A homemade loaf swapped for a concert ticket led to Malin Elmlid bartering her way around the world on a voyage of discovery
The Germans as always have a great word for it: kompromisslosigkeit. It translates as a refusal to make compromises and it is one quality, Malin Elmlid believes, that all great bakers share. She saw it in Tartine Bakerys Chad Robertson, the San Francisco-based guru of sourdough, and in a group of local women in Kabul, Afghanistan. Kompromisslosigkeit is a recurring feature throughout Elmlids new book, The Bread Exchange, which is an exotic travelogue, sociological experiment and collection of recipes as well as a testament to the unifying global power of the staff of life.
And Elmlid, a 34-year-old Swede who now lives in Berlin, clearly has a streak of kompromisslosigkeit herself. She set her alarm for 5am to pummel a wodge of dough so it would have the perfect elasticity for a photo shoot. When I suggest her commitment may not be obvious in the published pictures, she looks back with pity and confusion. No matter, too, that because Elmlid is on the road she has no way of actually baking the dough she has been diligently nurturing for the last three days.
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