The Traveling Baker
Traveling baker Byron Fry taught himself to bake 3 years ago before apprenticing at the Italian Bakery in Victoria BC. During the summer of 2010 he rode his motorcycle 16 000km around North America, visiting bakeries in Montreal, New York, North Carolina and Portland. In NC he met the baker Richard Miscovich who inspired him to come home to BC, build an oven, and bake bread. The historical name and logo of Fry's Red Wheat Bread was passed down from his great-grandfather whom owned and operated a bakery in Victoria at the turn of the century.
This is his first year farm-based operation in Metchosin. You will find him at the James Bay Community Market Saturdays 9-3 and the Metchosin Farmers Market 11-2 as well as the Oak Bay Night Market, third Wednesday of the month.
Article from the Victoria Daily Times, Friday, Dec. 13 1963, about the uncovering the brick oven at the old Fry’s Bakery location on Craigflower Rd. where my ancestors ran their bakery for 20 years.
Here’s the article retyped so it’s easier to read:
A memory of the days when bread smelled like bread and cost a nickel bobbed up this week out of a broken building.
Wreckers tearing down a confectionary on Craigflower Road found in the ruins a brick oven that was once manned by a family of bakers.
Fry’s Bakery has been out of business for years, but the name is still familiar to many Victorians. Charles Fry founded the bakery and built the brick oven about 40 years ago.
He ran the bakery with his three sons for 20 years, going out of business just after the Second World War. The oven was partitioned off after the building became a confectionary.
It stood idle, it’s iron doors hanging slack, until the wrecker smashed the screen around it.
The oven will soon be gone too, with it’s smokey bricks converted to other purposes.
And the memory of old fashioned bread will be gone from a corner of Craigflower Road forever.
Ottilie’s photo from the lamb roast at this years Metchosin Days. I believe these lamb were busy grazing next to where the wheat for my bread was grown!
Metchosin Days’ Lamb Roast
Getting some freshly-picked veggies from Wind Whipped Farm for our Focaccia!
Byron the baker with his mammoth loaf of bread
The iconic image of an iconic bread, by an iconic photographer. I’ve been musing on baguettes after introducing them to our market customers over the past couple weekends and I’ve put some thoughts below:
The baguette sits counter to most of my ideas on bread. I bake large, heavy loaves with dark flours—breads packed with nutrition, but also speaking to the traditional breads of the country side. The bread of farmers, peasants and labourers.
Baguettes were born in the basement brick ovens of Paris, and in it’s pure and original form it is a beautiful symbol of the ideal city. As such it has become a cornerstone in the diet, not only of parisians, but of people across the world. Interestingly the peasants of France were originally suspicious of the long skinny bread that their city counterparts cherished. The contrast between the earthy traditional peasant loaves and the airy baguette make it seem otherworldly and in comparison, quite odd.
It was truly a city bread, historically and for me personally. I learned to bake them at the Italian Bakery in Victoria, rushing around early in the morning, rolling countless baguettes to for our daily customers and wholesale orders. They say it takes 3000 baguettes until you learn the proper shaping method, and I did well over in my time at that bakery. In Vancouver I brought the baguette with me when I worked for Florin Moldovan at Beyond Bread, the former Transylvanian Peasant. Vancouverites, in a city a nearly devoid of good bread, and definitely devoid of a good baguette, responded fanatically.
When I returned the the island and built up the bakery on my parents farm, it didn’t seem right to bake baguettes. I am using whole grains sourced within a couple kilometers and stone milling them for a bread that is in a way, about trying to remember the way life was before the industrialization of bread.
However, the beauty of the baguette is incredibly alluring— the deep diamond/teardrop like cuts, and the thick, cracked crust that sings when pulled from the oven make it a bread that is fascinating to make. The time and energy that goes into making a great baguette go beyond what a sensible baker would attempt. That is why there are so many mediocre baguettes out there, because to make a really great baguette takes so much time and energy that the baker needs to be caught up in a nearly destructive search for perfection. For better or worse, I think I may have caught the fever behind making a perfect baguette, and for me, it will be one that marries the country side with the demands of the urban.
(via museumstudies)
Here is the Caraway Rye, featuring locally grown Rye from Tom Henry at Stillmeadow Farm.
The Hazelnut Apple Rye featuring apples from Wind Whipped Farm in Metchosin and roasted hazelnuts from Wilberry Orchards in Cowichan Bay is out of the oven!
Oak Bay Night Market is tomorrow night! Hosted by the Oak Bay BIA and held on Oak Bay Avenue, this market is quickly becoming the best in Victoria. We will be there from 4-8pm with lots of local bread and pastry. But be there early as we sold out in 45 minutes last month.
Above photographs from left to right are CowValley hazelnuts from Wilberry Orchards, Alex Fletcher of Wind Whipped Farm holding a massive tomato for tomorrows foccacia, and a block of butter for the epic amount of croissants I’m hand-rolling for the market.
I’m going to be attempting to live-blog the baking tomorrow, photographing breads as they come out of the oven so check back in tomorrow.
Breads tomorrows are as follows:
Wind Whipped Farm Apple Hazelnut Rye
Walnut Red Wheat Bread
Red Wheat Country Bread
Caraway Rye Country Bread
Wind Whipped Tomato Foccaccia
Happy Valley Rosemary Foccaccia
Classic Baguettes
Pastries are as follows:
Wilberry Hazelnut Croissants
Butter Croissants
Pain au chocolat
Wind Whipped Red Currant Scones
Cherry Chocolate Scones
