intangible cultural heritage

Making Bread in a Brick Oven

area : Srce Slowenije
category : social practices
Making bread in a brick oven used to be an inevitable task of a housewife at a farm since home-made bread was considered to be one of the main foodstuffs, frequently as an independent dish. The knowledge of making bread and baking it in a brick oven has been preserved to this day, which is the result of assiduous housewives and various amateur societies.
Baking bread dates back in the 13th century and has been changing with the time. At first, plain bread was made from wheat flour, oatmeal or millet flour and later from buckwheat flour and corn flour. Various types of bread emerged, the widely spread meslin bread and popular wheat flour bread, and also different types of better and more expensive festive bread. The basic rule concerning the preparation of the bread dough is mixing flour with water and adding additives that make the bread rise. The rising additives most frequently used in the past were droži (a surrogate of yeast, usually made from millet flour and must; translator\'s note) (instead of yeast). Sometimes rye flour or, more rarely, corn flour was also used.

Medeja Kurent is very active in baking bread in the traditional manner, mainly within the framework of the Society of Country Women and Girls called Šentrupertske šmarnice. She has been involved in baking bread since 1997 using a large brick oven. A brick oven is usually located in the hiša and a fire in it is made from the (usually) kitchen next to it. Medeja learnt to bake bread from her parents and older women. She says that “baking requires good flour and a lot of good will ”. First, on a special kneading table, called mentrga, she kneads flour and water, then she adds salt and purchased yeast, yet the two must not come into direct contact. The pastry must rest a while to rise. During this time dry brushwood and dry chopped wood (beech or mixed) for the brick oven is prepared. Then the fire place in the oven is shuffled several times so that it becomes hot enough and red-hot all over the surface. Medeja uses a wooden poker to shuffle the oven. When the pastry has risen enough she divides it into loaves and puts them into round straw baskets and waits again for them to rise. During this time she shuffles the oven and prepares a whisk which she uses to sweep the interior of the oven. When the oven is ready and the bread has risen enough she strews flour on top of the loaves of bread and places them onto a wooden oven-peel, smears them with an egg, makes three cuts and puts them into the brick oven. While the bread is in the brick oven she shifts it a little. The bread remains in the oven for about 60 minutes. Once it is baked, she takes it out by means of a veslica (an oar-like gadget used for removing hot coals and ashes from an oven; translator\'s note) and an iron oven-peel, knocks on the bottom of the bread thus checking if the bread resounds. She knows then that the bread is well baked.

Medeja Kurent sells her white, mixed flour, corn, spelt, and rye bread in the market in Trebnje. She has quite a few regular customers who come to her house to buy her bread. She receives numerous orders and has most work to do in holiday seasons, i.e. Easter and Christmas when she better bread shaped in braids. This bread is decorated with details which depend on the festive occasion. Within the framework of the society, she makes part of the tourist offer of the place – mainly on the occasions of various presentations and fairs.

The Active of Women called Plamen Dolsko has been involved in baking and organizing culinary workshops for the young since 2007 when they showed how bread is baked at home in a brick oven at the autumn fair. Under the leadership of Dora Škafar they have established that the enthusiasm over bread baking and preserving the culinary heritage brings together more than 40 young and older members. Bread baking workshops take place on the premises of the Jurij Vega Tourist Information Centre where an electric oven is used but on special occasions brick ovens, which some society members have at home, are used.

links

The Heart of Slovenia
Development Centre Litija
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