Every morning at about 6 am Cosimo Della Torre turns the lights on at the quaint bread shop located on De Pasquale Avenue in Providence. He’s been baking fresh bread for almost 18 years now for Venda Food Emporium on De Pasquale piazza. The life of a bread-maker is certainly one of the most enduring in the food business. The price of bread does not justly reward the hours of preparation and detailed attention required to produce bread. Thirty years ago when bakeries made old-fashioned bread along with pastries and cookies, it was business as usual and not a novelty.
Today when most food franchises use par-baked loaf then finished off in local restaurants and bread shops, finding artisanal bread it’s a novelty and a celebration of traditions worth writing about. Cosimo Della Torre defines the word artisan; a man with great dedication and respect for his trade. However, it did not start that way. He spent 6 years as a sergeant major for “L’Aeronautica Militare Italiana (equivalent to the Air Force of the Italian Republic), in the City of Novara in Piedmont. Once he arrived here in Providence, the baking trade called him. The rest has been nothing less than an enormous success and a wonderful gift for the most discriminating palates.
Few foods are as fundamental as bread, nor as diverse. Italy boasts 350 types of bread — no surprise from a country that has had professional bakers since the second century B.C.E. While some incorporate rarer grains such as maize, barley or rye, the overwhelming majority of Italian breads are made from semolina or durum wheat. The form the bread takes varies by regional tradition and sometimes even city to city.
However, all around Italy, you can find rustic Italian bread made with just four ingredients: yeast, water, salt, and flour. Not usually a “pretty” bread but deliciously tasty. The fermentation of the yeast is what gives this bread its tastiness. Simplicity is the main characteristic of rustic bread, as is life in the countryside. Rustic, as Italy has been for decades, and as it can be even today sometimes. Rarely is there an Italian meal that does not include bread. Ancient tools and ovens provide proof that man has been making loaves of bread for thousands of years. Like many other foods, ancient Romans took the art of bread- making to a higher level. In addition to enhancing the milling techniques of wheat, the Romans also were the first to produce flour, which could be baked into white bread. Rome even opened a baking school in the 1st century AD.
“That was what I had envisioned” a proud Cosimo recently asserted during a pleasant conversation about bread. “I wanted the American consumer to really taste the flavors and the structure of great Italian bread made solely with simplicity and time”.
Cosimo has high standards for his bread. He allows the yeast to fully rise over the course of several hours, leaving a thin crust. His customers value the size of his loaves of bread because every family member needs to be properly nourished. He also prefers his bread to have a soft and moist interior, which is ideal for absorbing olive oil, vinegar, tomatoes, and other select toppings.
In that, he has certainly succeeded, as his rustic formulations are really appreciated by the rituals of the sales. “People come from all over to buy my bread because they finally understand the intricacy of developing a good yeast-flour-water relationship”, continued Cosimo as he stands in front of his beloved ovens who never betray his creations. He personally selects the flours and the quality of the leavening, including the alkaline in the water, which is fundamental in the science of bread-making. “Not every water is the same or suitable for bread, he concludes. Through the years Cosimo has also upgraded his facility, starting in a small bakeshop in the 90s where the production was limited to the number of sales and the reduced size of the equipment. As the business grew and more consumers requested his specialties upgrades were made eventually moving the bakeshop to its current location.
Venda Food Emporium owner Alan Costantino fully endorses the philosophy of good bread-making and through the years he has constantly invested in superior quality ingredients and the most innovative source of technology. Many very stylish forms of loaves of bread can be found at the store: from your basic Italian loaf to focaccia, panini, ciabatta, flatbread, Sicilian pagnotta, and many more displayed daily at the entrance of the store. Recently Cosimo found the time to even bake a personal loaf of bread for me. He used a similar procedure usually found in D.O.P. (Denomination of Protected Origin) bread such as Pane di Altamura (Puglia) and Pane di Genzano (Lazio).
The first originated in the town of Altamura but has its roots as far back as the first century B.C.E. The aromatic pane di Genzano was made at home into round loaves or long sticks baked in wood-fired stoves. The long fermentation of the procedure allows loaves to develop a wonderful texture and uneven perforation for a sublime experience in taste and appeal. I must inform you that Cosimo’s Pane di Campagna (Country Bread) is only available by request because of the intricate process of making it. I must also add that with Cosimo’s bread I personally won the Competition “Panino del Re”, presented at Cibus 2014 in Parma Italy. I’ll share the glory with him as he continues to create new fragrances of fresh bread every morning at 6 am. Below pepper biscuit from Cosimo.
BLACK PEPPER BISCUITS
Makes about 50 biscuits
Ingredients
8 cup all-purpose flour, or 00 Italian flour
3/4 tbsp. black pepper
1 cup margarine
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. fennel seeds (optional)
3 cup water (warm)
1/2 cake yeast
Directions
Mix flour, salt, pepper, margarine, and oil until crumbly. Add fennel, warm water, and yeast and knead well. Place in a bowl, cover, and let rest for 1/2 hour. Roll out and form into the desired shape (ex. bagel shape, oblong braids, etc.). Drop-in boiling water 1 by 1.
Remove when it comes to the top and place it on a towel. Set boil biscuits on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Lower heat to 350 degrees and bake for 45 to 50 minutes until golden brown. Biscuits should be very hard.
