My year with rye

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Annual Trail Rides: 41/200

It started a year ago when the grocery shelves lacked yeast and flour. I started making sourdough and quickly depleted my flour reserves. When I went shopping I bought alternative flours to supplement: rye, buckwheat, corn. The experimentation began. But it all started with this powerful rye starter, my 2.0 (I killed 1.0 in the oven).



I discovered the world of Hundo (one hundred percent whole grain) Sourdough and spent less time focusing on scoring the perfect artisan loaf and more time developing rye bread recipes like American Pumpernickel, Black Russian Bread, Volkenbrot, and Swedish Archipelago Bread.





















I also fell down the rabbit hole of recreating my favorite polish soup: Zurek, which is based on a sour rye broth similar to sourdough starter. The night we arrived in Krakow in 2019 I was sick with a cold and we went to the neighbourhood pub. I thought I had died and gone to heaven when this garlicky, smokey, tangy soup hit my lifeless tastebuds. What was that? I then proceeded to have this amazing soup every day of our trip. Each chef has their own variation, but its essentially the sour rye liquid (soured for 5 days with daily burping), soup vegetables, kielbasa, potatoes and some fresh herbs. Simple yet amazing.




I started a new sour this week and Im currently burping it to prepare for a weekend batch. Its wonderful to have this simple daily ritual and anticipate the yumminess to come. Anticipation is something I have sorely lacked this last year, without being able to plan future events, activities or trips.

Zurek and rye bread has been symbolic in this last year as our lives returned to simplicity. It evokes the rustic farm life of eastern europe that I love to romanticize. We plan to return and Poland is at the top of the list.

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