I’ve already shared with you my passion for polenta, a tradition that deeply connects me to my Italian roots. Today, I want to talk about another love of mine—sourdough bread—which, in all honesty, my clients absolutely adore!
This journey began in May 2019. I hadn’t yet moved to California, but I was visiting my fiancé, who is now my husband. During that visit, I was fortunate to meet Adriano, a lively and energetic fellow Italian who had been living in the Bay Area for years and was embarking on a special project: Pane Vivo.
Adriano is a passionate and meticulous student of ancient grains and fermentation processes. His mission was to spread the custom of eating genuine, high-quality bread. I’m talking about bread that, with all its beneficial properties, supports and enhances our diet in a healthy way.
While some people are aware of the advantages of sourdough bread, many might not know that another key element is the quality of the grains used to make the bread.
Adriano had a sourdough starter from Italy that was 150 years old! Yes, you read that right—this starter had been passed down through generations of an Italian family of bakers. Adriano’s expertise in ancient grains and bread-making, combined with this extraordinary starter, resulted in a type of bread that brought tears of joy to many people.
Bread has the power to awaken a primal connection within us, linking us to our history and traditions.
During my brief stay in California, Adriano asked me to help him, and I jumped at the chance. Together, we kneaded, shaped, and baked bread for people all across the Bay Area who supported Pane Vivo on Kickstarter at that time. It was an incredible, emotional, and extremely educational experience for me.
When Adriano gifted me a portion of his sourdough starter, I was both thrilled and nervous! It felt like a tremendous responsibility to care for a "living being" that was 150 years old!
This marked the beginning of my own sourdough adventure. As with every new journey I embark on, I like to be well-prepared.
So, I started buying books, reading blogs, and learning everything I could about sourdough bread.
San Francisco is one of the most renowned cities in the world for its sourdough bread, and over the past few decades, passionate bread enthusiasts have turned their garages into bakeries, creating incredible businesses with outstanding products.
My passion for bread is closely tied to my love for high-quality ingredients. For instance, spelt flour is my favorite, and bread made with it has a wonderful aroma and flavor.
In Italy, no meal is complete without bread. Unfortunately, even in Italy, due to the proliferation of large supermarkets, there has been a rise in low-quality bread. Thankfully, in small villages and historic city centers, traditional bakeries stand strong, offering a completely different bread experience! Ciabatta, rosettes, filoni, mantovane, tartarughe, arabi, sfilatini, Apulian bread, and Altamura bread... I could write an entire article about the quality and variety of bread available in Italy.
This is why I decided that bread must be present at my dinners to complete a truly authentic Italian experience.
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