Give us our daily bread

Bread here in Italy is important. It is brought fresh every day from a local bakery. Here in Umbria, a considerable number of bakers still bake over wood fires.

The bread comes in a considerable number of shapes and sized all of which have names - rosetta, tartaruga,  comune etc. There is no such thing as popping our for 'just' a loaf of bread.

The other thing here in Umbria is that in the 16th century the Pope put a tax on salt which was very common the those days. The Umbrians took umbrage at this and stopped using salt in bread making. This has continued today. I personally think that Umbrian bread would benefit from the addition of salt but after over 500 years without, this is probably wishful thinking on my part.