Baking in Ukraine again
A follow-up report from Alexandre Bettler.
I just came back from my third trip baking for Ukraine, making sourdough bread for people in devastated areas. It was an amazing experience, volunteering alongside fantastic, humble and resilient people from all walks of life, baking together in an old Swiss Army mobile bakery.
As I reported from a previous trip to Ukraine, this compact bakery on wheels is impressive. Originally built in the 1950s, it’s a Swiss Army knife of baking, with everything needed for bread making in the field, including water tank, mixer, proving cabinet and a three-deck oven. It was found and restored by Bake For Ukraine, a wonderful charity supporting bakers to provide free bread to people who’ve been displaced by the conflict, or who are still living in devastated areas.
I travelled to Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, near the Black Sea, to train a local man to become a baker. Together we tripled production to about 100 loaves a day and, with the help of the local church community, then made three trips to deliver the sourdough bread to people in small villages outside the city.
I was really struck by the amount of destruction in these villages, where people have been left with no water, electricity or regular access to food. One village had been under attack for nine months, with only one out of 100 houses left undamaged by rockets.
Seeing streets and streets of destroyed, roofless houses and bullet holes everywhere, it really hit me that the hardest part of the war isn’t what is left, but all that has gone. The stories behind the missing windows, cars, roofs, shops, school buildings and - most importantly - the missing people.
Before the war, homemade sourdough bread was a staple for many villagers in Ukraine, so what Bake For Ukraine enabled us to offer people was greatly appreciated. It’s probably a very welcome addition (or alternative) to the UN ration of one factory loaf per person, per week. Seeing people repeatedly smelling. or even kissing, our bread was a humbling and very powerful reward for our work. I don’t think it ever felt so satisfying and meaningful to craft, bake and give handmade sourdough bread.
I am feeling bad about relaying such a story. We shouldn’t have any wars to report from, but sadly this is the reality I experienced. This has no doubt reinforced my belief that bread (especially sourdough bread) can be an extremely powerful tool to bring some relief, and a little hope.
Please support Bake For Ukraine.
Alexandre Bettler is the founder of Today Bread in Walthamstow, London.
@bake.for.ukraine
@today_bread
Published Tuesday 15 October 2024
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