Breaking Bread is the story of Martin Philip's attempts to come home through cooking.
Philip is the head baker at King Arthur Flour, the Vermont-based flour and baking goods company. But his roots are firmly Southern.
Philip grew up in Fayetteville and several of his recipes have that Southern tinge to them -- molasses pie, butter biscuits and corn grit hoecakes.
The book, which Philip said began without a real plan, chronicles the author's journey through cooking; details of his travels and instructions on how to bake breads are blended in the 369 pages, and few of the 75 recipes within are for beginners.
"I want to get into a right place, and I found my way to that place with bread," Philip said just a few days before the book was released late last month.
But he doesn't stop with Southern, home-style cooking. The 75 recipes in Breaking Bread grow in complexity as Philip travels. He writes about recipes he learned while living in Rome and New York City. He also spent time teaching baking in rural regions of the Dominican Republic and to ex-convicts in Los Angeles.
The book's entries have influences from many regions. Recipes for bread alone include Poolish Baguette, Pain De Mie, Rustic Walnut Ciabatta and Citrus Vollkornbrot.
Particularly toward the end of the book, the recipes are not for the faint of heart -- preparation times can be nearly a full 24 hours, including the time it takes for dough to rise.
Part Two is a helpful tool in conquering some of the tougher cooking tasks in Breaking Bread. The second section of the book includes tips on which ingredients to buy or which pans to use and troubleshoots potential problems when baking.
He started writing the book partially because of inspiration from several writer friends. He had helped Jodi Picoult, a New York Times best-selling author, do research for a book about an artisan bread maker, and had written recipes before when he was studying to be a baker.
He said one of his friends who is an author told him that writing a book was not as difficult as most people think.
"It was as simple to him [Philip's friend] as changing the alarm clock," Philip said. "It was like that easy for him, and so that like flipped a switch in my brain a little bit and I was like 'Well why couldn't I do that?'"
He started writing with no real theme in mind, and he had a contract before he had a fully formed idea. He said he just started writing, searching for his voice, and found that he wanted it to be about home.
Through it all, Philip tries to make home a central theme.
"I make breads that come out of my own narrative experience," he said.
When he does book signings, he often plays the banjo, an homage to his Southern roots, as well as reads excerpts from his book. Most of the writing in the book addresses his life; he brings the reader on a journey through learning to cook, meeting his wife and settling down in Vermont with their three children.
Philip said he doesn't just want the book to be about food. He wants it to be something people can connect and identify with, and he stumbled into writing his life story.
"I didn't set out with any desire to write like a memoir or anything that was telling my story," he said. "I don't think the story itself is particularly interesting. What's more interesting to me ... is talking about what it is that you are doing and whether or not you feel connected to that."
From his Arkansas roots' recipe of "Butter Biscuits" at the beginning of the book, to his final recipe, "Curried Coconut Soup," Philip takes you on a journey through the intricate details of cooking.
Breaking Bread is listed at $35.
Philip's recipe for Butter Biscuits is one of the simpler recipes from Breaking Bread.
Butter Biscuits
½ cup unsalted butter, cold
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup PLUS 1 ½ teaspoons buttermilk
Position an oven rack in the top third of the oven. Heat oven to 425 degrees.
Lightly grease a 13-by-18-inch sheet pan or line it with parchment paper.
Cut the butter into ½-inch slices. Chill until ready to use.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
Add the cold butter and toss to coat with the dry ingredients. Then press the butter slices between your thumb and forefinger into small flat pieces or "leaves."
Add the buttermilk all at once and mix gently until the mixture is just combined. The dough should be firm and barely cohesive (some dry bits are OK).
Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and pat into ¾-inch-thick rectangle. The dry bits will incorporate in the following steps.
Fold the dough in thirds as you would a letter and gently roll or pat it into a rectangle. Repeat this fold-and-roll process once more if the dough isn't cohesive.
Lightly flour the top of the dough and cut the dough into circles with a sharp 2-inch biscuit cutter, or square the sides and edges and cut into eight to 10 even squares using a chef's knife.
Place the biscuits on a prepared sheet pan.
Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, rotating after 14 minutes, until the biscuits are golden.
Makes 10 to 12 biscuits.
Food on 11/22/2017