The best thing since sliced bread
Sally Saunders meets a baker who started giving away her surplus loaves… and got a new life in exchange
What is a loaf of bread worth to you? Do you pay 49p for sliced white from the supermarket, or fork out £3.50 at the farmers’ market for a handmade, artisan mound? And what if the bread is not for sale, but for trade? This is what Malin Elmlid set out to discover in her new book, The Bread Exchange, which has the motto “everything is not for sale”. Swedish-born Elmlid began the project by accident, when she discovered her passion for bread – after five years of avoiding it. “I was working in the fashion industry, and was trying to stay slim, so I stopped eating bread,” she says. “But I found I couldn’t do it, so I made it a rule that I couldn’t eat just any bread, I could only eat good bread. “That’s quite hard to find, so I started making it myself. For two years I was practising making good bread, and made so much I started giving it away. Then, things started to come back to me.” They certainly did. From painted tote bags to concert tickets and all-expenses-paid trips abroad, Elmlid found that her gift was generously repaid. “These were the years that I started the Bread Exchange without realising it. But if you give away a lot you get something back,” she says. Soon she was bartering her bread wherever she went, in New York, Australia, Afghanistan, and in Berlin where she lives. Her book includes recipes as well as the stories of her swaps. “A huge variety of people have traded with me, from art collectors who let me host a dinner party in their bunkerturned-art-gallery in Berlin to children. One of my favourite trades was a jar of pickles that had been sent to them by their grandparents. It was their favourite pickle, and they called it the Jar of Happiness. They sent me their last jar.” The project is based around Elmlid’s own “jar of happiness”, her sourdough starter, which she takes everywhere. But it’s not always happy. “It’s a diva I brought with me from the fashion industry. It needs to be in the proper mood to perform. It exploded yesterday.” It does have a good pedigree, however. “I had been baking for a few years, and was worn out by it. It can be stressful having someone [the sourdough] controlling your sleep. So I wanted to get away from it for a bit, and went to Egypt, horse-riding alone through the Sinai desert. The first bread was made there 6,000 years ago, in that very desert. I stopped horse-riding and set a sourdough. It worked like magic, within 24 hours, whereas usually it would take days. And that is the sourdough I am using today, which is in every bread I make.” At the end of our interview, she gives me a loaf to take home. The only question now is, what do I send her in exchange? ‘The Bread Exchange’ by Malin Elmlid (Chronicle Books £21.99) is available to order from Telegraph Books at £19.99 + £1.95 p&p. Call 0844 871 1515 or visit books. telegraph.co.uk