"There is no house without smoke," they like to say. In the same way, there is no country or nation without its own bread. Bread, like gastronomic culture, traveled with people. It is true that some traditions remained in the closed community kitchens, notes Rimvydas Laužikas, a researcher of the history of gastronomy. Others reached only a narrow part of society, i.e. i.e. the more affluent class. However, the professor says that in the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries In Vilnius, in addition to rye and wheat bread typical of Lithuanians and Poles, there were Jewish, Tatar, Karaite, German, and Rusyn breads. And today? Before you is probably the first overview of Vilnius bakeries and their bread.
Only three ingredients
"Sourdough" is written in chalk by the bakery "Salt Flour Water" on the board. This word, which is not understood by everyone, sounds like a secret code several times at the counter. What is behind the combination of "sour" and "dough"? Why, natural sourdough bread with sourdough! To make it clearer, let's take a simple example and compare the French baguette with this close to traditional Lithuanian rye bread. The first one is baked from sourdough, which is prepared from cultivated yeast, and "sourdough" from wild yeast. Thus, the essential difference is the composition of the leaven, which also depends on the duration of the preparation of this pastry. In winter, due to the cold, the whole process of baking sourdough bread made from wild yeast can take 12 hours. Temperature is a very important factor.
To bake this bread, you need not only the three ingredients mentioned in the name of the bakery, but also some more. "Most of the work in the fermentation process is done by the invisible yeast in the bakery environment. For example, the four-year-old son of Christine (business partner Christine Wons - author's post), who got hold of this yeast from his mother, while playing, is able to prepare the dough, which rises perfectly and bakes excellent bread", explains Barbora Grigaliūnaitė-Kadūnienė, one of the owners of this place.
The owners of the bakery were brought together by nothing but bread. Barbora, who returned to Lithuania with her family from London two years ago, says that she was looking for her favorite bread baked from natural sourdough in Vilnius, but without success. Later, she met Christine, who had already opened this bakery Stations in the area and baked such bread exclusively for cafes and restaurants. It didn't take long for the women to join forces and the bakery became open - anyone can stop by for bread and rare delicacies. The owners say that they bake only what tastes good to them. For example, Maltese pastizzi was baked by a small bakery near Christine's home in Toronto. These are unsweet puff pastry cakes with filling. Those who have visited Portugal will recognize the golden pastries "pastéis de nata". However, there are also traditional, world-famous baked goods - chocolate brownie, carrot cake or cinnamon buns. More recently, the business partners have also started organizing late breakfasts.
Israeli street food symbol
Round pretzels with a crispy top and a soft interior were first baked in Krakow several hundred years ago. After a long time, the popular snack in Montreal and New York returned to Vilnius - they were baked by the large Lithuanian Jewish community before the Second World War. Probably the first place that tried to revive this tradition was the "Beigelistai" cafe. Three years ago, he started baking the kosher Jewish delicacy Bagel shop. The cafe operating next to the Lithuanian Jewish community also offers other Jewish delicacies - diamond-shaped carrot and ginger delicacy "imberlach", "teiglach" cooked in honey, and gingerbread "lekach". Surrounded by them, bagels sprinkled with seeds, nuts, herbs, and poppies look out of the window. There are also larger ones with sesame seeds, which are sold on the streets of Israel. Yeast challah, Shabbat and holiday braid is baked every Friday. Each strand has a meaning - truth, peace and justice.
Most recently, the store introduced a new product - a flat, round-shaped bread baked from wheat flour. "Pete, we started baking breads that smell like yeast, which are popular in Israel, out of curiosity. This year, to celebrate our third birthday, we chose the theme "Israeli street food". Pita is a symbol of this food culture. It is eaten with hummus, and when you are rushing from home to work, you can also throw in a fried egg. We stuff everything we want into a pocket of white bread in the freezer. The most popular, of course, are falafels with various vegetables and sauces. We also prepare a sabich sandwich, which includes fried eggplant, greens and fancy sauces. The pita can be torn and soaked in pure olive oil with a mixture of "za'atar" spices," revealed Dovilė Rūkaitė, project manager of "Beigeliai krautuvėlės" and the Lithuanian Jewish community.
Loaves with "stamps"
A year and a half ago, Uzbek bread became popular in Vilnius. In the homeland, the round, sun-shaped loaf is called "obi non". In Lithuania, as in Russia, some call this bread "lepioška". In bakeries "Mama Asia" traditional bread and several other cuisines of this region (triangular cakes samsa, manti, pilaf and sweets) are prepared by Uzbeks who came from the Andijan region, which is located in the eastern part of the country. Therefore, they bake bread as at home - from wheat flour, milk, sugar, yeast and salt. The top is seasoned by sprinkling black and white sesame seeds.
Bread stuck to the walls of the tandoor oven is baked over an open fire. Before that, each loaf is "stamped" - using a special "chekich" press, the desired pattern or sign is imprinted on it. For example, bakers in Vilnius mark their bread with the first letters of the bakery "M" and "A". This step is also important for the bread itself - if it is not marked, then the yeast dough will expand like a bubble during baking and the bread will not have a flat shape.
One of the bakers tells us that one person in Uzbekistan usually eats up to 8 loaves of this bread a day. Traditionally, flatbread is eaten with hands, no knife is used.
Kartveli bread in the neighborhood of Hale market
In Sakartvele, as in Uzbekistan, the shape of the bread depends on the region. In the bakery "Georgian bread" has been preparing oblong, boat-shaped wheat and round bread for eight years. As usual in Kakheti in the east of the country, from salt, flour, water and yeast.
Although potato bread (pure) can be found in Vilnius not only in the aforementioned bakery, as Airidas Balčiūnas, the manager of this bakery, said, he was the first in Lithuania to start baking cartveli bread about twelve years ago. At first, only in Kėdainiai, later he opened a bakery in Vilnius as well. Today, baked bread goes outside Lithuania - to Latvia and Estonia.
Bread is baked in a bag over an open fire. The dough is stuck to the oven, called tone, edges. Heated at 250-300 degrees, the bread is pulled out with a metal tool.
A knot of monks
There are more than five "Biržų duonas" shops and cafes in Vilnius. However, perhaps none of them have such an interesting host as "Joffė's Bakery". There is even a bust of him carved out of wood. The family business started two years ago, as the owner Anatolij Joffė remembers, was a random experiment that later turned into a business. Today, he cannot imagine his life without this bakery, which has turned into a cafe. Anatolius reveals several stories - how one day a namesake from the Republic of South Africa appeared and told that a bakery used to operate in this very place, that no Lithuanian worked here yet, but an Iranian Kurdish woman who worked here baked wonderful bread. An Armenian woman also worked, and at the moment he is helped by a Belarusian woman studying in the capital and a Russian woman living above the bakery. Dumplings ("Alisa koldūnai") of the latter woman from Siberia can be found on the menu, which, like the team, is international: kibinai, snails, shakshuka (oriental omelette - aut. post.).
Different types of bread here. Dark ones, they say, are the most popular, mixed with wheat flour - less so. Best selling cannabis. The bakery attracts attention that cannot be seen anywhere else in Vilnius pretzels, in the early Middle Ages European monks began to make bagels with a knot. Interestingly, this popular German pastry is considered bread, not a bread product. A snack sprinkled with large salt flakes, smeared with butter or with cheese is convenient to eat in a hurry.
The author of the text: Aukse Podolskytė
You can also find this overview of bakeries and breads in Vilnius Extra-curricular Vilnius magazine
