It's too late to ponder the complexities of baking bread in the Middle Ages. I should be sleeping. But, I'm compiling minutes and re-reading my sources. My best source: T. B. Wood's "The Story of a Loaf of Bread". 160 pages. Seven years of experimentation. From 1913, of course. This dude seriously needed a girlfriend.
"It seemed a feasible idea that the size of the loaf might depend on the volume of gas formed when yeast was mixed with different flours." So he tests them. ALL of them. 50 odd pages of the different permutations of flour. Which I had to read in case he said something we could use. He sorta did. I have a probably working flour to dough measurement. And a chapter on baking. "Baking" might be more apt. There are pictures, but they are 98 years old.
Speaking of pictures, Karen and I have some of our first rock hunting excursion that we intend to post here sometime when we figure out how to and have the presence of mind to remember to do so. Second trip out will be tomorrow, 2 pm, probably one of the rocky beaches downtown, cause caddy bay might not have any usable rocks left. If you have a car or a desire to have a fun afternoon, please join us. Alternately, if you have a car and want to collect a bunch of decently sized squarish rocks, feel free to leave them on the ground in front of my garage. We estimate we need at least ten times the amount that we currently have. If that sounds like a lot, you are correct!
Also, one of my roommate's lovely friend from france was discussing ovens with me, and it turns out her parents have a working later middle ages stove that they still use today in their backward. She is going to try to get me some good pictures, maybe it will give us more leads.
That may be all I've progressed so far. A few smaller stones from the neighborhood seem to be missing, but I'm sure they'll turn up.
--K
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