Master Baker?

I forgot I wrote this a few weeks ago. I was taking a break from work, and under the guise of doing e-mail, started jotting down some notes.

It is ten of three in the morning. I’m sitting in a great German bakery in Durham, NC with three Germans, chatting away about who knows what. Well, I suspect I know partially of what they speak, as the name of my alma mater pops up and then some laughter. They are three master bakers; German master bakers at that. Not the Americanized test which is only a fraction of the difficulty of the test they took and passed. They are the real European bakers who begin their career at age 7, working in their family bakery and then apprenticing throughout Europe mastering the craft of bread. The three here with me range in age from early 20’s to early 40’s. Three different stages of their careers but all advanced enough to chuckle at me as I shape bread, one sad loaf at a time.

It makes me think…I attended the best possible culinary school I could go to, but how much can a person really learn about a subject in a three week block system with 18 to 20 other class mates? By the time you get a feel for what you are doing, you move on. You may revisit a subject in another few months but at that point, after three other three week classes, you are only marginally better at shaping bread than you were the first time around. And, after the proud day of graduation and being sent out into the working world, it’s amazingly little you need to know about shaping bread, especially when machines are so quick and much more efficient. That was how I spent my last few years, only rarely doing a final shape by hand but having an automated system that produced more loaves in an hour than I could do in half a day.

The boys here are an interesting statement to me. All three came to visit the states, see a new part of the world, learn a new culture. Not one of them came here to learn how to bake. The few very talented Americans I know went to Europe to learn to bake after some form of education in the US. It was a time to travel and see Europe of course, but mostly to learn under the talent of the Germans, Swiss and French. This begs the question of what don’t we have here, that the Europeans have cornered? Is it because we are a young country? Is it our desire for efficiency that have us lacking the knowledge of working with artisan whole grain breads that take time and patience, the ones commonly found in old time bakeries overseas? Why is so much of the talent and knowledge across an ocean, were they not the ones who came to America and were our beginnings? Or is it our system of education where apprenticeships beginning in your young formative years just don't happen.

I’m not saying there aren’t amazingly talented bakers in the states. I know a few of them myself from my time at school and the networking that followed. I just think it’s interesting that each one of these men here bake circles around me. They ask me why I don’t use both hands at the same time? Well, first thought that comes to me is I can barely get both hands around the loaf I am working with, but that seems like a lousy excuse. When I use both hands, they turn out terrible...when I use both hands I slow down instead of speed up...there isn't the time to allow me to get used to it, we have production to do! I will chock it up to experience. In a bakery setting it comes down to use both hands or fall behind your schedule and have the rest of production suffer. I’ve never had that dilemma. And don't get me wrong, I’m unmistakably jealous. What are you 22 and a Master Baker? I’m 31 and I’m not a master of...I don't think anything!