oh Creator of precious bread,
As sustenance for the temporary life,
How your generosity has invited us,
To give ourselves as bread to you!
oh Bread, that fell from Heaven,
Satisfy then our soul.

translation by Josephine V. Brown

Hmm, 'a loaf that fell from Heaven.' Heaven that brings forth the Earth? Anyway, the circle is complete once more in the next line, where the earthly, in turn, influences the heavenly: 'Satisfy then our soul'.

What would have been listed on the ingredients label for the bread from Jan Luykens’ baker? From ‘a loaf that fell from heaven’ you’d expect a certain pastoral simplicity and certainly not contemporary ingredients such as palm fat, soya lecithin, palm fat, enzymes, flour improver, wheat malt, potassium chloride, stearic acid (E481), calcium ascorbate (E302), hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (E464), thickener (E415), potassium iodide, silicon dioxide anti-caking agent (E551).

A good loaf is simple.

The recipe for our daily bread—see the photo below:
10.30 am – rye sourdough, water, wholemeal spelt flour
1.30 pm – the sourdough with 250 grams of spelt flour, 250 grams of wholemeal emmer wheat flour, 350 grams of water, 8 grams of sea salt
5.15 pm – into the proving basket
6.30 pm – time to bake!

What’s the best bread I’ve ever eaten? I was fortunate that a large part of my teaching work took place in Austria and Germany. The bread culture there is in no way comparable to that in the Netherlands and the UK. You only need to take a look at the lists of ingredients to see that.

An old comrade-in-arms of mine, who I lost contact with, moved back to his native France and set up a market business in Annecy, selling, amongst other things, sourdough bread from a local bakery (Hi Philippe, in the unlikely event that you read this, how is life, how is the market?) For a period of time, every other month, he’d send me a loaf in the post as a little treat. An incomparable pain de campagne au levain, weighing no less than five kilos! Packed in an empty flour sack, delivered at the door by the postman. It might well be the best bread I’ve ever eaten.

Bread in the 17th century.

Wie kijkt mij aan? Bakkersechtpaar door Jan Steen

Wie zijn deze bakkers? Waarom zijn ze op deze manier geschilderd? Janine Abbring gaat in gesprek met conservator Anne Lenders.

Rijksmuseum.nl

Bread in ancient Egypt.

Bread in the Middle Ages.

And where we live now, how is the bread in Portugal? Every week, ‘broa’, a round, flatbread made from corn and. bit of wheat, is being baked.

And finally, despite the Dutch breasd specialities, like the soggy white 'casino brood', the soft 'kadetjes' and 'het halfje knip', here’s a tribute to our baker. Who, after all, gets up before the crack of dawn just for us.