Fire, for the ancient Romans, was ignis, which was lit in the focus (fireplace) and often surrounded by altars to the family gods. The focus was the sacred centre of the house. Such was its significance that the word became synonymous with home, family and, eventually, fire itself: fuoco. It also gave rise to new words: focolare, which means stove, and focacce, or breads cooked on the hearth.
I wished for a hearth a few months back when, while attempting to recreate the colour-soaked focaccia fresco that emerged in June during excavations in Pompeii, I made an ancient hearth bread that served as a symbolic plate. Not possessing a hearth, I fired off messages. Help arrived with a beep: did I have a baking stone or a loose terracotta floor tile? While I do have several loose tiles, I resisted pulling one up and instead cooked the dough in a terracotta dish. Months on, and I continue to receive messages and advice, and not just about baking. Apparently, as well as flour, my ancient focaccia could include wine, cider, sheep, cow or goat’s milk, ricotta, olive oil, date syrup or honey, and be large or small, leavened or unleavened.
Leavened ancient focaccia requires ancient leaven: flour and water, possibly fruit, that’s been given enough time to ferment into natural yeast. Not having weeks to watch flour and water fizz, I made an unleavened fresco focaccia. And, to be honest, I have always thought I don’t have enough time to watch flour and water fizz, especially given that we live above a bread shop.
But then I went on a trip to the back-of-the-knee region of Le Marche and visited a farm and bakery called Coste del Sole, where they grow traditional and evolutionary populations created by mixing and sowing as many wheat genotypes as possible to allow the crop to adapt genetically over time. They stone-mill their wheat, producing nutritious flour that bakes into bread so supremely tasty, and with such a plump, nutty crumb and crust, it is impossible to forget.
I was travelling with the Italian journalist and grain expert Laura Lazzaroni and Henrietta Inman, from Wakelyns Bakery in Suffolk. “You are just going to have to mix flour and water,” they said. So I did, following Laura’s advice of mixing and watching, then mixing and discarding, of staring into my jar and wondering why it was weeping. Was it alive or dead? The best advice I have about this whole starter affair is to find someone who has done it before – someone who is just as interested as you in the pictures you WhatsApp them of your rising and falling inches of white; a starter buddy to reassure you it takes time, that it should smell like bananas, or that, when it looks like bubbling marshmallows, you are ready to bake many things, including little ancient and modern focacce.
Little soft focacce – focaccine soffici
Makes 12
100ml water, just warm
100ml whole milk
100g sourdough starter, or 6g dried yeast or 15g fresh
300g flour
8g salt
10g honey
30ml – 2 tbsp – olive oil
To serve
Olives, little bits of preserved red pepper or halved cherry tomatoes (optional)
In a measuring jug, mix the water, milk and starter (or yeast).
In a bowl, mix the flour, salt and honey, then pour in the liquid and bring the mix together into a shaggy dough. Add the oil and carry on working until the dough forms a neatish ball. Cover the bowl with a cloth or shower cap, and leave to sit for 10 minutes. Withoiled hands, pull and stretch the dough, then bring it back into a ball. Cover again and leave to sit for two to five hours, until it doubles in size (this will depend on the agent you used to begin with).
Scrape the dough on to a lightly floured board. You now have two options: the first is to break off small pieces and shape each one into a focaccia; the second is to flatten the dough into a round, 1cm-thick piece, then use a cutter to cut it into rounds. Whichever approach you go for, arrange the focacce on a tray lined with greaseproof paper and leave to sit for an hour.
Use oily or wet fingers to indent each round. Alternatively, press olives or cherry tomato halves into the tops. Bake at 220C (200C fan)/gas 7 for 20-25 minutes until puffed up and golden.
