The tools of the trade-off

As someone who regularly practises both wado ryu karate and bread-making, I often find myself drawing comparisons between the two disciplines. Both are about the application of simple physical techniques toward mastery of a skill that is both practical and aesthetically satisfying. Both require patience, practice and instinctive application of repeated techniques. And, if done badly, both can make a mess of your kitchen.

A staple of learning karate is the discipline of kata, a sequence of moves to demonstrate classical style of techniques. It is the basic test of technical competence. The simplest kata is kihon kata ('basic form' in Japanese). A beginner can learn it in a couple of hours, but Black Belts still perform it because it is testing in its simplicity: You can't hide behind fancy techniques or moves. If your basics are not sound, it will find you out. Similarly, when baking bread, if you only have flour and water (plus a pinch of salt) to work with, no amount of malted barley or pitted olives will stop a poorly proved bread turning into a draft excluder.

And yet within the simplicity of form there is room for individuality, and the secret is striking a balance between following the rules so as to make the end product recognisable, whether kata or loaf, while expressing your individuality through the delivery. While the recipe may be the same for us all, the tools we have to create them are not.

For karate, people are tall, short, fat, lithe, one legged, slow or old. Some are confident performers and some are awkward in their own skin. But all have the ability to make the kata their own, and they have to, because those are the only tools they have.

And in baking, some have big kitchens with all the kit, some have a bowl and oven. Some have hot kitchens, some cold - some are drafty and some are damp. Seasonal and climactic conditions will change things completely. The skill of the baker is having the awareness of your own unique circumstances and how it impacts on a few fundamentally simple ingredients.

You understand the limitations you have to work within and how you make the best of them; I fantasise about the buxom, lighter-than-air loaves bursting with honeycombed moistness that I could bake if I had an industrial oven, and a mixer. Learning how to make a decent loaf of bread is not so much a matter of learning a kneading technique as understanding your kitchen. Your oven may not be as hot as it claims to be and may have uneven temperature distribution. Your room temperature may not be room temperature. Things may take longer or shorter to prove, rest or bake. No one has written the recipe that is just right for your kitchen, at that exact moment.

Except you, every time you bake. And that is the beauty of the challenge.