The American Bakery
STEVE MADE A VISIT TO A BAKERY AND TODAY HE IS GUEST WRITER
It was a dark and stormy night. Nothing in town was moving. It was three oclock in the morning, and the darkness was only relieved by lightning from time to time. The rain came down in torrents, than stopped for a few minutes, then came down in torrents again. I waited outside Panneficio Americano (The American bakery), and when Calogero, the owner, showed up at 3:15, he looked at me from the darkness of his small van for a minute or two, then opened the door and asked me what I was doing there at this hour. I told him that I was there to watch him bake bread. He shook his head and said: Not a good day. Not a good day. Then he made sure that I had my car, and told me some other time.
That was a few months ago. His daughters had forgotten to tell him that I was going to show up when he opened the bakery on a Monday morning, and follow the process from cold ovens and empty shelves to opening the bakery with shelves brimming with hot, fresh bread. When I stopped for bread later in the day, they at first laughed at me for not showing up, and when I told them that I had been there, but he was not ready for me at three in the morning, they became embarrassed. Apparently one of the sisters had told her husband, the master baker, to expect me, but he comes in a little after Calogero. While I was still at the bakery, Calogero came in from delivering some of his bread around town, and we laughed and went to the bar next door for coffee.
This morning I made another appointment, this time I made it with Calogero. I got there at three oclock, which is about when he left his home on the eastern edge of Sciacca, under the shadow of Mt. Kronios. Calogero was born in Caltabellotta, but now lives in Sciacca. He got to Sciacca via Chicago. In Chicago he was first a brick layer, and then a landscape artist. He has the powerful, compact build of someone who can carry a hod all day long up and down ladders, and he has the eye of a person who can tell if the wall is plumb, and if the plant is in the right place. I visited his house once, and his gardens are wonderful.
When he retired from his landscaping business, he retired to Sciacca, down the hill from his hometown, where it stays a bit warmer, and certainly stays warmer than when he was in Chicago. He and his wife (also from Caltabellotta) have twin daughters, who were born and grew up in the United States. They have a younger sister who lives in Naples. The twins are both married to Sciaccatani, and both women work at the bakery. One (Paola) is married to Filippo, the person that I have come to think of as the Master Baker. The other (Maria) is married to a man who works at the Terme health care facility in town.
Calogero pulled up in front of the bakery, gave me a big smile, and said: This morning is better. Cold though, four degrees (40 F) at home. Warmer than Chicago. This morning is better. He still had some sleep in his voice, and he opened the metal door to the bakery and immediately made sure the ovens were turned on before he took off his coat. I followed him in, and started taking pictures of the empty bakery. As I was taking pictures, Calogero started scooping flower into the smallest of the three large mixers. We were joined shortly by Filippo, and then by Salvatore, the third baker in the operation. Few words were spoken as thirty kilo sacks of flower were poured into the mixers, leavening, salt, and water added, and the huge beaters started rotating in the mix.
Filippo started working with the sesame seeds that were left out on the metal baking table over the weekend. He made sure they were damp, and scooped them into a large bowl. Then he went over and turned off the middle size mixer and brought the dough from a mixer and put it into a portioning machine. While he was doing this, he checked the consistency of the other two machines, adding a bit more flour to the smaller one , and adding a bit more water to the third. It all seemed pretty relaxed. No one gave orders, no one talked. They all knew their job. I knew my job was to keep quiet and keep out of the way. Fran can tell you, I am usually too upbeat early in the morning. I had the feeling that a lot of smiles and jokes would not go over real well with this audience.
Salvatore came over, and he and Filippo moved the metal table into position, then Filippo adjusted the controls, and the portioning machine started weighing out half kilo (1.1 pound) pieces of dough, and dropping them into a machine that rolled them into a ball, from which they fell into a machine that rolled them into a basic loaf or bat shape. Calogero came over from where he was monitoring the ovens, and the three started working the freshly mixed whole wheat flour into loaf shapes. First they worked with the half kilo loaves, and then they started making thinner, quarter kilo loaves. Filippo checked the heft of the balls of dough, and made adjustments to the machine, every once in a while checking his sense of how heavy the pieces were against a scale. He was always right on target with it. Amazing.
Before I could offer to help, the fifty loaves of whole wheat bread were all on trays, and the trays were on a rack on wheels so they could be moved. Calogero motioned me to follow him, as he rolled the trays into what he called the steam room. There, the bread was allowed to rise, and the small room is heated, and there is water near the heaters so that the dough does not dry out. It is right next to the huge bread ovens that he uses. Just before putting the rack into the steam room, Calogero and Salvatore sprayed each loaf with water.
When this was done, we went back to see Filippo just finishing up with his five pans of what is referred to in the states as Sicilian style pizza, and which is thought of here as bar pizza, or pizza for tavola calda. Calogero took over the work with the pizza, eventually placing the pans under a blanket, while Filippo refilled the medium and small mixers and started them up again. Then some of the dough from the large mixer was moved to the portioning machine.
The large mixer holds over ninety kilos of flour at a time. That means about 198 pounds of flour. They go through 8 thirty kilo bags of regular white flour each day, as well as whole wheat flour, cookie flour, and perhaps some other flours. They also use from eight to ten kilos of sesame seeds!! I am still tired from this morning, but you can do the math. They use a lot of flour, a lot of seeds, and make a lot of bread.
The three men started making rolls. Sandwich rolls. Half sandwich rolls. Small rolls. Seeded rolls. Thin rolls. Fat rolls. Fancy shaped rolls. Plain round rolls. Rack after rack of rolls. More rolls than I could count. Maria arrived during this work, at about 4:15, and started rolling rolls with the guys. Calogero kept his eye on the ovens and the bread in the steam room, and when the time came, he threw a pitcher of water on the stone base of the bread ovens, creating steam and a wet atmosphere, and put the whole wheat bread in.
Maria and Filippo never stopped their bread making. Filippo seemed the expert. He would roll breads and rolls, make final adjustments to Marias or Salvatores or even Calogeros loaves and rolls, add sesame seeds, and make the cuts in some of the fancier loaves. While they were shaping their U shaped loaves, I asked Maria what the Italian word was for baker. She told me it was Panettiere. Filippo asked her to translate what we were saying. He smiled, as he rolled out a one kilo loave, long and thick, and said that he was called a Minghazzere! Perhaps one needs to know Italian slang to understand that one. He was surprised when I understood it, and we laughed about it, while Maria blushed.
They loaded tray after tray. They brought over a large rack, which held fifty half kilo loaves per shelf, which they loaded up. Each shelf had rollers, so that the shelf could be put in the oven, then pulled out, leaving the dough to be baked on the stone surface. There were six shelves on the rack, and the racks were filled three times while I was there.
Calogero kept busy monitoring the bread, and taking the bread out of the oven and placing it in certain areas to cool when it was done. The whole wheat bread was out of the oven and cool before I realized it. Cooled bread was moved to baskets so that the pans could be used again. Mary put the sauce and toppings on the pizza and readied them for the oven. After having me try my hand several times with the bread, they found something that I was good at, so it was my job to keep the floor somewhat clear of spilled flour, sesame seeds, and uncooked bread dough. At least I knew how to handle a broom!!
Paola came in, along with her mother. She came over and gave Filippo a good morning kiss, and Filippo immediately turned around and burned his hand on a hot pan! Then she and her mother started making ham sandwiches in the store area for the kids who come in on their way to school. At six oclock, a guy that owns a roach wagon that goes to some of the schools in other neighbourhoods, came in and got forty panini rolls. The business day had started, and Filippo was still working his dough, still creating loaves, braids, twists, rolls, and focaccia. Mary started working in the front, and Filippo started giving me some things to do to get me used to handling the fresh dough. I made a few rolls, and put some of the dough that had been out of the portioning machine too long back into the rolling machine to be re rolled before being shaped. I put the seeds on the rosette rolls. I got Filippo to get a good laugh at a loaf that I rolled out, instead of just shaking his head and putting back in the rolling machine.
By seven thirty, I was dead on my feet. I had been there only four and a half hours. I have often seen Filippo still at work at noon and later. Filippo was filling his third set of racks of bread loaves. He had already made his second group of panini rolls. Forty ham sandwiches were ready for kids going to the near by hotel high school. The shelves were full of bread, and would be empty by nightfall, with anything left over being ground into bread crumbs (mollica) when it got hard enough. I took a half kilo of whole wheat bread, and a half kilo of regular bread off the now brimming shelves, and headed home, where Fran and I cut into both of them, spreading them with the wonderful peanut butter that we import from the states.
It was a dark and stormy night. Nothing in town was moving. It was three oclock in the morning, and the darkness was only relieved by lightning from time to time. The rain came down in torrents, than stopped for a few minutes, then came down in torrents again. I waited outside Panneficio Americano (The American bakery), and when Calogero, the owner, showed up at 3:15, he looked at me from the darkness of his small van for a minute or two, then opened the door and asked me what I was doing there at this hour. I told him that I was there to watch him bake bread. He shook his head and said: Not a good day. Not a good day. Then he made sure that I had my car, and told me some other time.
That was a few months ago. His daughters had forgotten to tell him that I was going to show up when he opened the bakery on a Monday morning, and follow the process from cold ovens and empty shelves to opening the bakery with shelves brimming with hot, fresh bread. When I stopped for bread later in the day, they at first laughed at me for not showing up, and when I told them that I had been there, but he was not ready for me at three in the morning, they became embarrassed. Apparently one of the sisters had told her husband, the master baker, to expect me, but he comes in a little after Calogero. While I was still at the bakery, Calogero came in from delivering some of his bread around town, and we laughed and went to the bar next door for coffee.
This morning I made another appointment, this time I made it with Calogero. I got there at three oclock, which is about when he left his home on the eastern edge of Sciacca, under the shadow of Mt. Kronios. Calogero was born in Caltabellotta, but now lives in Sciacca. He got to Sciacca via Chicago. In Chicago he was first a brick layer, and then a landscape artist. He has the powerful, compact build of someone who can carry a hod all day long up and down ladders, and he has the eye of a person who can tell if the wall is plumb, and if the plant is in the right place. I visited his house once, and his gardens are wonderful.
When he retired from his landscaping business, he retired to Sciacca, down the hill from his hometown, where it stays a bit warmer, and certainly stays warmer than when he was in Chicago. He and his wife (also from Caltabellotta) have twin daughters, who were born and grew up in the United States. They have a younger sister who lives in Naples. The twins are both married to Sciaccatani, and both women work at the bakery. One (Paola) is married to Filippo, the person that I have come to think of as the Master Baker. The other (Maria) is married to a man who works at the Terme health care facility in town.
Calogero pulled up in front of the bakery, gave me a big smile, and said: This morning is better. Cold though, four degrees (40 F) at home. Warmer than Chicago. This morning is better. He still had some sleep in his voice, and he opened the metal door to the bakery and immediately made sure the ovens were turned on before he took off his coat. I followed him in, and started taking pictures of the empty bakery. As I was taking pictures, Calogero started scooping flower into the smallest of the three large mixers. We were joined shortly by Filippo, and then by Salvatore, the third baker in the operation. Few words were spoken as thirty kilo sacks of flower were poured into the mixers, leavening, salt, and water added, and the huge beaters started rotating in the mix.
Filippo started working with the sesame seeds that were left out on the metal baking table over the weekend. He made sure they were damp, and scooped them into a large bowl. Then he went over and turned off the middle size mixer and brought the dough from a mixer and put it into a portioning machine. While he was doing this, he checked the consistency of the other two machines, adding a bit more flour to the smaller one , and adding a bit more water to the third. It all seemed pretty relaxed. No one gave orders, no one talked. They all knew their job. I knew my job was to keep quiet and keep out of the way. Fran can tell you, I am usually too upbeat early in the morning. I had the feeling that a lot of smiles and jokes would not go over real well with this audience.
Salvatore came over, and he and Filippo moved the metal table into position, then Filippo adjusted the controls, and the portioning machine started weighing out half kilo (1.1 pound) pieces of dough, and dropping them into a machine that rolled them into a ball, from which they fell into a machine that rolled them into a basic loaf or bat shape. Calogero came over from where he was monitoring the ovens, and the three started working the freshly mixed whole wheat flour into loaf shapes. First they worked with the half kilo loaves, and then they started making thinner, quarter kilo loaves. Filippo checked the heft of the balls of dough, and made adjustments to the machine, every once in a while checking his sense of how heavy the pieces were against a scale. He was always right on target with it. Amazing.
Before I could offer to help, the fifty loaves of whole wheat bread were all on trays, and the trays were on a rack on wheels so they could be moved. Calogero motioned me to follow him, as he rolled the trays into what he called the steam room. There, the bread was allowed to rise, and the small room is heated, and there is water near the heaters so that the dough does not dry out. It is right next to the huge bread ovens that he uses. Just before putting the rack into the steam room, Calogero and Salvatore sprayed each loaf with water.
When this was done, we went back to see Filippo just finishing up with his five pans of what is referred to in the states as Sicilian style pizza, and which is thought of here as bar pizza, or pizza for tavola calda. Calogero took over the work with the pizza, eventually placing the pans under a blanket, while Filippo refilled the medium and small mixers and started them up again. Then some of the dough from the large mixer was moved to the portioning machine.
The large mixer holds over ninety kilos of flour at a time. That means about 198 pounds of flour. They go through 8 thirty kilo bags of regular white flour each day, as well as whole wheat flour, cookie flour, and perhaps some other flours. They also use from eight to ten kilos of sesame seeds!! I am still tired from this morning, but you can do the math. They use a lot of flour, a lot of seeds, and make a lot of bread.
The three men started making rolls. Sandwich rolls. Half sandwich rolls. Small rolls. Seeded rolls. Thin rolls. Fat rolls. Fancy shaped rolls. Plain round rolls. Rack after rack of rolls. More rolls than I could count. Maria arrived during this work, at about 4:15, and started rolling rolls with the guys. Calogero kept his eye on the ovens and the bread in the steam room, and when the time came, he threw a pitcher of water on the stone base of the bread ovens, creating steam and a wet atmosphere, and put the whole wheat bread in.
Maria and Filippo never stopped their bread making. Filippo seemed the expert. He would roll breads and rolls, make final adjustments to Marias or Salvatores or even Calogeros loaves and rolls, add sesame seeds, and make the cuts in some of the fancier loaves. While they were shaping their U shaped loaves, I asked Maria what the Italian word was for baker. She told me it was Panettiere. Filippo asked her to translate what we were saying. He smiled, as he rolled out a one kilo loave, long and thick, and said that he was called a Minghazzere! Perhaps one needs to know Italian slang to understand that one. He was surprised when I understood it, and we laughed about it, while Maria blushed.
They loaded tray after tray. They brought over a large rack, which held fifty half kilo loaves per shelf, which they loaded up. Each shelf had rollers, so that the shelf could be put in the oven, then pulled out, leaving the dough to be baked on the stone surface. There were six shelves on the rack, and the racks were filled three times while I was there.
Calogero kept busy monitoring the bread, and taking the bread out of the oven and placing it in certain areas to cool when it was done. The whole wheat bread was out of the oven and cool before I realized it. Cooled bread was moved to baskets so that the pans could be used again. Mary put the sauce and toppings on the pizza and readied them for the oven. After having me try my hand several times with the bread, they found something that I was good at, so it was my job to keep the floor somewhat clear of spilled flour, sesame seeds, and uncooked bread dough. At least I knew how to handle a broom!!
Paola came in, along with her mother. She came over and gave Filippo a good morning kiss, and Filippo immediately turned around and burned his hand on a hot pan! Then she and her mother started making ham sandwiches in the store area for the kids who come in on their way to school. At six oclock, a guy that owns a roach wagon that goes to some of the schools in other neighbourhoods, came in and got forty panini rolls. The business day had started, and Filippo was still working his dough, still creating loaves, braids, twists, rolls, and focaccia. Mary started working in the front, and Filippo started giving me some things to do to get me used to handling the fresh dough. I made a few rolls, and put some of the dough that had been out of the portioning machine too long back into the rolling machine to be re rolled before being shaped. I put the seeds on the rosette rolls. I got Filippo to get a good laugh at a loaf that I rolled out, instead of just shaking his head and putting back in the rolling machine.
By seven thirty, I was dead on my feet. I had been there only four and a half hours. I have often seen Filippo still at work at noon and later. Filippo was filling his third set of racks of bread loaves. He had already made his second group of panini rolls. Forty ham sandwiches were ready for kids going to the near by hotel high school. The shelves were full of bread, and would be empty by nightfall, with anything left over being ground into bread crumbs (mollica) when it got hard enough. I took a half kilo of whole wheat bread, and a half kilo of regular bread off the now brimming shelves, and headed home, where Fran and I cut into both of them, spreading them with the wonderful peanut butter that we import from the states.
posted by Sicilian Mama at 7:23 AM
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