The history of the Bakery in Lom, told by Morten
Foto: Yayoi Hamazaki Halle
All roads lead to Lom
I can't really explain how it all started. It is not the case that this was the final plan, but more so that things are happening along the way. One thing leads to another and suddenly you are somewhere you might not have initially thought you would be, rather a long series of random events that take you there. Regardless of what you had thought and planned. That is why we are here now. In Lom. Therefore smoke from the pipe in the bakery.
When I look back over the years, I can still see that there are some things that have been more valuable than others. I will try to explain some of it here, and you can read the rest in the two books we have prepared in between extensions, construction, hectic summers and bun baking.
It is a story about coincidences
Many have wondered what on earth was the reason why we were only in Lom, and to be honest, it is a story about an incident that came in a well-choreographed sequence.
The short version probably actually starts with the fact that I was tired of standing in a restaurant kitchen day and night, something I had done for many years. I wanted to try something new, at the same time as I was thinking about what I actually wanted to do. It is not good for family life to work as much as I had done for periods. We wanted to start something that was ours. That's how it turned out in the end, but this with less work probably hasn't happened yet. It has been even more, but at the same time it is different to live in Lom than in the city, in a good way. It is appropriate to emphasize to everyone who dreams of living in the countryside and starting something, that there will not be much time to see the grass grow. It is hard work, but the feeling of creating something on your own terms is incredibly good.
We have invested a lot of ourselves in this project and got a lot in return. The process from a dream to a wild idea and where we have come today is not due to our own stubbornness and will, but also to everyone who has helped us. It was Øyvind and Emanuel at Åpent Bakeri who first made me understand that I couldn't bake until they taught me the right and proper way. They made this a wish to help us from Lom Municipality, both Arne Brimi and Kristoffer Hovland, who had already seen Lom on the map with world-class culinary ideas and craftsmanship. Of course, finally, everyone who has helped us at the bakery with everything that needs to be done, then not only to start, but also to keep the wheels going every single day all year.
I may have thought of the bakery as mine in the beginning, but now I think of it as ours.
Foto: Stine Aasløkk
Foto: Stine Aasløkk
There are no shortcuts to good bread
The most exciting thing about baking, compared to cooking, is that there are no shortcuts.
Good baked goods are almost always about time and processes. There are processes that you can influence to a small degree and if you try to influence them, the results are usually worse.
With us at the back everything is by hand. It is real work and every single bread or bun therefore has its own individual quality. Of course, we have kneading machines and aids that make the everyday life of a baker a little easier, but ultimately it is a craft.
We also consistently use good quality raw materials and only buy things that we ourselves think are of the quality we want to pay for. All products are treated individually in this way, which in itself is a guarantee of quality. When you have baked tens of thousands of balls, you feel that everything is as it should be. You notice nuances in the dough. the resilience, the weight and the consistency. That's what craftsmanship is, it's in the hand.
It is no exaggeration to say that baking is an art. I dare say that even though we are quite good, we still learn something new and gain new experiences and new knowledge every day. Fortunately, this is the case and it makes every single day a little less predictable. It is true as they say; "Every time you bake, there are other buns.
Morten Schakenda
7th of June, 1966 - 14th of March 2022
