Book Forty-One: 52 Loaves

You have to admire someone with passion and in this book, it's all about bread.  Obsessed with developing the best peasant loaf, the author commits to baking bread each week for a year.  He tasted the perfect bread years ago and has been trying to reproduce it ever sense.   Beginning with a back yard wheat field, Alexander commits to his quest.  Bless his long suffering family!

Author William Alexander may write about bread but it's digressions into faith and family that make the book.  His obsession takes him to Morocco when food poisoning sets in, to Paris to bake a loaf in a communal oven, to Normandy to train and bake with monks and to his own backyard where a weekend DIY turns into a precarious clay oven.

Alexander eventually learns the true meaning of perfection but not before he tries to hoodwink TSA agents with his levain and enters the baking contest at the New York State Fair.  While the book explores what makes bread the live blood of communities, he doesn't delve too far into the mechanics which makes the book highly entertaining.

As I see it, 52 Loaves is a delightful read.  The author includes several recipes that his mentions throughout the book should the reader be inspired to start their own levain.  Other resources include a lovely bibliography for further reading.  It's difficult to say to whom this book would appeal to but I'd think bakers and admirers of humanity and their passions won't be disappointed.