Bread - Farm Shop Walter
Fresh, crusty bread...just the smell of fragrant farmhouse bread makes your mouth water. That's exactly how I felt when I opened the big door to Walter's farm store. The scent of fresh bread immediately rose to my nose.
At the Walter farm store bread is baked every day. The Walter family attaches particularly great importance to this old tradition. They are proud of their tasty bread and the time-tested recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation.
But the secret for the special taste are definitely the valuable and regional ingredients as well as the loving handwork with which the ladies of the house bake their bread every day.
On special days, the farm women also still heat up the old stone oven and bake their bread in it. Katharina Walter discovered the stone oven only after a few years on the farm. When clearing out the pantry, the old oven came to light and was reactivated by her.
In order to bake bread in this stone oven at all, the fire in the oven must be lit as early as 5:00 in the morning. After about 3 hours of burning time, the old stones have reached the right temperature. First, however, the embers and also the ashes must be removed from the oven and it must be cleaned to make room for the bread. Then the shaped loaves can be carefully pushed into the bread oven. After just a few minutes, an intense and wonderful aroma of fresh farmhouse bread spreads.
History of bread:
In the past, bread was something very special in the farmhouse. Bread was baked only once a month and then had to last for the next 30 days. The loaves were at that time in the pantry leaned against the wall and thus stored. The last loaves were then accordingly hard and were sucked by the family more than chewed. By sucking, however, a very special and sweet taste was created - the chocolate of the time, you could almost say.
Bread is still our number 1 staple food in Austria. We attach more and more importance to good and healthy bread. Katharina and Christina Walter also take this particularly to heart and bake high-quality bread every day from regional and valuable ingredients. They obtain their ingredients exclusively from a regional mill and from Mölltal farmers and use grains such as spelt, buckwheat, rye or also a rather rare type of grain, namely the Ur- or also Johannisroggen.
The primal rye used to be very popular in our areas. The grains are smaller than in other cereals but the plants are much more robust. Due to this robustness, weather fluctuations or cold spells were not so bad for the grain, which is of course an advantage at higher altitudes, as is the case here in the Mölltal.
Bread is elemental for the Walter farm women. "It reflects air, earth, fire and water. This makes it part of the cycle of becoming and passing away," says Katharina Walter.
Tip:
Bread should not be stored in plastic bags. It is enough if bread is wrapped with a linen cloth. So it is edible in about 7-10 days.
