Place: Csíkjenőfalva or Ineu
Having gone to the village of Csíkjenőfalva or Ineu, we entered a gate to the garden of Lóránt Farkas where we passed his house, various trees, a well, free-ranging hens, and lots of firewood for his oven. Next, we entered his workshop where he was busy baking bread. In fact, he starts making bread early in the morning, and he had already completed kneading pieces of dough and put them in baskets for leavening.
He’s a baker and a cook, but he also does other types of work. During our visit, he was making sourdough breads for friends and family, about 15 in all. In fact, he‘s using the same sourdough as his grandmother started 80 years ago.
2 millers, one 14 years old and one 85 years old in the village, are providing him with flour, while local farms provide the cereals.
He told my guide that he makes spice mixes from herbs in the mountains. In addition, he had hung up bundles of herbs on the wall of his workshop.
He’s using 7 types of flour:
⦁ wheat
⦁ rye
⦁ millet
⦁ semolina
⦁ buckwheat
⦁ walnut
⦁ Graham
In addition, he’s using salt from the town of Corund.
He thinks factory bread is not good.
Having entered his workshop, we could watch him making bread manually, kneading the dough, applying flour to the dough, weighing the correct amount of dough and putting it in baskets.
He was using a wood-fired oven made of clay. Upon arrival, he had heated the oven, and he was busy kneading pieces of dough, weighing them with an old-school weight, cutting off excess dough and putting the required amount of dough in each basket. Interestingly, he was using a mortar and pestle with stones as a counterweight to the dough, using an old-school weight.
When he baked all the bread, he emptied the oven of ash, next he put some boards in the oven and fired them up.
He bakes bread 3 times a week, and he ferments vegetables and fruits.
He delivers the bread to friends and family, and payment is done by bartering like palinka, cold cuts, etc., with no money exchange.
He was raising ostriches in the past: he got 4 horses, 2 goats and 2 pigs for one ostrich chicken.
Near one of the walls of his workshop, there was a wooden handle leaning on a shelf filled with lots of glass jars. He used the handle to put pieces of dough in the oven and take them out when they were ready.
He laid the bread on a table and put it in baskets when they had cooled down.
When we were ready to leave, he kindly gave us two breads.
