Something In The Flour

 Carrying on from my last ramblings, I thought I’d talk about something that’s quietly taken over a corner of our kitchen and a fair bit of my thinking lately – bread. Proper bread. The kind that doesn’t come wrapped in plastic with a best-before date longer than some marriages.

Like many things in my life, it started with a bit of head-scratching, a bit of tight-fistedness, and the stubborn belief that “there must be a better way of doing this”.

So I sat down with a calculator (and a cup of tea) and worked it out. A full 13-inch Pullman tin loaf – the sort that slices beautifully and actually fills the toaster – costs me around 80 pence to make. That’s not a typo. Eighty pence. For a loaf that weighs more, tastes better, and doesn’t crumble into sawdust if you look at it funny.

And if I fancy cobs instead? I can knock out 12 proper cobs for the same money. Not those sad little air-filled excuses you get in a bag of six for three quid. These are real cobs. Ones that can hold a decent filling without collapsing like a cheap deckchair.

I don’t stick to just one loaf either. I like a bit of variety. Sometimes it’s a traditional white loaf, sometimes a 50/50 white and wholemeal, and other times it’s all wholemeal if I’m feeling especially virtuous. The point is, I know exactly what’s gone into it. Flour, water, yeast, salt. That’s it. No ingredients list that reads like a GCSE chemistry paper.

Now this is where things get a bit more serious – but stick with me.

I’ve suffered with migraines since my late teens, pretty much from the moment I left school and started my first job. At the time, I genuinely thought something very bad was happening to me. I’d never even heard of migraines. All I knew was that my head felt like it was being squeezed in a vice while someone flicked the lights on and off for fun.

They followed me through life. Some periods better than others, but they were always there, lurking. In my forties, I took a job that was so stressful I was having a migraine almost every single day. Some days I managed two, just to really get my money’s worth. That was the point I finally went to the doctors.

I was put on blood pressure tablets, which helped a bit. Took the edge off, maybe. But they certainly didn’t stop the migraines. They were still part of the furniture, like that chair you keep meaning to throw out but never quite do.

Then something changed – not overnight, and not intentionally.

I discovered a traditional flour. Nothing added. Nothing “improved”. Just flour, as it’s been for generations. And without making a big song and dance about it, I started baking all our bread.

And here’s the thing.
The migraines stopped.

Not fewer. Not milder. Stopped.

At the moment, this is the longest I have gone without a migraine in nearly fifty years. Near as damn it. And that’s not something I say lightly. I’ve replayed it in my head more times than I can count, and I’m now starting to believe that it was something in shop-bought bread or modern flours that my body simply didn’t agree with.

I can’t prove it. I’m not a doctor. But I do know my own head, and for once, it’s behaving itself.

So now, when I’m kneading dough or sliding a Pullman tin into the oven, it’s about more than saving money – though saving money definitely helps when food prices seem to rise faster than weeds in July. It’s about taking control of something basic. Something traditional. Something that’s fed people long before “added extras” and “processing aids” became a thing.

There’s something deeply satisfying about slicing into a loaf you made yourself, knowing it cost pennies, tastes better than anything off a shelf, and might just have done your health a favour too.

If nothing else, it’s proof that sometimes the old ways really do know best. And if my head stays clear while I’m at it, I’ll take that as a win every single time.

Now then… the dough’s probably ready for its next knock-back. And I’ve got a cob with my name on it.