ESCONDIDO — Paleo? Keto? How about a diet full of carbs instead? Some bread enthusiasts believe that a diet lacking in carbs isn’t the best balance.
“I think Americans are really using one flour and this is wheat,” bread baker and culinary art teacher Sabine Friedrich-Walter said. “They don’t have so many other types of flour that are available and grains. They don’t use it.”
Friedrich-Walter moved here from Germany and started making her own bread after finding she couldn’t ‘stomach’ the American style much longer. “I come from a country with over 3,000 varieties of bread,” she said. “So, you don’t have to bake really. Dinner is really an open-faced sandwich. I started to bake with the ingredients I had on hand here, mostly with high yeast content.”
After two years of teaching bread baking classes at the Modern Maker Market in Escondido, she believes in educating students about the healthy ways to eat bread. For example, she said there’s the good gluten and the bad gluten. “There’s a lot of mystery and there’s not enough information available for most of the consumers of what is going on in our bread,” she said.
Bruce Walker wanted to take Friedrich-Walter’s class after he wasn’t happy with attempts to bake his own at home. “I like to eat French baguette and my wife has been telling me, ‘You should learn how to make bread,’” he said. “So, our son asked my, ‘Wife what should I get Dad for Christmas?’ and she said, ‘Get him bread making stuff.”
Walker was hoping to learn about French baguettes but Friedrich-Walter’s most recent class focuses on the basics.
“It’s a simple bread,” she said. “It fits in any busy household schedule. It’s just made with four ingredients, not 20 or 40, like a regular bread in the market. The Wonder Bread like that (she said pointing to a display) is not the healthiest way to feed our kids our school lunch.”
The class is part of an overall trend called the modern maker movement or modern homesteading.
Scott and Heather Bates opened the store Modern Maker Market in downtown Escondido, where the classes are held. “We feel like there are lot of people that have felt that disconnect and are wanting that reconnect with something in their world, where they are making something,” said Scott Bates.
The Bates lived in Oregon for 10 years where hand-crafted items were often available. “There’s sort of a convenience of Amazon Prime,” Scott Bates said. “And we like Amazon Prime but that convenience breeds a disconnect.”
Beyond bread baking, the store also offers workshops on soap making, cold brew coffee how-tos, and Kombucha samples. “It’s a little bit of blend of that old and new,” Scott Bates said. “We don’t have to have everything wrapped in plastic.”
Friedrich-Walter tries to keep her class simple. “I like to pass on that making delicious bread is not as complicated as you think,” she said. “It fits in every busy household. You have to make a perfect baking schedule and use the best flour you can get.”
For more information about the Modern Maker Market visit http://modernmaker.market/.
