Digger Bread
(Made With Love)
Digger Bread was immediately recognizable for the shape of the one- and two-pound
coffee cans that the Diggers used to bake it. I interviewed Walt Reynolds who introduced
baking to the Diggers. (Some day, I hope to transcribe that interview and put it here.)
Walt told me the story of Grey, the Mad Baker, a metaphor of the sixties. The guy flipped
out with his day job in a suburban mall bakery, and one morning the police found him
naked, throwing dollar bills and flour into the air by his mixing bowls. He only wanted to
make bread, but the business angle was too much to handle. He called Walt and told him to
take away the equipment. Walt had come to the Haight and hooked up with the All Saints
Church group of Diggers. He used the church kitchen to teach the Diggers how to bake whole
wheat bread. Fifteen years later, when I was doing non-violence trainings, we got
a hold of
the church for one of our sessions in preparation for occupying the Livermore Labs. I went
into the kitchen and there were those beautiful ovens that the Diggers had used.
Walt told me that the Diggers were responsible for the advent of whole wheat into the
hippie/counterculture. This is a remarkable assertion. I would like to know more about
this hypothesis. If anyone has done any research along these lines, "sign in
please." The book Appetite for Change: how the counterculture took on the food
industry, by Warren J. Belasco, certainly attributes an important role to the Diggers.
However, I don't know if anyone has specifically shown that digger bread was the first
instance of using whole wheat bread (and actually proselytizing for it as demonstrated in
the following leaflet).
This leaflet was two-sided, 8-1/2" by 11". I found it in my collection after
Ramon Sender sent me an email message requesting any information about recipes for digger
bread. I had remembered seeing at least this leaflet (and perhaps others) so went
searching. This leaflet was in one of my un-cataloged folders, with a date that indicated
when I acquired it but not where. One of these days, I must ask IR to see that collection
I put together and left behind so precipitously when I moved out of the commune. Until
then, I have to use the xerox copies that are fading after twenty years.
Enjoy this leaflet, which is just as current today as 25 years ago. If someone was
interested in setting up a Free Bakery, here are the instructions. The only things you'd
need to change would be the wholesalers who aren't around anymore (Oh's only closed in the
past few years, I live two blocks from Mission Street.)
Most inspiring quote from this leaflet:
Please take this recipe home and start making bread. The only stipulation is that you
always give it away.
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Free Bread
This is the recipe for the bread that is made in coffee cans at the Free Bakery. The
Bakery is at All Saints Episcopal Church, 1350 Waller, on Tuesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m.
on. For information or to make donations, call Mary McClain, 362-6374, or Father Harris at
the Church, 621-1862. Contributions can be mailed to Father Harris at 1350 Waller.
We get our flour in 100-lb sacks from several sources. The first we try is Whitman's
Salvage, 1350 Egbert, Hunter's Point. They sell flour from damaged sacks, very cheaply.
Then, if they don't have the whole-wheat flour we use, we go to two wholesale places:
Fisher's Flouring Mills, 1566 Carroll, and Coast-Dakota, 1588 Carroll (two blocks from
Whitman's). Another place that sells flour in 100-lb sacks, but retail, and open on
Saturday's, is Oh's (California Direct Importing Co.), 2651 Mission at 23rd. Finally, many
whole grains and special mixes are available at the Food Mill, 3033 MacArthur, Oakland
(near Fruitvale). Some grains can be found at health food stores such as Far Fetched Foods
(1915 Page, SF) and Sunset Health Foods (9th Avenue, SF). We also use quantities of dry
milk, brown sugar, honey, molasses, margarine, jam, and tea. These things can be bought
cheaply at Whitman's, Big Bonus (Howard St. near 7th or Potrero Hill)), or Co-op on Third
St. near Paul Ave.
We bake in 2-lb coffee cans and sometimes 1-lb cans. This recipe makes one loaf in the
2-lb can and two in the 1-lb cans.
WET MIXTURE:
2-1/2 cups warm water (not over 85 degrees - it it's too hot it will kill the
yeast, which can survive at freezing but not at high temperatures)
1 cake or package of yeast (this is still enough if recipe is doubled, tripled)
1 tablespoon flour 1 tablespoon sugar, honey, molasses (more may be added,
or some of each - we like to use molasses because it's so rich in minerals and vitamins)
This can be mixed in your 1-lb coffee can - 2 cups water fills it to the middle line.
Let the wet mix stand while preparing the dry ingredients.
DRY MIXTURE:
1 level 1-lb coffee can whole-wheat flour, or 4 cups
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
1/4 to 1/2 cup dry milk
MIXING THE TWO: In a large bowl mix the wet mixture into the dry mixture. Let
the dough stand in the bowl until it rises by half, about two hours. The bowl should be
put in a warm place, such as over the pilot light on top of your stove, and it should be
covered. Again, too much heat will kill the yeast, but at about 80 degrees it is at peak
activity.
THEN KNEAD (see below), drop into a greased coffee can - the 2-lb can takes
2-1/2 lbs dough, the 1-lb can about 1-1/4 lbs - after shaping the dough into a ball making
sure no flour is on the surface. Let rise again until it's just getting to the top of the
can, about 45 min.
BAKE at 390 degrees for the 1-lb can, 55 minutes; or 400 degrees for the 2-lb
can for 60 minutes. Oven should be preheated.
KNEADING AND GLUTEN: This is what bread is all about. Yeast is not necessary for
bread (macrobiotic and many other kinds of bread, especially Middle Eastern and Indian, do
not contain yeast) but kneading, which causes gluten to develop, is. Gluten is a protein
substance contained in the grain and released by milling and increased by kneading. It is
elastic (same root as glue) and makes the fibers of dough able to stretch without
breaking; these stretched fibers make little pockets to hold in bubbles of gas formed by
the action of the yeast, and thus the bread rises. If yeast is not used, you still notice
that kneading changes the character of the dough, makes it "breadlike" and not
crumbly.
HOW TO KNEAD: Turn out the dough after it has risen two hours in the bowl onto a
floured surface. Work it with the heels of your hands, pushing and stretching it. Keep
just enough flour on the board and your hands to prevent sticking. Push at it until it
begins to push back - in other words until it has developed gluten and gets elastic. Keep
on until it doesn't stick any more, looks shiny, stretches without breaking when you pull
it apart, holds the indentation made when you poke your finger in, instead of closing up
on it. Caution: several of these tests can be passed by dough that has had too much flour
added. Keep the dough soft, adding only enough flour to prevent sticking. But it may take
another 3/4 cup of flour in the kneading, depending on the kind of flour you used, etc.
The whole thing should take 10 to 15 minutes.
NOTE ON FLOUR: The freshest flour makes the best bread. Besides tasting best, it
has more gluten. You can mill the grain yourself if you have an electric coffee grinder.
It comes out slightly coarse, with all the wheat germ in it (commercial flour has the oily
wheat germ removed because it can go rancid if it is stored for a long time) and needs
very little kneading because of the high gluten content.
Whole wheat flour will make a loaf of bread without any additions. Coarsely-ground
flours, such as stone ground, can be used for all the flour in a loaf but unless they are
very fresh they don't develop quite as much gluten and so are often mixed with a
fine-ground wheat flour. Rye flour hardly has any gluten at all, so must be mixed in order
to rise. White flour, or bleached whole-wheat, is not allowed for Free Bread.
We generally put in one or two of several additions: wheat germ, soy flour (high in
protein), various kinds of meals. You can experiment, starting out with perhaps 1/4 to 1/3
by weight of germ, other flours, meals. And then there are raisins, other kinds of fruit,
honey, and so on.
Milk: If you use regular milk, scald it first (bring it to a boil) to kill
bacteria, then cool to lukewarm (so it won't kill the yeast). Be sure to change it to a wet
ingredient and adjust proportions accordingly.
Please take this recipe home and start making bread. The only stipulation is that you
always give it away.
If you wish to start your own bakery, here is the recipe for twelve loaves. At the
Bakery we mix up about ten or twelve of these batches during the day, keeping two ovens
going with loads of twelve loaves coming out every half hour.
WET MIX:
6 quarts water (80 degrees)
1/5 pound yeast
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
Molasses, if you have it, is added to wet mix.
Alternative for at least 5 batches: Mix 1 pound yeast with 10 quarts water, 1 cup
flour, 1 cup sugar. Take 2 quarts of this yeast water for every batch, adding 4 quarts
lukewarm water.
DRY MIX:
15 lbs flour (5 2-lb coffee cans or 3 Co-op 5-lb sacks)
1 lb sugar (3-1/2 cups)
1 lb dry milk (3 cups)
6 heaping T salt
Substitute other flours, meals here. Brown sugar works fine. Wheat germ too. 2 cans of
substitutions for the flour is about right.
Let rise in the mixing container (we use plastic garbage pails) for two hours (same as
for small recipe), then get in 5 or 6 friends to help knead. We use a scale to weigh the
finished balls of dough (2-1/2 or 1-1/4 lbs) to be dropped in the cans. Rising and baking
times the same as for small recipe.
[Document uploaded May 18, 1996]
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