I did it!

I made a yeasted gluten-free loaf today, and it worked! To give the background: by the time I was born, bread was delivered in a baker's van, and sliced varieties were available. My grandmother baked her own bread, but she was about the only person I knew who did. Yeast was always an alchemical mystery to me. I thought Special Knowledge was needed to be able to handle it.

In 1993 I baked a grant loaf, as made by my grandmother. I think it was ok. Last year I attempted a white gluten-free loaf but forgot something important (the yeast?) and ended up with a brick. On the course last week I made a seeded loaf, but that was non-yeasted. All along I've been looking to make a loaf that is light enough to eat at lunchtime, to save me from the boredom of death by Nairn's g-f oatcakes and crackers.

This is Phil Vickery's treacle and pecan loaf ( I used molasses). As you can see. Phil himself has popped into my background to show us his baker's hands. It's a timely blip, as I've been watching Back in TIme for Dinner on iPlayer, and become fascinated all over again by the social history of eating. The programme starts in the 1950s, and gallops up to now. From the 80s onwards it all becomes very familiar to me.

One strange little fragment of memory that came back to me was of going to a little frozen food shop (not one of the chains) in Edinburgh in the early 80s, around Nicholson street, opposite the old cobbler's shop, and buying a bag of ten frozen mutton pies for less than £1. That would have been my next ten dinners, presumably. Around that time, popping into the all-night bakery at the corner of Nicholson square and seeing what was cooking at, say, 4am, after a party, was also part of my 'lifestyle'. Nowadays I'm more likely to get up with the dawn chorus than go to bed when it's starting.