Sourdough kneaded in linden-wood troughs in the villages of Şavşat, Artvin
As someone who works with sourdough, this story really moved me. In the high-altitude villages of Şavşat in Artvin, Türkiye, where winter snow can exceed two metres in places, sourdough village bread is still made by a method preserved for generations.
My favourite detail is the dough trough. The troughs are carved in one piece from the trunks of old linden trees. Linden is odourless and resin-free, and it's also a good insulator: even when the room drops below freezing, it keeps the dough warm for hours, so fermentation proceeds slowly and evenly without a cold shock. The trough is never washed with detergent; leftover dough is scraped out with a wooden spatula and wiped with a dry cloth, so the natural flora in the wood passes into each new dough.
Here the starter is called "ana maya" (mother yeast) or "hamur başı". After every bake a fist-sized piece is set aside, fed with local flour and kept in a cloth bag in a cool larder. The flour is a blend of local yellow wheat, hulled red wheat and a little rye, stone-ground whole in water mills.
The dough is kneaded in the trough for more than half an hour. After a first rise of 4–6 hours it's divided into 2–3 kg loaves and baked in dome-shaped stone ovens heated with oak and hornbeam. The thick crust keeps the moisture inside, so the loaves can stay fresh for 20–30 days in a cool larder.
The suggested way to get a similar crust at home: use a baking stone or a cast-iron pot, and put a bowl of boiling water in the oven for steam during the first 20 minutes. And patience: don't cut big loaves straight out of the oven, but let them rest on a linen cloth for 8–12 hours.
Source: Mutfak Magazin
My favourite detail is the dough trough. The troughs are carved in one piece from the trunks of old linden trees. Linden is odourless and resin-free, and it's also a good insulator: even when the room drops below freezing, it keeps the dough warm for hours, so fermentation proceeds slowly and evenly without a cold shock. The trough is never washed with detergent; leftover dough is scraped out with a wooden spatula and wiped with a dry cloth, so the natural flora in the wood passes into each new dough.
Here the starter is called "ana maya" (mother yeast) or "hamur başı". After every bake a fist-sized piece is set aside, fed with local flour and kept in a cloth bag in a cool larder. The flour is a blend of local yellow wheat, hulled red wheat and a little rye, stone-ground whole in water mills.
The dough is kneaded in the trough for more than half an hour. After a first rise of 4–6 hours it's divided into 2–3 kg loaves and baked in dome-shaped stone ovens heated with oak and hornbeam. The thick crust keeps the moisture inside, so the loaves can stay fresh for 20–30 days in a cool larder.
The suggested way to get a similar crust at home: use a baking stone or a cast-iron pot, and put a bowl of boiling water in the oven for steam during the first 20 minutes. And patience: don't cut big loaves straight out of the oven, but let them rest on a linen cloth for 8–12 hours.
Source: Mutfak Magazin
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