Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

and I'm your co host, Darren bresnitz. Part of why we started the show was to offer an unofficial mentorship for anyone who's interested in learning about all aspects of food and video, whether that's TV, social media online, or just something you want to do for fun.

Absolutely what was once niche or a little silly, as I'm sure you remember, Darren, when we started out, this man has now become such a massive playing field for so many creatives using food as the medium.

It's something that has driven us professionally and personally, for so many years. What excites me the most about this show is that we're going to sit down with some of the industry leaders to hear how they made it and what drew them into this industry.

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We'll be covering everything from how to style your food, to how to license IP, to developing your own ideas, and some tips from the masters of how to host your own show.

Yeah, it's a little bit of conversation, how to and how do you do the things that you do in color media, which I'm so excited about? I love so many of the guests that are coming on this season. We have talent from Food Network from Vice media eater refinery 29,

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Today's program is brought to you by nettle meadow farm cheese and spirits pairing taking place on Saturday June 18. At nettle meadow farm. For more information visit nettle meadow cheese and spirits.com Hey, I'm

Jimmy Carboni from dear sessions radio. You're listening to heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick Brooklyn. If you liked this program, visit heritage radio network.org for 1000s more.

Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host coming to you live on the heritage radio network from Roberta's pizzeria in Bushwick every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245 to 50. I have with me today the mist okay so first of all got Jackie molecule's thank goodness is in the booth. We don't have him for that much longer in the booth, but he's gonna go out, you know, touring on the road there. Hey, doing Jack. I'm good. You know who don't have in the studio today. Two people that we don't have in the studio today that we're supposed to have in the studio. Are Nastasia hammer Lopez. Now Anastasia, her sister graduated from Yale this week. Congrats. Yeah, congrats. So she was driving back from Connecticut and the hydraulic clutch in the car she borrowed from her buddy who Lou Who lives in New York and has a stick shift. It's it's really

funny. You bring that up because I'm looking for somebody with a stick shift because I have to drive stick in Iceland and I don't know how I can't find anybody with a stick shift in New York.

You know why? To prove your right

to off the when I light turns green, you're always the first one to you know, if you have to vie with another car for position. If you have a stick shift. Even if it's like a VW Bug, you will beat any top of the line sports car with the acceleration from first to second. Boom, you just go live.

What about when your stop and go on the FDR then you get like hip problems over many years. Yeah. Anyway, so what I'm saying is, so it burns out. And so she's not she's not here right now. I think I think she lost hydraulic pressure. It's a hydraulic clutch in the car that she was driving. Anyways. But she Okay, yeah, she's fine. She didn't get hit. No, no, she's pulled off the side of the

road. What was not working the accelerator, the brake?

No. So if you're if so the hydraulic system on the clutch if you basically if there's a leak in the system, it just leaks pressure, the clutch pedal falls to the floor. Now ordinarily, you can still kind of get moving. She smelled burning, which at first she thought was the plate actually burning during driving. But you know, after further thinking, we think it's probably the burning oil that was leaking out that she was smelling. But a lot of times with a hydraulic clutch when it goes you can you can get it to run. You just can't use the clutch. You can get it to run and go but she wasn't able to get it to go but here's the good part. So for those of you that know our section of the country, the East Coast I know 95 is the road that runs it's, it's a flaming sack of crap. It's

it's usually two or three trucks on fire at any given day. It's

often literally a flaming sack of crap. Yes. So anyway, so for those of you that drive like through Connecticut on 85, or the merit I 95 of the merit, there is a town with a sign that I love. It's my anus. And my anus is new. You're gonna say this. Yeah, it's next to cos cob so you can listen to like, cornhole my anus jokes constantly. And whenever there's traffic in in my anus. I never ever stopped fail to say, at V traffic through my anus every single time. Even if it's just my dog in the car with me. I say it every time. So literally her car. She had a breakdown in my anus.

Wow, what are the chances? Yeah. That's good. She's gonna have a lot of jokes, that's for sure.

Nice. So instead of nostos here we have our fearless leader Patrick Martin's here, I will

be like Anastasia, I will say next to nothing. Wow.

Boom. Now who we don't have in the studio right now. And I tweeted out twice that he would be here. So hopefully he will arrive. I Don't Know Jack. Maybe we can try to call him on the telephone and see what's up. We'll put the search team out. Yeah, put that put the search team out and could be lost.

Connection to Mr. Lahey through a certain babysitting gig because let's just

tell people who it is. First. We got Jim Lahey supposed to be here right now Jim Lee. He is the guy who started Sullivan street bakery over over 20 years ago. Now. I think we have no need for Jim today. This is like pun central right here. But the so the point is, is that, you know, for those of you that are, you know, my age or so like, you know, in your 40s you can remember what New York was like when the bread here pretty much sucked. I mean, there were people who baked good bread, but like in general, the bread game in New York,

it was Wonder Bread in the mid 70s. I mean, the first guy on the Upper East Side, which is very wealthy neighborhood was Eli's a bar. He had a place called EA T on ADF and Madison, and that was the first place that really baked you know, fresh bread, you know, past a few loaves that kind of cookie store or something like that. But yes, you could not find fresh bread, even in New York City back then. I

mean, then in the 90s you had like, I guess was I guess when he started right? The 90s?

No. Well, he realized was at Oh, Jim Jim Sullivan Street. 2025 years.

Yeah, we ate at the same time you had like Amy's starting member, Amy's Amy's bread started around the same time.

Kitchen was the kind of area but I don't know if they sold loves to go with

Amy, Amy's to how to wholesale and retail.

Emmys famous bread was the cornmeal one with raisins in it.

Oh, yeah. I used to get that on Saturday because I used to live right by her bakery. Anyway, point is is that back in the day nowadays? It used to be when you traveled to New York, you're like, hey, it's a great town. Bread sucks. You know what I mean? Seriously, like you would say that you would expect that the bread you got on the table at a restaurant would suck you would expect that the bread you would get out at a place even a cheese shop you'd expect I mean, don't get me started on the cheese shops, you would expect that they would suck right? And it was like Tuscany over here as well which is what we're supposed to be talking about today. But so anyway, so Jim Jim Lee he was one of the kind of early people making decent bread here in in New York and Sullivan street I remember was a revelation when I had the first time I went there and then in the 90s mid mid 90s I guess I had there Bianca to Pizza Bianca and it was the only thing like what I had had over on my honeymoon in Italy it was it was good stuff anyway so very

crusty bread right most part what his breads Yeah.

The stuff that his signature breads he's known for now or probably like the PAC style the Filoni which is a huge one and they sent me to sesame oil which is the basically put up with sesame seeds all over the outside which is my personal favorite. So these are the signature breads you'll see a lot of restaurants and there's you know he they had a split so there's another bakery not a couple of bakeries that make his particular style of bread here in New York he became famous generally among you know, folks people for his No need no with a que not no need to bake bread. Like there's no necessity to do that. But a no need no need, which is you know, my editor actually Maria Guana Shelley did his book also at Norton. And she's the one that came up with the tagline underneath it no work no need no work bread so it's sold more bread books than anyone's ever sold in the past was it was like bread no work bread what? You know what I mean? It's so they sold so many of these things. But the we oh, they did he did he? Did he get here? No, no, no, no,

we're gonna look for him though.

So the anyway, the point being that he kind of championed this, this style, which I actually don't know where he came up with it whether it was taught to him or Or what if he ever shows up? We'll ask him.

I think he is a self made man I think you've heard it all myself I'm saying that with no knowledge of the issue whatsoever I think it's a self made man

you shouldn't be you have no actual knowledge of the cooking issue None whatsoever. Yeah, so the said he said anyways, the point being is a very influential person in the world of bread. In fact, most people I know so first of all, there's there's two things that happen this there's no need thing came at a time and a lot of people, especially pizza people that I because I don't know as many bread bakers is a new kind of people who are in the kind of pizza world, they you know, we're shifting to extreme long fermentations and retarding of dough when they're when they're making it. And obviously, the longer you let something rise, the less you need to need, right. And so I think that we've all shifted towards this kind of a lot of people have shifted towards these longer time format brands with less needing and less, less less work, because the only thing it takes is a little bit of foresight.

So why did they do it just for the work issue or for gastronomic reasons?

Whenever it's like, no, we look the thing about the unknown, the unknown needs style, and I wish he was here to like talk about who hopefully will be is the is that if you just let the bread rise for a long time, two things happen. One, the longer like a short ferment means that you have a lot of yeast in it, right. And so this tends to produce a relatively single simple profile taste, right? Because there's less kind of the yeast yeast is doing less to work on the base product, which is the flour so the longer you raise, the longer it takes to ferment, that usually the more complex complex the

flavours of flour has a chance to express itself. That's an interesting

way. So this is why Patrick Martens is the founder of Slow Food USA because he comes up with these poetic terms like the flower expressing himself, you know, I mean, it's like, for me, I'm like such a technical head like you know, I don't do the you know, the poetic that's why we should come off and give you the poetry of the flowers slow

food. Yeah, well, we play each other up. Remember our sizzle together? We did good. We played like the old school guy. You're like the new school? Yeah, yeah.

We're gonna call or if we want to do that while we wait.

Okay, caller you're on the air.

Caller Are you there?

You're on the air.

Oh, hey, sorry about that. As a former cook and current restaurant manager, I get a lot of questions about gluten free and gluten friendly. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how that breaks down under high heat specifically in pizza ovens or deep fryers, and deep fryers.

I mean, how gluten free how gluten free coatings work in frying.

Like, if I'm putting items into a deep fryer that are not gluten free. Like how does that gluten that comes out those items break down in the fryer if at all?

I got you. So you're worried about the fact that you use the same fryer for your regular products as you use for your gluten free stuff? Yeah, you know what, oh, the breads here. By the way, you know what I've never thought about it before. My guess is that it's not a problem because the gluten while it's not really water soluble, I also don't think it's oil soluble. I think it's just non soluble. So I don't think you're going to solubilize that gluten in, in your in your fat oil, you do get particles. So it all depends on how clear your your fat is. But I would guess that your main problem is going to be a straight up straight up contamination. So if you're having straight up contamination, product problems, but you know, assuming in a commercial frying situation, you're frying in a tube fryer that has a cold zone, and most of that stuff is sifting down to the bottom of your fryer anyway. So I would say and considering the fact that that gluten, even like straight up celiac, oh my god, Jim brought my favorite oil. How the hell do you know that was my favorite oil? What's wrong with you? The heat from Depaolo is my favorite place on Earth.

Oh my goodness. To conclude the good news is you never have to wash your fry.

No, no, no, no. So my point is, is that most people's responses to gluten is our mediator that in other words, just like it's not that like, it's not that a tiny amount of gluten is going to wipe them out. But that said, I think that if you're worried about it, it's always prudent is to add this kind of thing. Fried in a fryer that also fries items with gluten, and then your gold. You know what I mean? Like push it back on afterwards. Like I wouldn't be worried that you're actually going to hurt somebody, but I would also push it back on to the consumer so that you're not trying to hide anything from them. I think that's always the safest way to go. What do you think?

Anyone? That sounds good. I mean, I didn't. I wasn't too worried about it. But I didn't have a very good answer for people that were going to ask me either.

Yeah, I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that you know, look, a lot of people have never cooked before so they don't really under Dan how it works they'd never fried before. So it's true when you're frying something that you know especially if you do any dry fry stuff that's not a batter like even a batter you're throwing stuff off of the batter stuff when it when it especially when it first goes in. But anyone who's ever fried before knows that there's extra pre dust on the outside, there's extra stuff. It's usually a lot of fried items aren't a straight liquid batter. And even in a straight liquid batter. Let's say you're going tempura on it right? You're getting all those little blurbs of crap that fry off and I don't know anyone on Earth who's ever fried anything that hasn't gotten a piece of the last fry occasionally in their life stuck onto the fry that they have now, right? I mean, come on, be honest. But the fact of the matter is, it's a small amount I think as long as you're if you know you're frying something that is gluten free, you can be pretty scrupulous about the skin beforehand. And once this stuff is skimmed, all the rest of the stuff falls to the bottom of the cold zone. And you're not going to do the person I don't think any any any harm. Rent. Anyone anyway, so thanks for that. But now we have to talk about the bread and if you have any No need bread questions, we have what? Well, my God he comes in, he brings but now he has to pee. Like this. Alright, so we'll we'll hold off.

I'll film any more bread Questions.

One. Before we talk. I'll

wash my hands. Okay, okay. He's gonna even though he's not an employee of Roberta's gonna wash his hands. He's He's, what'd you say? He's not going to wash his hands. He will wash his no urine

facility. His bread has no urine in it. Which is great. Okay, so no patina of urine.

This happens to be a label. If this is the oil that I'm thinking of. Why is

it your favorite? That's because of the breed of olive oil. Of course. It's the

favorite. So here's what happens every year it's not oil and agricultural crop. As we go down, it goes up and down. It changes so for a bunch of years my favorite oil was made by I forget the guy's name was starts with a G like it he used to make the oil for Fontana salsa, which was the supplier in Sicily that made this mix of neutral aura. Like I was the other ones neutral aura and two other olives that they grow in, in in Sicily. And that was like my favorite oil because I like I'm heavy on I like green. I like like, like Irby grassy green with a lot of bite. Typically, not always. But anyway. So like so whenever I go to buy a new thing of oil of like finishing oil or reading oil. I'm just like, hey, what do you got that I like? And like this is one of the ones I think if it's the one I'm thinking of this is

where do you shop for your oil? I used to go to fairway because I was Steve Jenkins but I don't think he does anything with fairway anymore. I'm pretty sure he doesn't. Yeah, I know. He doesn't. Yeah, fairway is

just my way out. Yeah. For real,

yeah. Well, I thought they were still expanding but they're not closing somehow it was a restructuring but they did file for bankruptcy.

That's good. So it's um it's I bite it Apollo's? Listen, dude, if you're ever in New York City, right and you like Italian products, then you have to go to the Polos on on Grand Street and mod. I mean, they've been there for 8 million years. Well, like like 90 They moved across the street as as far as as far as they went. And but I was

asked Dan, my wife was a cheesemonger, if they're European cheeses are the best of their kind, are they there because I mean, some of these old historic places they don't get the best cheeses that your

timeless gets the best of what they get. In other words, it's like it's like the best the Palos will get the best that is legally legally available. Okay, like Lou and Sal and, and Maria, who the, you know, the most of the family that runs along with their wives, the kids and the cousins, and Renee, which is another guy there who works there, there have this thing where they don't like to break the law. And so unlike a lot of other cheese, folks, they won't like on the slide, bringing stuff that's illegal. They also like will never lie to you. They'll also never sell you a product. It's over the hill. So like the fact that matter and know what's coming in today to the palace. If I'd known you were going to the Marcellinus in today. Oh, it's not

going for? Oh, really. But one of the Marcelino right, that's what I was going for, because I realized that in order to show off this really mediocre example of Tuscan bread, and by mediocre example of Tuscan bread, I mean, it's just like you would get in Tuscany. And so to understand the bread, you have to understand the cuisine, that's that it's that it functions for that it lives for. So I think that's my approach now on a scale of one to 10. I would I would rate this for my test, my best testing game,

like a four way and so what's your best testing game rate?

Like I would say I'm very most technical Uh, well I mean, I'm, you know, if I can get a seven on any loaf of bread, I'm really happy. I'm very contented. And eight or nine is, is you know sometimes happens, but you know, I mean, at the end of the day, as we all know in the food business, it's all about consistency, right? Yeah.

And as we all know, good cooks good Baker's all hate themselves. Oh, come on, please. Because you never think you never. You never. You never think you're perfect. You never you never think you've reached

anything. We can always there's always room for improvement. It's like that last cocktail that you just mixed. That your your you know, you tasty like, I just couldn't like put a little bit more vermouth in that and that and that never moves drink,

Martini. So why can't you duplicate when I know the time Well,

before we get this two things one people want to know is the character Trailer Park Boys named after you. But I'm gonna

do one thing real quick.

That's the bread being sliced. And two, don't go through your knee

that'd be the third time that's ever happened in the studio. So

the Oh my god. Do you know what they do you remember like in college when those people would never slice bagels before started slicing bagels and they would slice the bagel into their hand and bleed all over everything. Yeah.

Awesome times I learned I learned to have incredible respect for meat. Slicers at the age of 15 because I cut my fingertip off.

The only real damage I've done yet I did a thumb into the meat slicer.

Slide down. Boom. It's because I was on the cell

phone. That was my fault and

never use a knife. That's dull. That's the worst try to take out an avocado pit. Oh, would you glance off? No, I I cut my thumb wide open and he says the knife didn't go the blade didn't hit the seed right, bounced off and then took a chunk of my head off. Okay, so

let me set this up real quick. So we're at the Museum of food and drinks benefit low fat and low fat and Patrick and Jim are at the same table and they were arguing over who was the straight man in the team and that which is kind of like an interesting thing and I said hey, you know your your I love your bread obviously have for a long time. Don't you think Tuscan bread sucks. And because expecting a yes because everyone thinks it sucks because it contains no salt. Yeah, it's like nobody I said I said nobody likes testing breads. Tuscans don't like Tuscan bread,

the epicenter of where dining tables began ground zero as far as his food historians know of where the ritual, ritualized meal of everyone sitting around the table was born.

So the Italian language itself was born out

of that place. So yeah, to publish.

italiano so you guys can't see what I'm looking at. But this looks like a Tuscan loaf. I eat the crust looks terrible. And the crumb is not nearly as nice as the normal crumb

bread you have to qualify your your your your your language at the end of the day. This is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, it's

okay to put it this way. I won't say anything because it is is sallow and dry looking.

But but by map it like it sucks salsa. But it's also

considered this I mean, this did not from this is an organic wheat from a small mill in Minneapolis called Sunrise flour mill. And I didn't I'm not used to working with it. It's not like my I don't work with this far I was sent a sample of some wheat from off hub which which which it went into those loves that we made for the event. But delicious one I see. And I missed my mark by about 20 minutes to half an hour in terms of ideal fermentation, which would have made a real big difference in terms of what you see in terms of the crumb structure. However, that being said, when you eat bread in Tuscany, and if it's made from local grain, and this is also an argument about the aesthetics of bread, and our expectations about bread, especially bread made in a local Original Grain economy, where the quality of the weeds are not going to be consistent from season to season. And oftentimes, especially with weather like we have today, whether it occurs in like August or September during harvest season, harvest harvest periods will most likely lead to wheat that has a lesser quality protein in terms of its ability to ferment because when there's humidity, you end up on dry wheat stalks, you oftentimes end up with like, incidental germination, and that germination destroys the Quality, it doesn't doesn't cut into the percentage of protein in the flower and isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's natural to what really occurs when you really farm and you're not spraying glyphosate your crops to, before harvesting to, to kind of make them more sellable.

You know, charmingly inconsistent, you

would say, Well, why? I mean, that's, that's what we'd have to get used to.

What do you like, do you like do you ever bake with germinator sprouted grains

sometimes for like, you know, from my own head, man, you know,

am I allowed to just taste this as is? I need to be able to make his taste good.

I don't want to like, Oh, this is grown in like, you know, some like farm upstate New York and in the Champlain River Valley, and whatever. I mean, I could go off in this whole fucking story, but it's family show. I'm sorry, is it no more family show?

Is it I have a caller on the line?

We have a caller on the air before the caller gets on. Let me just give you the taste description. To anything, you put it on put on so you can hear this. It's it's more fermented than most Tuscan loaves I've had now he's got a higher turn up. He turned the headphones up on Jim's. I think it turns down but turned down. It's more. It's got more acidity than most Tuscan lows that I've had. And true to form. It tastes like it needs some frickin salt in it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah,

well, there's, I would say I was just calculated just calculating. There's about a third of 1% of salt says isn't even a percent of salt. But based on the batch, maybe even a 10th of a percent of salt in the dough.

And what's your normal salt percentage?

breads in general that we're used to eating anywhere from a percent and a half to two and a half sometimes.

Are you part of that more modern two and a half percent?

I'm more percent. I'm not a one percenter, but I'm more. At percent and a half. I like to taste the grain and where

are you a one percenter? Would you be a Wall Street one percenter or motorcycle gang? 1%?

Well, here's the thing. There's, it's really not the 1% it's the 1/10 I'm gonna say I'm gonna sound like Bernie Sanders. Now. It's the 1/10 of the of the 1% that control 48% of the wealth of our nation. And you didn't realize gonna have Bernie Sanders.

Can you also do the do the artwork on the Andy Aardvark cartoon? There's a there's a color this color. I don't want to miss color. You're on the air for Jim.

Jim and Dave, this is Jeffrey in Costa Mesa did how's it going? Good. How are you? Doing? Well. So I've been baking a lot of bread and both kind of straight Lavon style or whatever term you like to use. And then also hybrid using you know, incorporating some commercial yeast and specifically been interested in in transmitted the late how the starter, the ferment is bed held what hydration is kept at. Because there's a lot of there are a lot of claims out there, let's say about how that will affect structure, flavor complexity. And so I've traveled down this. Again,

viscosity is a, a, there's no like fixed thing on viscosity as I was saying before, with reasonable wheats, if you want to control the outward appearance of the product and your wheat for example varies and protein percent or quality, which can in turn change the absorption one of the factors that contains and alter the absorption which therefore affects the Vizio elasticity of the dough, ie its texture when when when a very precise amount of liquid has been added to it. I would be more concerned as a bread baker or craft Baker with the apparent visceral elasticity of the dough, then getting caught up with Whoa, I put exactly, you know 85% hydration, because you might get a great bread out of 75% Hydration if the wheat is of a different quality. And I think that you know and in terms of how you hold a sourdough starter, the thicker and drier the pre ferment the more gradual and slower the rate of of fermentation. The more water the quick the more the festival for men. So whether things

start testing variables specifically with that and realize like doing side by side and realize it would just take an eternity to actually nail down the way all of these could potentially affect each other. I'm wonder if you can speak to specifically how how feeding holding and that the hydration level or the viscosity like you're saying the actual prefer mat and how that's let's let's take And then how can that affect that, specifically the balance of lactic acid

let's go let's go this way. If you if you go online, you can buy these really cool pH meters that you can attach to your iPhone and you can upload

an app does work they do

if if the caliber my assistant shaking his head like no, you can also buy there are there are pH meters that you can use to test the pH of of the dough, you will find a correlation between a finish though you'll find a range or correlation between the pH of the dough because you know what happens it mixes the dough together and the pH will initially dip a little bit like within the first 15 to 20 minutes and then it will go up it will arc upward like like say 6% As a like six pH and then eventually over

during the fermentation or

whenever you add flour and water together and you will and you have some agent fermenting agent be a commercial yeast. Or if I was like Bernie Sanders if you want to fermentation agent. I'm sorry. I've been on this whole Bernie Sanders kick lately, you know that he's the only electable and I'm getting even more headaches from not a political shelf Oh, shit, okay. Because the shit won't negative ads will stick with him, but they're gonna stick with Hillary but I will go back to go back to primitive. So if you measure the pH, you'll see that there's a really precise correlation between the pH of the Dow, the length of time it takes for the Dota 11. For example, under whatever constant constant conditions, if your house temperature, room temperature, whatever it is, when you use your your home oven with the pilot led on is like an incubator. I don't know to what degree or of a bread geek you are, but you sound like pretty much, you know, bread bread nerd severe. Because you're obsessed, which is good. We're all there. And then, and then you'll see like an end result you'll see a correlation between the pH and the flavor profile, you'll see a correlation between the pH and the effect that the acidity has on on the dose ability to the yeasts that exists within the dose ability to to leaven the bread because a certain PHS these become inactive ie in the lab they say 4.4. But in like practically it's like more like four point wonder like 4.6 at least in New York City bread baking. If you're doing sourdough, you're you're pretty much you know dealing with bread, that's pretty sour. There's also another factor which is the tap water because tap water varies from ph 6.6. In environments that are extremely acidic, and tap water and municipalities can go I think as high as eight. But but you know, I know

how buffered are those? Won't they want the actual biological system of the bread take over the tap water pretty quickly or now?

Well, I mean, you have to factor in the pH of the flour, the pH of the water and then the rate of the the effect of the ferments on the dough. But at least everything that I've read is that when the pH is 4.4 that fermentation stops even if there is available glucose or materials to ferment the acidity itself, which is why a lot of people who maintain holsters at too high of a temperature and create these acid cultures are like oh, I don't know why keep barreling the store to the dough but like just doesn't do anything. It just kind of gets all kind of slapped and they make the bread tastes really tart. And because what's going on is it there's no fungal it says bacterial it's like a flora. And he just kept you have to maintain the right floor for the starter. And in terms of to answer your question in this, sir. Come look cute this way. peripatetic. It's really just about you know, yeasts and microbes are constantly mutating and they will adapt and and become tolerant to conditions that you establish the ones that we like the ones that make bread and wine tastes good, are the ones that are kind of in the 55 to 68 degree range. And then once you start getting up Above 60 degrees Fahrenheit, you're going to start noticing other types of microbes, it's not to say that you can't maintain a store for a couple of weeks at 75 degrees Fahrenheit, but eventually it's going to solidify. And that that balance between the symbiotic relationship between those classes of sacrum e CS, and those classes of like, The bacilli will change. Okay, is that cool?

Do you find it to be kind of a one to one balance of it, the East is more active, the lack of bacilli are less active, and vice versa.

I mean, this the other thing is that, you know, it's when it's feeding time, at the zoo, when it's feeding time at the zoo, you know, a starter with a lower pH that's younger, it will react differently with the finished dough. And even that ratio or proportion of pre ferment to the finished dough. You know, if I had like, a half 500 grams, we're gonna talk metric, right? Yeah. So like, let's say I had 500 grams of flour. And I added 500 grams of like pre format, live and liquid, a stiff kind of know, what we call I call biega. And at the pH of that dough was like 4.5 4.3, whatever, hopefully not 3.7 or lower, because it's so acid that the actual ph of the, there's a very, the window would be too small. But if you add like a large ratio of prefer men to finish dough, you could even add, like 300 grams of flour, if the pH of the pre ferment is on the higher side like 4.6. And up, you could make a dough where there's actually the the largest component would be the pre format. And in the setting a little bit of flour, and salt to kind of put it together. And your your fermentation time would be reduced to like an hour, an hour and a half psi. Or like Allah, no need or Allah the methods that I prescribed mostly for practical purposes, maybe not so practical after all. But but if you use a small percentage, let's say that that curve, that window of fermentation is a lot longer. And there's more chances of manipulating it, or coaxing it to get the right end result that you want.

And again, to go back to what you were saying, and I mean to cut into this, but the lower the lower, the lower the amount of starter that you're pitching in, right, the less the initial actual acidity matters. But the still the balance of flora in the starter is going to be different if you start with a really ask there are other words like

if you put like in acids, if you put a highly acidic starter at a dough that was being maintained at like 75 degrees and was like just basically a bacterial starter. It's not designed it won't function to live in the bread. It will function to cause the flower to become a sip the paste the dough, the pasta to become acidic. And that's all it's gonna do. I mean, I've seen bakers in Italy that keep their natural leavening in their bake shop, like you know, like 100 degrees all the time and it's like just inedible, acidic crap.

By the way, Jim hates Italian bread in general, right?

No, that's not true. I love Italian. I love it.

Did you go to Italy and tell them that they're all garbage? No.

No, I went there and I and I, and I told them that that they have a crisis.

Same thing he said the the biggest freefall in terms of Italian quality products with either the fast food culture we live in or modernization is with bread. He said they're in a crisis. He said that in 1998 2000 already.

Last year. I'm sorry, I'm eating some poskim paper some broccoli Rob.

He also said the same about cheese. And although he was very much responsible for getting Barolo and Barbaresco up, I mean, literally one vineyard trip at a time. He was like you should age the grapes longer. You should do all these things. Cut off the bad grapes and not use them in the wine. Man Barolo and Barbaresco were pretty mediocre wines in the 70s 80s. So yeah, Carla was saying it about

it was that I've had some I've had some Barolo from that era that was freaking delicious.

Well, Nebbiolo grip that whole region of Barbaresco and stuff. Yeah, some could be delicious, of course. But

by the way, the meat that you brought here is really hard. You already have Patrick loves it. Patrick loves some barnyard is me.

Wow, this is amazing. This is obviously from the paulose because I can always tell when something's made in Europe with my wife's cheese's. I'm like, this is a great American. Domestic it's French. This is domestic. I'm very surprised.

Well, I mean, I'm not anymore. I mean, I was gonna bring you some of my piggy. My, my. No, I raised three pigs last I'd been doing it for the last three years. What bream Tamworth Oh, wow. Oh,

you like Tim Tams are good mothers. Right? So they're easy. They're easier to raise because they won't like squash their kids and like they can feed themselves and

my neighbors and I usually get like five piglets. I take three. And then during the summertime because I have a house upstate and Sullivan County I like anytime we're cooking. Every day, usually the end of the day, it's head over to the I don't want to call it a pigsty because they have like a little bit of yard. But then they've got like two acres of woods to origin. So the animals you know, go the summer, eating vegetable scraps and whatever critters they find as they're rooting up the Earth. Great bacon hog the timber. Yeah, it's a phenomenal meat. I don't I don't

muscle up though. Right? Yeah,

they're leaner hog.

It's very rare that I actually buy I buy pork from from I mean, I only I only Mao.

Well, that'll explain why we haven't gotten any orders from you. And

listen, like before this is over. We should talk about the Tuscan bread. Now listen, I want you to

see what I'm seeing you about the Tuscan breads function is really

a blank canvas. Canvas with

a food. I'm not buying it. Here's the thing. You can't eat this, right? You can't make the cake. You know and you can't eat the oil without wishing instead that we were eating you're like semi accessible. You wouldn't wish I wish I just had this evidence SMR wasn't in touch or heavy.

For me, this this, the the actual AC or this is very nostalgic. And I actually kind of in some ways, like my favorite breakfast is Tuscan bread. saltless butter.

And honey, is that is that like saying that? I also like Twinkies. That's even maybe

it was better to can? Is there any way I can get a beer? Drinking looks really

good. Need some salt? Yeah, because

we're a full service established. But

we have we have a PhD here in anthropology and sociology. Costas goodness is flown in all the way from Greece, to share with us his insights and thoughts about about this discussion.

So has to give us give us some thoughts on there and the discussion from a cretin perspective.

I want to get him out of my it's not my field. Let me ask you that I'm enjoying it. This is your

chance to bash Italy.

Let me ask you this the bread in Crete they put salt in it, do they not? Yes, they do. What do you think of this particular you know how good Jim's bread is? Right? What do you think of this? Interesting. Diplomatic, bland. Also the crust doesn't have the same. It doesn't have a lie there.

It's like mushy or got stretchy.

It's dry, dry, the weight hasn't and bread is baked. It's baked with no salt, or little or no salt. It's baked. Usually initially that everything every bakery that does it look, the traditional way tries to maintain a dry oven for the first three to seven minutes of the bake. Where whereby the dough in this case, because the dough was under fermented, it kind of rounds out a little bit lifts off the floor of the oven, forms crust or skin on the dough, the opposite of what you would think. Right? Like you're not looking for humidity. And then how do

they how do they do that? Do they use a low load and the either open

up the damper and the door loading in or you know the hole and then it's baked between 380 and 400 degrees. Depending upon the bakery for a lot longer than you would normally mix you end up with this loaf of bread that actually kind of is kind of semi stale in a way right? To begin with. But it doesn't really stale. Like I can have eat this bread in three days. And it's technically not that different than today. And starts off as two day old but it stays. Yeah, but it doesn't know but the idea of what is stillness. Stillness is a