some say borders on the, well, the obsessive. The first time I
heard that the mineral content of water might have an effect
on the properties of bread dough was about ten years ago,
when I read Jeffrey Steingarten’s gloriously obsessive piece
about Roman breads in the chapter titled “Flat Out” in his
book It Must Have Been Something I Ate:
In the shower, the shampoo refuses to lather. This
means that Roman water is high in minerals, which can
be good for the color and texture of bread, but slows
fermentation and tightens the dough. I reach for my
scuba diver’s underwater writing slate, as seen on
Baywatch, indispensable for recording those flashes of
insight that so often strike one in the bath. We must test
the water of Rome.Unfortunately, despite the heroic efforts he went through to
bring true pizza bianca and pane Genzano to the home
cook, the water issue was never satisfactorily resolved.
Well, eight years later, I decided to try to resolve it for
myself, along with the help of another obsessive: Mathieu
Palombino, chef-owner of New York City’s Motorino, who
kindly volunteered to aid me in my little experiment. The
idea is simple: the minerals dissolved in water (mostly
magnesium and calcium) can help proteins in the flour bond
together more tightly, forming a stronger gluten structure,
the network of interconnected proteins that gives dough its
strength and elasticity. So, the higher the mineral content of
water (measured in parts per million, or ppm), the stronger
and chewier the dough. In theory, it makes sense, and it is