Knowledge Share Description
The title Intuitive Bread Making should be redundant. Bread is a very human product, one that comes from us and allows us to be. But it’s production has been largely taken from the hands of the masses, despite still representing them. In this knowledge share we’ll chart a meandering history of grain and bread and touch on various points of their dense webs of social and ecological relationships, drawing a picture of how we’ve become detached from this symbol of the human body and spirit, and making a case for returning to it. Because bread making is often something that no longer takes place in the home, it’s seen as a foreign process by many -- one that must be guided by either tools and technology or a masterful teacher. Our goal is to channel that faith, which so often lands in the hands of companies or technology, towards our own intuitive knowledge by expanding our understanding of the material, from seed to loaf.
Knowledge Share Includes
The difference between information/data (what we use to inform our decisions) vs. knowledge (what we learn from making those decisions).
The role that state’s exploitation of grain played in the development and spread of fixed-field agriculture, and not necessarily the other way around; grain as a means of political negotiation up to the current day.
Grain and bread’s relationship to imperialism and populace control, and how they became vehicles of both ideology and coercion.
The social and ecological implications of using and growing non-commodity grain and encouraging a decentralized flour industry.
Bread making as a palliative for both the consumerist and the survivalist.
The ways that bread and grain can encourage remembering in the service of learning, not just in the service of nostalgia.
Bread and natural fermentation’s relationships to efficiency and long-term restoration and world-building efforts.
The ‘civilizing’ quality of leavened bread and the penance of unleavened bread throughout mythology and market trends.
The evolving gradient of bread and class.
Exchange
$35
$75 reparations (If you have financial abundance, this is our pay-it-forward option to fund our scholarships and work redistributing resources to Black and Indigenous Land Projects)
For scholarships please email herbancura@gmail.com with subject Bread
Access
*ASR Captioning provided
*Spanish interpretation available (Si requiere interpretacion por favor mande un email a herbancura@gmail.com)
Virtual Gathering
Zoom link will be sent out via email 1-2 days before knowledge share
2-5pm PST / 5-8pm EST
Class will be recorded and available for 30 days
Facilitator
Lexie Smith is an independent researcher and baker whose practice explores food systems and histories, with bread as the locus of inquiry.