I've been asked to describe why I'm writing this column. There is the obvious - I start dreaming about dinner when I'm eating breakfast, but I've also researched seed-to-plate agriculture and food security issues in rural Honduras and Peru. I've coaxed tomatoes out of dire weather conditions; written about cheese farming, wine making and the micro-brewing industry for BC Business and Western Living magazines. I make bread when I'm angry and shudder at the thought of store-bought cakes for friend's birthdays. Holly Fraughton is a hard act to follow, but I'll do my best to entertain y'all with foodie tales and adventures. I'm newish to town, so please feel free to email me any food-related ideas you deem worthy of coverage.
There is a long-standing debate among those immersed in the annals of food history over whether the discovery of bread preceded that of beer, or that it might even have led to its creation.
One rumour posed is that beer was discovered when a loaf of unleavened bread fell in a barrel of water, leading to a grainy bevy that eventually benefited from a chance encounter with yeast and morphed into ale. Regardless of origins, it's safe to say that both beer and bread have long shaped the consumption habits of the human race.
It's not a stretch to say our modern culture (in some places, by certain faces) is becoming more attuned to linkages between systems and processes. For those in the know there is an increasingly obvious need to capture the waste created in the production of stuff we like. A perfect scenario would see all of capitalism's excess turned into something useful, be it energy or another product - anything to throw the discarded back into the production cycle for the benefit of the whole. That's why a partnership between two local favourites - Purebread Bakery and the Whistler Brewing Company - caught my attention. Even Marx would approve.
The two businesses sit facing each other on Millar Creek Road in Function Junction. On one side, the bakery is tucked into a wee storefront while the brewery across the street stretches the length of the old bus terminal. Aside from producing commodities that have survived - or even aided - the whims of pharaohs, the Dark Ages and the Industrial Revolution, the two have little in common. One's a liquid, the other a solid. One you buy in the sin-free morning of farmer's markets, the other you consume in the Viking-inspired, fire-lit haze of après. What they share is mash, the spent malt - barley or wheat - siphoned off the beer in its brewing stages. Mash is a by-product generated early in the beer making process - it is a pre-yeast stage so the mixture carries no alcohol content, though you wouldn't know it for all its uses. Between 375 and 400 kilograms of malt go into each batch of brew and as the brewery produces 400 hectolitres - a metric unit of volume or capacity equal to 100 litres - per year there's a lot of excess mash to go around.
The brewery has typically given it to local cattle farmers in the Pemberton Valley - apparently the cows love it so they still maintain that relationship - but now a portion of it gets trundled across the street to be folded in flour, baked and pulled out of the oven as Dysfunctional Ale Bread.
"It's an interesting concept, to take something we've used and to make something else with it," said Whistler Brewery tap host manager Ben Adeley. "It's a nice promotion for both and all the grains are being used."
As the flavour of grains used in beer changes depending on the season, the soil and the weather the beer - thus the bread - changes slightly with each batch. For the most part, the variances go unnoticed to the average palate. They hinge on delicate suggestions of sweet caramel or roasted earth - subtleties that suit both businesses just fine. Part of the joy of baking and micro brewing is playing with the art of flavour, but it must be done without destroying the faith of your customer base. The various grains and mash allow for consistency for both, but with a slight buzz.
Part of Purebread owners Mark and Paula Lamming's goal in life is to play with their food, and while they have nailed scrumptious to the wall with their bestsellers, they are always up for the excitement brought by new flavours. Welcoming mash into the mix was a natural, said Paula, as being in such close proximity to the brewery makes it easy and their customer base - at the store and on the farmer's market circuit - absolutely love it. The couple also incorporates Stumptown coffee into a sunflower rye bread and Namaste earl grey tea and lavender in another recipe, so it's clear they're on the re-cycle train.
So much goodness can come from a simple willingness to play. The only thing required is a loosening of the goggles of grown-up-ness and adulthood that block our ability to see beyond the shapes and forms that litter the world around us. Like soggy mash in a tub, they're just waiting for a moment to shine.
