I’ve spent a little more time thinking about rye bread in the last few weeks and done some further investigations into the history of rye use. It’s more widespread than I thought and not just reserved for northern and eastern Europe. Spain, France and Portugal all have their rye breads too. It’s going to be fun adapting a few recipes to our ways of doing things so that we can have a few of these breads on offer in the coming weeks.

Rye is such a hardy plant and is able to thrive in much colder, damper conditions than wheat or barley. Indeed, archaeological evidence suggests that whenever the world has dipped into a sustained cold spell, we turn to rye to provide us with our bread as it is much better at coping with adverse weather. In prehistoric times, rye became dominant even in the Middle East. It even survives drought conditions better than wheat.

In later years, rye became a really important commercial crop, In 17th century Russia, half of all cultivated land grew rye and for the first couple of hundred years that the United States of America existed, it was rye and maize that they relied upon. Only when they opened up the prairies to the west did wheat come to dominate. In recent times, rye production has fallen rapidly in Russia, Germany and Poland. Whole nations are adopting bread made from wheat and turning away from breads that have sustained them for centuries. This is a shame. There is so much variety out there.

One thing I am noticing looking at recipes from around the world is how many sweet things have found their way into rye bread. These include molasses, plums, apricots, apples and many more dried and fresh fruits. I guess this offsets the ‘tangy’ flavour that makes rye bread unique, especially when made with a sourdough culture. I’ve yet to play with this as an idea, though I can imagine that a spiced, fruity rye loaf would be an excellent festive bread. A lot of the breads I’ve been reading about are lighter than the dense pumpernickel breads we tend to make at the bakery and not all are sourdoughs.

So I guess it will be me in the bakery with pencil, calculator and pad coming up with ideas and trying to make them into reality. I’m just looking forward to the challenge