Is it because I live with a bread baker that I’m so drawn to the stuff? Or is it something more elemental? Who knows or cares? Long before I visit a new place, I try to learn something about the kinds of bread I’m likely to find there. More than likely, actually. I make it my mission, my crusade, to find and sample them all. While waiting for Jay at the market here in Santiago de Compostela, I chanced across this small bread-only bakery about the size of a shower-stall and covered with a fine dusting of flour everywhere. The proprietress was more sour than any starter I could imagine, especially when I asked if she had the special cornbread for which the town is famous. “Trigo!” she barked at me. “Wheat!” Take it easy. How beautiful her loaves are, though. Later, I did manage to find a shop that specialized in the cornbread of my dreams (much more coarse and chewy than our cakey American South type) and bought several varieties. So dense and punitive was this bread that it defied leavening and remained virtually unrisen, solid and heavy and wonderful.
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