S.F. Rising: Spelt Bread from Grindstone Bakery

J Kauffman

The picture of health(fulness).

​S.F. Rising is a weekly survey of bread in San Francisco ― the baked and the fried, the artisan and the novelty.

Grindstone Bakery sprouted seeds spelt bread
Source: Whole Foods (California St.), Bi-Rite Market, Rainbow Grocery, Berkeley Bowl
Toast-appropriateness: Please, please toast it.

There is nothing so romantic as a dense bread made with the earthiest of ancient grains, risen thanks to the proliferation of the most local of yeasts, hand-kneaded, covered in sprouted seeds, and then baked in a wood-fired oven. You can't get more authentically homespun, can you? And the Sonoma County bakery's website devotes seven pages to the nutritional value of its vegan, organic breads.

I hated it.

OK, I hated the first three slices of it: the sourness that made the sides of my tongue ache, the dense, grainy mouthfeel of the bread, the guilty feeling that my body was supposed to love what my brain did not. Finally, though, I sliced the bread into 1/8-inch slices, toasted them, and covered each slice with butter and slices of Emmental. The toasting made all the difference (it didn't have the same effect on another super-extra-healthful-sourdough-whole-grain-bread that I tried and refuse to write about).

The combination of the fat and the heat smoothed over the tang, unlocked the nuttiness of the roasted seeds, and brought out the remnants of the wood-fire smoke hidden in the bread. In fact, I ate several slices of this particular snack before my body whispered to my brain that it was grateful, thanks for the effort, and please could we now go get a Diet Coke and some chocolate? So we did.