Bread is the most basic item in the traditions of British food, so basic that we don't think about it much. Yet it is a strange and wonderful thing. Made from selected grain (yes, even flour has its romantic side), worked into a dough with water and aereated by the action of a yeast to a light open structure. Then baked with just the right amount of steam to give a crisp crust full of flavour.
Is there anything to surpass the smell of freshly baked bread?
Modern technology has reduced the time in which a loaf can be made from hours to minutes. From the point of view of a low-income parent who needs to feed a hungry child, a cheap sliced loaf is a wonderful achievement: inexpensive, wholesome and nutritious. It's good that no one needs to go without bread. But loaves like that do lack two important characteristics. They have a poor texture and a non-existent taste. That is a side-effect of the technology that makes them so cheaply. For not very much more, a loaf can b made that is a pleasure to eat even without any butter or jam on it.
A slice of good bread should not need slathering with spreads and jams to make it interesting. It is good of itself, and can best be appreciated if it is only lightly annointed, or not at all. Needless to say, it is also more healthy to eat it like that: if our work does not require us to labour mightily with pick and shovel then we are wise if we eat our bread with the minimum of butter and jam. Why waste money on industrially-made low-fat spread, when we can buy good-tasting bread and eat it with as little on it as possible? It's better for us that way, and it puts us in closer touch with the golden cornfields that provide our 'staff of life'.
The fresh bread you see in Satterthwaites is exactly that. Baked that morning in Crosby (OK, we do sell some bread on the second day for toasting, but that's marked at half-price and non the worse for that). If we say it's fresh-baked, that is exactly what we mean. All our bread is baked from scratch.
The word 'fresh' has become debased - watch out for weasel phrases like 'fresh tasting' which sound good but are legally meaningless. In the end, after trying many alternatives, the best of the supermarkets came back to doing what we had been doing all along - baking fresh, from scratch. But we did it first, we are still doing it, and we think we can still do it better. You can judge, and you have the choice.
Satterthwaites - something special from Crosby
As long as we are here, there is still a choice.
Your choice.
This website (C) Roger Wilson 2003-2007
Satterthwaites Ltd, Registered Office 51 Coronation Road, Crosby, Liverpool L23 5RE
Tel: (+44) (0) 151 286 9690 Fax: (+44) (0) 151 284 0096