Visiting Altamura's two famous bakeries (Oct 2019)
Visiting Altamura's two famous bakeries (Oct 2019)
I first read about Daniel Leader's experience in Altamura about a year and a half ago. So enchanted by the rich history of Altamura's DOP bread that I said that I had to go to Altamura whenever I visited Italy.
My husband and I were only going to be in Altamura for less than a day so we visited the Forno Antico Santa Chiara after 6pm on the day we arrived. In retrospect that was not a good time since they were no longer baking. We purchased a small loaf of their DOP bread for 2.5 euros plus a bag (1.5 Kg) of their semolina flour (Semola Ramacinata Grano Duro) for 4 euros. Interesting to note that all exterior signage read " Forno Antico Santa Chiara" while plastic bag and labels read "Anticuus Fornus Sancta Clara".
The bread was hand sliced and I estimated to be 6+ hours old. Crusty exterior, golden yellow colour interior, moist and slightly dense with a sweet, mild cornmeal type flavour and very mild acidity. Our phone camera at night did not do justice to the colour of this bread. It is actually more golden yellow. The following morning, we passed outside of this bakery and there was a large group of tourists outside so we decided to proceed to Forno Antico Santa Caterina instead.
The Santa Caterina bakery was busy with local patrons, with loaves of bread freshly out of the oven cooling on a wooden bench and foccacia baking in the wood fired oven. We again purchased a small loaf of bread for 2 euros and a bag (1.7 Kg) of semolina flour for 2 euros. The bread was still warm. After taking a couple of photos whole, I took it back in to be sliced which was done by machine. Outside the bakery, a local patron, holding his child, told us how the people of Altamura love this bread, fresh then used in soups and bread salads. This bread is never wasted.
The flavour was very similar to the Santa Chiara bread but the interior texture was very slightly lighter. Note that we ate this Santa Caterina bread on Day 1, 2 and 3. By day 3 (about 48hrs old) it was getting a bit stale, dried out although it was well wrapped.
Making Daniel Leader's Semolina Sandwich loaf with Altamura semolina flour
I am sure that we were the only crazy tourists to lug semolina flour to two more cities by train before returning home to Toronto. I decided that there was no way to recreate the Altamura bread without the actual mother and a wood fired oven. The next best option was to make Daniel Leader's Semolina Sandwich Loaf.
Two semolina flours side by side, note that the Santa Caterina's has a finer granulation than the Santa Chiara's which is probably why we detected a slightly lighter texture in the Altamura Santa Caterina loaf. The Santa Caterina bakery also charged a lower price for the semolina while the Santa Chiara seems to be now geared to the tourist population charging a higher price for both bread and semolina.
Unlike other baker's results, my loaves did not rise as high as anticipated.
As well during the mixing, the Santa Chiara's dough was too wet. I added a little flour at the very end before rising as I did not know how long it would take for the semolina to rehydrate. Both loaves were very moist but a bit heavy.
I remade the loaf again with the Santa Chiara semolina and reduced the water to 250g, doubled the yeast to 2 tsp and replaced the olive oil to partially melted butter (personal taste). The dough texture was perfect after mixing for 8 mins. The Altamura semolina definitely needed the higher amount yeast.The result was much improved with a moist loaf with still some denseness.
All three sandwich loaves had a sweet, slight cornmeal note. Texture great on the first day especially warm and firming up after. It would all come down to personal preference for texture. For a sandwich loaf, I would anticipate that more people would prefer it lighter.
I shared some of the Altamura semolinas with a friend who has also been using it.
My future experiments with semolina flour in other recipes will be with durum atta which is easily accessible to me . I will likely replace 40% of the semolina with bread flour.
All in all,we had some wonderful memories of the beautiful town of Altamura and its historic bakeries.
Comments
The sight of your pictures had me thinking "take me back".. I had a very similar experience to yours. We were there in 2016 and ate bread on the steps of the bakery we visited. We were just there for the afternoon an a bread run as we were making our way through the area. Like you I bought flour and brought it home to Toronto thinking I must be nuts! I know my wife did! I made some bread with it, but in the traditional shape. It was a fun experience!
Thanks for your comment. I am a bit behind everyone who read Daniel Leader's Altamura story years ago. Authentic food is a large part of my travel enjoyment. Altamura was a really cute town and we loved visiting it. Hopefully my friend who I shared some of the Altamura Semolina with will share her photos as well.