Call me old fashioned.