Bread Goes Upper Crust

By Janice M. Horowitz

Gone are the days when buying your daily bread simply meant tossing a cotton- soft white loaf into a grocery cart. More and more shoppers these days are trekking to local bakeries and specialty shops -- often braving long lines and empty bins -- in search of gourmet loaves of all sizes and shapes: rosemary, garlic and poppy wands with a crackling-hard crust; dense bricks dotted with specks of flax, sunflower and sesame seeds; onion sourdough baguettes; and mammoth 4-lb. pumpkin-like affairs made from live, wild cultures. "Bread is being rescued from oblivion," says Michael London, owner of Rock Hill Bakehouse in Greenwich, N.Y. "It's as if it had been locked up in a closet somewhere for years."

While the demand for exotic loaves is increasing, standard white bread has seen its share of total consumption drop from more than 80% in 1972 to around 55% today. Large commercial producers, like Continental Baking Co. (makers of Wonder bread), Campbell Taggart and Flowers Industries, turn out dozens of "variety" blends, rife with cracked wheat, whole grain and oat bran. Many supermarkets even sell fresh-out-of-the-oven loaves from their own in-house bakeries. (Shoppers may not realize that many of these hot breads are prepared from frozen or pre-packaged mixes.) But it is the small, local bakeshops that have enjoyed the most surprising increase in popularity, places like Berkeley's Acme Bread Co., Chicago's Bread Shop, Seattle's Grand Central Baking Co. and Pierre Country Bakery in Salt Lake City.

The rising popularity of these dense, honest loaves has its roots in the health movement of the 1960s, when small bakers began packaging grainy loaves as an alternative to artificially enriched white bread. Back then, however, the selections tended to be dry, crumbly, even sweet, since honey was a popular additive. Today the taste and texture have vastly improved, and specialty breads remain a valuable source of complex carbohydrates and fiber, free of preservatives and chemical additives. "People have discovered that from real bread you get more nutrients for the fewest calories, for the fewest dollars," says Paul Stitt, president of Natural Ovens of Manitowoc in Wisconsin. Some of today's producers make health benefits a key selling point. Schripps in New Jersey, for example, exuberantly describes its Slice of Life loaf as containing "16% roughage, which regularizes the digestive system, preventing or relieving constipation."

Food mavens see the upper-crust movement as part of a growing American interest in fine cuisine. "About 15 years ago, a food revolution began in this country, starting with the main course," says Eli Zabar, whose New York City gourmet shop, E.A.T., makes 4,000 chewy sourdough baguettes daily. "Then it moved to the appetizer, then dessert. We have finally gotten around to bread. It's happening everywhere." Jerome Kliejunas, owner of Chicago's Jerome's cafe, agrees. "In the past," he says, "bread was seen as an accompaniment to other foods and in the background. Now it is standing on its own."

Many gourmet loaves are made from old French, Italian and German recipes. Some are prepared with special starters: live cultures handed down from one generation to the next, lending a distinctive flavor to the dough. Unlike many commercial varieties, these loaves are the product of a laborious, often round-the-clock regimen, performed in fiery hot bakeshops. In a typical routine, first the dough is mixed and allowed to rise, then cut into pieces, allowed to rise again, molded into final form, "proofed" in one last rising, baked and cooled. (Commercial breads may sit through only one or two short risings.) Baking is also subject to a host of vagaries. A humid day, for example, can wreck the crust on a sourdough.

A new and younger breed of breadmaker is bringing an almost fanatical dedication to baking. Many of these bakers are importing special stone-lined ovens, which cost up to $80,000, from France. Helmut Goetting, who holds a Ph.D. in geology, and Paul Fitzpatrick, a chemist, built a wood-burning stove and hired a German Backermeister for their Wood-Fire Bakery in Mountain View, Calif.

Some aficionados are concerned that the search for exotic breads may be getting out of hand. Says Bernard Clayton, author of The New Complete Book of Breads: "Thank goodness there are good breads today, but there are some things out there that are horrifying." An understandable sentiment, given the emergence of such bizarre products as seaweed bread, cottage-cheese dill loaves and a cherry-chocolate concoction that sells for a thumping $10 a loaf.

With reporting by Judy Hevrdejs/Chicago and Elizabeth L''Hommedieu/San Francisco