
Rye is an alluring grain that nevertheless gets overlooked by its domineering cousin, wheat. Even other ancient grains such as spelt and durum have a higher profile. On Pender Island, it is easy to find these flours, but nary a bag of dark rye flour. Even Victoria suffers from this dearth.
And yet rye has been with us for thousands of years, found a toe hold in the European and immigrant cultures of North America. It is more popular in eastern parts of the continent, but on the west coast? Not as much.
Rye enthusiasts
There are some rye bread fans among customers of the Happy Monk Baking Company. And I couldn’t be more pleased. One or two of them are passionate about the grain and would prefer a rye choice each week. With most rye enthusiasts, their attachment to the grain comes from childhood, where it may have been the first bread they consumed. And they long for that taste, that texture, that transports them to another place, another time.
Take me back, take me way, way, way back, Van Morrison intones.
When you walked, in a green field, in a green meadow
Van Morrison, “Take Me Back”, from the album Hymns to the Silence.
Down an avenue of trees
On a golden summer
And the sky was blue
And you didn’t have no worries, you didn’t have no care
You were walking in a green field
In a meadow, through the buttercups, in the summertime
And you looked way out over, way out
Way out over the city and the water
And it feels so good, and it feels so good
Van’s not talking about rye bread, here. But he’s reaching for something almost inexpressible, an innocence. He’s chasing a state of mind that seems to exist somewhere in the past, but could also exist only in the imagination.
Rye is a grain that often evokes that idea of something from the past. A German friend tasted some bread I had made that had about 20 percent rye. She savoured the flavour with eyes closed, looked up and said, “Now that is real bread!”
The ‘unruly weed’
The green field Van Morrison describes could have been rye. It was once considered “an unruly weed,” something that grew in between the einkorn, millet or barley plants, choking off the main crops of the earliest grain farmers. And when the weather turned dry and cold, it was the rye plants that thrived.
It was that resiliency that made rye suitable for the mid- to northern European climate, where growing conditions were harsher and wetter than in the sun-baked fields of pre-historic Turkey, Egypt and the Fertile Crescent. It became a staple crop in areas that would become Germany, Poland, Russia and Scandinavia, where rye became central to the diet and culture.

Stanley Ginsberg’s The Rye Baker, is, to me, as much a paean to rye bread as it is a book of recipes. Published three years ago, it has done more to turn me into a rye enthusiast than any in my entire library of bread books. It’s his passion that makes the difference and his informed knowledge of rye’s historical roots. The Rye Baker details recipes from all the rye regions, the cooking techniques used, flavour profiles and ways the bread is served. It is a sweeping portrait of rye and a true celebration.
A difficult dough to work with
I’ve worked my way through many of the recipes of this book and have grown to love rye breads of all kinds. It is different than the bread I grew up with. Yet I love the deep, rustic flavour of rye that seems almost other worldly. My familial heritage is Scottish, where oatcakes and bannock strike a chord. I feel them in the bones. Rye was hardly consumed in my childhood, except on a few occasions when Aunty Betty produced a rye loaf made with anise seeds. My father hoarded it, as it was a bread his Scottish mother made.
When I first tried making a 100 percent rye loaf, it was a blow to my pride. The dough was difficult to work with. It did not come to life in the way a wheat dough did, which forms gluten networks through kneading, quickly becoming a unified mass. It did not rise like wheat; or at least in a less dramatic way. Rye dough was flaccid, gloppy, sticky. When baked, it was dense, unlike the pillowy lofty crumb, and thick shattery crust that I so loved in wheat bread.
Closer to home
Tasting the rye from Fry’s Red Wheat Bakery in Victoria was the first time I got that inexpressible sense from rye bread. The German Rye loaf was slightly bitter, musky, smoky, dense … and yet tender. It tasted strange to the Scottish part of me, but there was something I could connect with. An ‘old world’ of foreign smells and flavour.
The Flax and Sesame Rye loaf opened to something more accessible. The flax seed accented the 60 percent rye, but was counteracted by the lightness from the sesame seeds. The loaf still carried the same muskiness of the German.
It is the rye breads that distinguish Fry’s, I think, from the other bakeries in Victoria. The city has a trove of great baking that is as rich or more so than that of Vancouver. But it is Fry’s grasp of rye that makes the difference for me. And I am inspired to learn more, to find a rye loaf that is part of the Happy Monk canon of breads.
So I invite you, friends, to walk by my side as I experiment and search for the Happy Monk rye experience. I have little sense of where I am going on on this journey. But I’ll be looking somewhere … way, way, way back.
Happy Monk Tidings - May 18, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Olive Bread; UPDATE: Canal Bridge project postponed; Assume normal delivery schedule; BLOG: The Breadman's Quest for the Stanley Cup - [See LinkTree in Profile ]
Happy Monk Tidings - May 11, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Rye-Spelt Sourdough; Blog: Road/Bridge Closure: Be Here Now - [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Fun visit from @thiswolfeislandlife on bread day Friday. Laura Buckley and partner Peter from Wolfe Island near Kingston, ON to compare notes and share a few laughs. So great when bakers get together! Thanks for the photos, Laura! See you next on Wolfe Island!
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#bakers #bakery #bakerslife #woodfiredovens #woodfired #woodfiredbakery #woodfiredbakerylife #southpenderisland #southpender #happymonkbaking #happymonkbakery #happymonkbakingcompany #happymonkbaker
Happy Monk Tidings - May 4, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Polenta and Rosemary Bread ☀︎ Blog: An Artisan Bread Manifesto ☀︎ [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
This guy, Davy Rippner, @leathersmithe, our neighbourhood sandal-maker, wood-chopper and story teller extraordinaire, is one of my best buddies. He comes every Friday morning to help me bag each loaf of bread and get ‘em out the door in time for delivery. He turns the whole process into a heck of a lotta fun, laughs and great conversation. Lucky to have him as a friend and Happy Monk helper. These are Spelt-Honey Sourdough loaves, by the way. Adapted from Michael James’ Tivoli Road Baker.
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#bread #breadbaking #bakery #bakeries #woodfired #woodfiredoven #woodfiredovenbread #breadhead #breadmaking #sourdough #spelt #speltbread #michaeljames #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderisland #happymonkbakery #happymonkbakingcompany #southerngulfislands #southerngulfislandsbakers #southerngulfislandsbakeries
Happy Monk Tidings - April 27, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Spelt Honey Sourdough; Blog: A Podcast for Pender Island [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Happy Monk Tidings - April 20, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Mountain Rye ; Blog: Walking with My Father [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Happy Monk Tidings - April 13, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Hot Cross Buns; Blog: Who's to Blame for the Hot Cross Buns Song? [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Happy Monk Tidings - April 6, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Whole-Wheat Flax Bread; Blog: The Baker's Arms [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Happy Monk Tidings - March 30, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Oat Porridge Bread; Blog: Thanne Longen Folk ...; We're Donating to Ukraine! [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Mooning for the camera, first light on bake day, with the first load of Salish Sourdough singing at the table..
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#breadsinging #breadsong #woodfired #woodfiredoven #woodfiredbakery #woodfiredbread #bread #breadlove #baker #bakersofinstagram #bakerslife #bakersofsoutherngulfislands #sourdough #sourdoughbread #sourdoughbaking #sourdoughlove #happymonkbaker #happymonkbakery #happymonkbakingcompany #southpenderisland #penderisland
Billowy Spelt-Honey Sourdough, burnished (after) and raw (before).
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#spelt #speltbread #honeybread #breadhead #breadporn #breadlove #wildyeast #honey #honeyhoney #honeybread #michaeljamesbakes #tivolirdbakery #naturallyleavened #artisanbread #realbread #rusticbread #woodfired #woodfiredbread #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderisland #happymonkbaking #happymonkbakery #happymonkbakingcompany
Happy Monk Tidings - March 16, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Spelt and Honey Sourdough; Blog: Wheat Connections to Ukraine [ See LinkTree in Bio ]
These corn kernels are headed to the mill to make cornmeal for Anadama Bread this week. It’s a bread with origins on the east coast, but that shouldn’t stop us west coasters from enjoying it, too, godanadamit! This is organic field corn from @fieldstoneorganics of Armstrong, B.C. … and the hard red whole wheat from Metchosin, B.C. make this Happy Monk take on Anadama a bona fide west coast phenomenon! Just sayin’!
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#anadama #anadamabread #cornmeal #cornmealbread #metchosinbc #armstrongbc #stoneground #stonegroundflour #stonemilled #stonemilledflour #stonemilledbread #woodfiredovenbread #bread #realbread #naturallyleavened #baker #bbga #artisanbread #breadhead #breadmaking #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderisland #happymonkbaking #happymonkbakery #happymonkbakingcompany #southerngulfislands #southerngulfislandsbakers #southerngulfislandsbakeries
Happy Monk Tidings - March 9, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Anadama Bread; Blog: Salvador Dali and the Art of Bread - [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Happy Monk Tidings - March 2, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough; Blog: Have Your Been Shriven? [ See Link in Profile ]
Morning Breadsong (volume up!) A pile of Salish Sourdoughs just out of Mildrith, the wood-fired oven.
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#breadsinging #breadsong #woodfired #woodfiredoven #woodfiredovenbread #bread #realbread #naturallyleavened #baker #bakery #bakerslife #bbga #artisanbread #breadhead #breadmaking #breadmaking🍞 #sourdough #sourdoughbread #coboven #earthoven #earthenoven #penderisland #southpenderisland #happymonkbaking #happymonkbakery #happymonkbakingcompany #southerngulfislands #southerngulfislandsbakers #southerngulfislandsbakeries #penderisland
Happy Monk Tidings - February 23, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice: Danish Rye (Rugbrød); Blog: The Burned Loaf: And Offering and a Blessing - [ See link in profile ]
I cut open the loaf to reveal a pretty pleasing and moist crumb. Wow! If you don’t mind a little char, this burned loaf has some pleasures, like a super crispy crust contrasted with the soft crumb and the nutty chew. The char does dominate the flavour, though 😂. But would you put it in the display case of your bakery? (Thanks for the comments, all 😉)
It just needed a few more minutes. That was three hours ago. Saved my best for last! #showusyourfuckedloaves
Happy Monk Tidings - February 16, 2022 🍞 - Baker's Choice this week: Sourdough Sandwich Loaf; Blog: Festival of Fornacalia - All hail, Fornax! Goddess of the Ovens! [ See link in Profile ]
John-boy’s got his arms loaded with a bunch of Happy Monk bread, one of his favourite states of being. He’s generous to a fault, though, and spread the loaves around his close circle of friends. That’s m’boy!
The 2kg Desem miche is out of focus, in the back ‘cause it would have drowned out the little 1kg Durum Sesame loaf in front. The miche is a monster but every bit as delish as the Durum loaf! The Desem’s coming soon! Won’t be a miche, though!
[…] Also see the earlier Happy Monk blog post: That Rye Flavour: Reaching for Something From The Past. […]
[…] That Rye Flavour: Reaching for Something from the Past […]