The Hungry Ghost Bread Book: An Offbeat Bakery’s Guide to Crafting Sourdough Loaves, Flatbreads, Crackers, Scones, and More (Jonathan Stevens)

For the adventurous home baker and small-scale commercial baker alike, The Hungry Ghost Bread Book is a delicious guide and a pious devotional to the wonderful, awe-inspiring world of sourdough. What does it mean to take on the practice of bread? Jonathan Stevens, co-owner of Hungry Ghost Bread in Northampton, Massachusetts, has pondered this question over thirty years of baking sourdough bread. Baking is a ritual that demands attention, physical proximity, close observation, and continual adjustment. It begets sustenance, fosters community, and connects us with a 10,000-year-old craft. The Hungry Ghost Bread Book is a window onto one baker’s artisan approach to sourdough bread―the culmination of his time in the tide of dough. Sourdough, declares Stevens, is not a style of bread. It is bread. The sourdough starter―the microbial community used to inoculate bread dough―transforms flour into something truly digestible by humans, unlocking the nutrients that are otherwise inaccessible. Ste