Roggenbrot

Roggenbrot sits on the everyday German table, not only the Sunday one. It is breakfast bread with butter and jam, supper bread under cheese and ham, and the loaf you bake ahead because it keeps while pale wheat bread goes stale. The north and east lean darker and denser, closer to Schwarzbrot, dark bread; the south often softens the loaf with more wheat. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders.

The rule is simple: rye needs sourdough. Not a spoon of yeast, not a packet promising speed. Rye has little useful gluten, so the dough doesn't rise by stretching like wheat. The acid in Sauerteig, sourdough, holds the rye starch in order and keeps the enzymes from turning the crumb wet and pasty. Erst verstehen, dann kochen.

I bake this as a 100 percent rye tin loaf because rye dough is not something you knead into obedience. You mix it, let it swell, pack it into the form, and bake it fully. Then you leave it alone until the next day. Cut it warm and you punish yourself with a sticky knife and a torn crumb. Das braucht seine Zeit.