Bread

To my amazement Mac had scrounged for parts and actually been able to fix those two pieces of junk he had salvaged from Grenadine View. On Bequia you needed to be handy, there were no oven repair men, neither hardware stores selling parts, and I discovered that my new husband was a master “Jury Rigger”.    I was very impressed, we had two pizza ovens that actually WORKED.

The dough mixer he had salvaged was another story.  Without the motor, bowl and attachments it was useless. Mac was optimistic, and promised that he would get it working, it would just take some time.

Time was not something we had to spare, we needed to start making some kind of income but where to start?  We had no money for plates, glasses, cutlery and other necessary restaurant equipment, not to mention money to buy food supplies!  We had a lovely building overlooking the water, working ovens, tables and chairs but no way to start operating.

A visitor to the Island named Graham provided the answer.  He said, “Man, make some bread! There’s no good bread on this Island and people will buy as much as you can make!”.  Graham was a lovely Englishman who had been working at a co-op bakery in British Columbia, and he kindly offered to help us.  I knew how to make bread, but not HIS kind of bread!

Graham was a naturalist and would not touch white flour.  Together we went to the flour mill on the mainland and I was surprised by what I learned. The mill actually injected bleach into the flour to make it whiter, and the bran and wheat germ were discarded.  Graham got them to put aside sacks of white flour before the bleach was added, and to bag up the wheat germ and bran for us instead of throwing it way.

Back on Bequia Graham showed me how to blend the untreated flour, wheat germ and bran together to make whole wheat flour.  Whole wheat flour was not sold on the Island and we would be the first to introduce healthy brown bread.  I learned how to knead properly too, a task that today has been made easier with the invention of instant yeast.  Back then you had to wait for the yeast to “proof”, then knead for a long time.  Once the dough had risen you had to beat it down with your fists, then knead vigorously all over again.  It didn’t take long before I was turning out excellent loaves of bread.

I borrowed several bread pans from Momma Simmons, and with a tub of lard, a bag of salt and sacks of unbleached white flour, bran and wheat germ I was all set.  Graham and I started the day at 3:45 A.M., and by 7:30 bread was coming out of the ovens!

Graham was right; the bread sold as fast as I could make it, although not to Bequians.  Brown bread was foreign to them, not something they wanted to even try back then!  My customers were those living on boats in the Harbor and ex-pats living ashore. Thanks to Graham we started to generate some income, it had taken a while to get rolling but we were on our way.

The lack of a dough mixer was hard, very hard.  The muscles in my shoulders would spasm and hurt terribly due to all the kneading, especially after I had rested them for a while.  Soon the painful muscles were not a problem …..who had time to rest!!??