makes 1 dozen small rolls
This roll is meant as a “Thank you” by way of gratitude toward a woman whose name I never knew but whose image, even after so many years, is as clear as any I can recall. I was walking the predawn streets of Potosí, Bolivia, when I smelled bread—good bread! This was astonishing because in two years of travels in South America I hadn’t encountered even one good bread. Most of the bread usually looked and tasted like the lovechild of a hamburger bun and a bad English muffin. Maybe all that has changed as the food revolution has swept the world, but back then there wasn’t much bread to get excited about, except . . .
To my surprise, I smelled good bread in the oven somewhere in Potosí. I let my nose guide me down back alleys, across ancient courtyards, and past shuttered stores. I just kept sniffing and sniffing until I found where it was coming from. It’s kind of amazing that I did find it, because it was just a little hole in a wall—a round, barred window measuring perhaps a foot and a half by a foot. I peered inside, where I saw a small woman in traditional garb, a cloud of fabric wrapped around her. Beneath the billowing, brightly colored cloth, her skin looked old as the earth. She worked by the light of a fire in the hearth and a few candles. In front of her lay a row of miniature bâtards (oval loaves), perfectly fermented and perfectly scored. By the looks of her bread, I could have been peering through the window of a French boulangerie. And after purchasing a loaf, I found that the taste, too, was one I remembered from childhood trips to France. I felt like I was having a beautiful dream and then awakening to discover it was real. This petit pain is my homage to that Inca woman from long ago.