Sourdough Medieval Maslin Bread

During the Dark Ages, bread was a dietary mainstay. Consuming more calories than it took to stay alive was an everyday endeavor and not always successful. The average lifespan for a male that survived childhood diseases was mid-30s and a female that lived until 30 was a major accomplishment.

Bread was made from wheat if you had it and were exceptionally wealthy, but for most everyone else, bread was made of the flour of whatever crops could be harvested: a little wheat, complemented by barley, rye, and in desperate years lentils and acorns.

I made this Maslin Bread, maslin means mixed, of barley, rye, and wheat flour all of which I milled myself following a recipe from the Oakden Research Center in the United Kingdom.

Not surprisingly, the bread was somewhere between "dense" and "healthy." It was shockingly tasty, however. There is something about the combination of the three grains that is indeed complimentary and I have enjoyed the bread with every meal of the day.