Calling Proof

On strength, rest, and the power of sustenance.

your bones need something to dance in.

if some two-bit magician were to saw you in half,

they could tell how deep your friendships were

by the glow of your marrow, the beetroot syrup of your blood.

so when your body says, I’m hungry

what it’s saying is

We’re not done here.

-Vanessa Kisuule

In my last post, I wrote about the concept of the Clay Field as a mode for healing.

First advanced by Cornelia Elbrecht, the Clay Field comes from the tradition of Gestalt psychology, which privileges a direct, humanistic approach to our perceptions and experiences, along with the belief that the whole of anything is always greater than its individual parts. And for Elbrecht, the most poignant expression of this whole is through a haptic way of knowing and being.

All too often, we humans avoid the physical, preferring instead to reside in the lofty tower that is our mind. That’s particularly true where trauma is concerned, argues Elbrecht. Watch an antelope that has narrowly escaped being killed by a cheetah or even a domestic dog who has been attacked at a dog park, and you’ll often see that animal immediately begin to shake. Ethologists contend that that behavior is a way of completing the fight-flight-freeze response to stress prompted by the sympathetic nervous system. By shaking, an animal flushes stress from the body, which in turn allows the animal’s brain (and hormonal systems) to return to a state of rest.

Because so many of we humans deny this kind of physical response to stress, it continues to rattle around inside our bodies for days or weeks or even years, often fraying or even breaking our life-thread. Tools like the Clay Field mimic the benefits brought about by more primal acts like shaking. By working clay, the body finds its own way to resolve whatever stress or trauma might linger, even after decades have passed.

After I published this last post about Elbrecht and her work, my dear friend Alison reached out to me. A professional baker by trade, she’s someone who has spent a lot of time embodying the very best of a haptic existence. This idea of the Clay Field, she wrote, resonated a lot with similar thoughts she’s been having recently about the healing power of working with bread.

I first met Alison over a decade ago at one of Maine’s more competitive surf spots. As any surfer knows, the sport demands an extensive and nonnegotiable code of conduct, which includes rules about who gets to catch and ride waves. There’s also a decided hierarchy in any surfing line-up: kooks and less accomplished surfers are expected to defer to the more skilled, even if the former had pole position when catching a wave.

Anyone who’d spent much time at this particular surf break knew that Alison was surfing royalty. Riding a bright red board she’d dubbed Cherry Pie, she had an ability to catch any wave with just a graceful stroke or two. And each time she did, the rest of us in the line-up would abort any of our own awkward attempts at the wave and, instead, watch in awe at what appeared to be Alison’s effortless skill and ability to understand what any wave asked of her.

Of course, nothing about Alison’s brilliant surfing was effortless. Instead, it was skill honed over years and decades of an embodied (and deeply mindful) practice that begins early each morning kneading bread.

A dedicated follower of the great Zen monk and chef Edward Espe Brown, Alison is fond of quoting one of my very favorite passages from Brown’s Tassajara Bread Book:

Love is not only the most important ingredient;

It is also the only ingredient that really matters.

Her love of craft, of gifting, of feeding and nourishing people is inherent in everything Alison does. And it’s the secret ingredient in all of her food as well. That love is made manifest in the tender care she pays her 23-year-old sourdough starter, Lulu (in the winter, she swaddles Lulu in a stocking cap before transporting the starter to a ski mountain or wherever else Alison and her partner might be traveling). It’s in the way she serves the community, the care she shows her employees, the regular contributions she and the bakery make to food pantries, to social causes, and to anyone in need.

And, of course, it’s also inherent in the way she cultivates friendship.

Last week, after comparing notes on the healing aspect of craft, Alison invited me to spend the day at Scratch, her renowned baking company. We had this idea that the similarities between baking breading and making pots are both myriad and profound, particularly when it comes to the relationships we forge with ourselves and our community.

I don’t remember ever telling her that I’m gluten intolerant, but of course Alison is the kind of person who tucks away facts like these about everyone in her circle. She’d selected a sourdough spelt bread she knew GF folks like me would well tolerate, and the day before I’d arrived, she’d whipped up several batches of the dough so that I could see it at every stage of its rising and baking process (which often takes 24 hours or more).

I first learned to bake sourdough bread in college, when I worked in a commercial bakery. There, every aspect of the process had been scripted and winnowed: the speed of our industrial mixers, the prescribed window of each proof and rise, the number of times we punched down the dough. Alison’s approach, like the Clay Field, is almost entirely haptic, relying instead upon touch and feel alone—trusting in the wisdom of her own fingertips to divine what the dough itself already knows.

That idea of trust is inherent in so much of the Tassajara (and Alison’s) philosophy to baking. At Scratch, there’s no punching of the dough or strong-armed kneading, no timers set for rising. Instead, it’s a delicate balance of allowing the dough to work and rest, to build both its strength and lightness, until it has found its truest form.

“You have to give dough time to become what it wants to be,” she told me at the bakery last week. “Only then can it feed you.”

Professional bakers refer to this idea as calling proof: that it’s up to them and their bread, rather than any written recipe, to determine when fermentation is complete, when a dough has strengthened and risen and is ready for the oven. It’s a partnership, what Brown calls an “act of mutual creation, a profound expression of caring, of nurturing oneself and others.”

The same, of course, can be said about clay. When firing pots, most potters incorporate a “hold,” or a period of time where the kiln dwells at a constant temperature to even out the heat and allow the pots to “soak,” or complete the chemical changes they need to become sturdy and strong. Each time we fire a pot, we create a heart bond not only between hands and clay bodies, but between the pot’s creator and recipient. It’s about the gift of acknowledging the need for reciprocity, writes ceramicist-philosopher Paulus Berensohn—an idea his own dear friend Mary Oliver meditated upon in her poem, “To Begin With, the Sweet Grass”:

Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,

The dancer, the potter,

To make make me a begging bowl

Which I believe

My soul needs.

And if I come to you,

To the door of your comfortable house

With unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,

Will you put something into it?

I would like to take this chance.

I would like to give you this chance.

That idea of creating space to feed and be fed is at the heart of so much of Alison’s work.

I left that day at Scratch with two finished loaves, dough to bake the following day, and my own tiny jar of Lulu to care and nurture at home. More importantly, I left feeling cared for – nourished in heart and soul.

We all need sustenance. And we can learn so much about love both by feeding others and allowing them to nurture us in kind. What it really comes down to, I think, is honoring the life-threads that tie us together, no matter how fragile or frayed. Sometimes, we are the unwashed beggar standing with our empty bowl, hoping that someone will take a chance and fill it. Other times, we are the bakers, shaping dough, creating communion, offering bread to those who need it most. 

Strengthen and rest, rest and strengthen. Feed and be fed. In these simple, magical acts is proof of so many things: how we create, how we live, how (and why) we love.

Santé, Salud, Prost.

Kate

Alison’s Sourdough Spelt Bread

(Based on a recipe from Sarah Owens).

Leaven

20 g refreshed sourdough starter

90 g water

90 g whole spelt flour

Scald

80 g whole spelt flour

120 g boiling water

Dough

600 g water

50 g maple syrup or honey

20 g fine sea salt

820 g whole spelt flour

1.     Make the leaven in a large bowl, cover, and allow to ferment at room temperature for 8-12 hours.

2.     About two hours before mixing the dough, prepare the scald by combining the boiling water and flour. Stir to combine, cover, and allow to sit at room temperature.

3.     Mix the dough by adding the scald, leaven, and other ingredients. Using your hands, mix and squeeze the dough in a circular motion until it is well combined. The dough will be shaggy and feel lax. Cover and allow to rest for about 20 minutes.

4.     Continue with bulk fermentation. Allow the dough to ferment for about 2 hours. Every 30 minutes, stretch and fold the dough. As you do, the dough will progress from a shaggy mass to a more lively character.

5.     Pre-shape the loaves. Using a bowl-scraper, remove the dough from its bowl. Divide it in half, and fold each half into a cigar shape. Allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes, or until it visibly relaxes.

6.     Final shape the dough. Using a bench scraper, roll and tuck the dough repeatedly to add tension, gradually working it into a circular shape. Gently place the dough into a bowl or tin.

7.     Final proof. Cover the dough and allow to proof at a warm temperature for about 2-3 hours. Always watch the dough, rather than the clock.

8.     Preheat your oven to 475F. Place a large Dutch oven on a center rack to preheat as well. Gently transfer the dough to the Dutch oven. Bake for 20 degrees covered, then remove the cover and finish baking for another 20 minutes.