Baking in the Italian CountrySide by Trinity Rogers

Let me take you through a day in the idyllic Italian country side, where we learned all about the process of bread production and flour creation. First, we got to see the machines the bakers use to grind up the wheat grains into fresh flour, which turns out to be quite the task. By hand, these bakers grind up the wheat grains in a wooden version of something similar to a stone and pestle. Standing inside the room where flour production takes place, the smell of wheat is sweet and earthy. It smelled so good in the entire building from them baking the bread and producing the flour from scratch. After learning about the early process of flour and then dough production, the farmers had some dough already made up for us to bake with since it takes a few hours for the dough to rise and be fully ready to be baked. We flattened out the dough with our hands in a rolling and pressing motion, and then added olive oil and salt on top and worked it into the dough. It was soothing to experience. Then, they scooped up the bread and slid it onto the oven top. We got to watch as the bread rose up and got perfectly browned over the top. After it cooled, we got to enjoy it with our lunch. I dipped mine in hummus and this really good red pepper cream dip. Truly this is the authentic Italian experience and I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything!

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