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This podcast is an avenue to dialogue about the totality of the food experience. Everything from gardening, to preparing, to eating, to hospitality, to the Lord’s Table, with an eye toward how this act that we all have to engage in helps us experience the transformative power of God’s love and what it means to be human.
Episode 20 (Kendall Vanderslice)
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Andrew Camp: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of the biggest table. I am your host, Andrew camp. And in this podcast, we explore the table, food, eating, and hospitality as an arena for experiencing God's love and our love for one another.
And today I'm thrilled to be joined by Kendall Vanderslice. Kendall is a baker, writer, speaker, and the founder of the Edible Theology Project, a ministry that connects the communion table to the kitchen table. She is a graduate of Wheaton College, Boston University, and Duke Divinity School. She is also the author of By Bread Alone and We Will Feast, and lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her big eared beagle, named Strudel, where she teaches workshops on bread baking as a spiritual practice. So thanks for joining me today, Kendall.
Um, I've been able to read and review your books for the Englewood Review of Books. So it's great to finally see you in person and to have this conversation.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.
Andrew Camp: Awesome. So you are a baker by trade. You've done a lot of baking. You've been drawn to bread [00:01:00] throughout your life.
So what, what drew you to bread to begin with? What, what's the genesis of that story for our listeners?
Kendall Vanderslice: You know, I don't know if there's any one particular, Point that I can look to and say, like, this is what captured me, but I have always loved baking from a young age. I love baking and I had to kind of field trip experiences in elementary school that really stick with me both to different bread bakeries.
1 was to a great harvest bread company in Dallas. Um, when I was in early elementary school, and I just remember being enamored by the whole process watching these, you know, massive mixing bowls that transformed a huge bag of flour into all of this dough, watching sort of the movements of the bakers, the camaraderie of the bakers.
And that really stuck with me. And I was just, I was, I was, You know, enamored by bread at that point. Um, and then a couple of years later, we went to a, uh, Mrs. Baird's Bakery, which is about as opposite from that sort of Great Harvest, small, intimate experience as you can [00:02:00] get. It's a, Mrs. Baird's is a, a Texas, um, brand of bread, but similar sort of kind of bread to Wonder Bread.
So these massive, industrial Um, you know, building, but we, we were again able to see the whole process from start to finish. And I remember, you know, the smell of the bread and, um, just, I, I always found it to be this really kind of magical transformation. Um, and so in high school, baking was what I did, you know, to deal with all my emotions, with stress, with excitement, with, you know, you know, nervousness over a test the next day I would make cookies.
Um, and it was really kind of, Soon after high school, when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, that I realized, you know, I would turn to baking to process these questions of what do I do with my life? And then I realized, oh, maybe the baking itself can be what I do.
Andrew Camp: Wow. Gotcha.
And so from there, you've You've encouraged people to, to see bread as more than just bread, but as a story [00:03:00] that can, that tells both brokenness and hope. And so can you elaborate on what you mean by like, bread telling a story? Cause for most of us, bread is just something we pick up at a grocery store with little thought.
Um, and I'm guilty of this. This too at times. So,
Kendall Vanderslice: yeah. So for me, that sort of really seeing the bigger story of bread began while I was in college. I had, you know, this desire to go on and work professionally as a baker. Um, but when I was in college, I was diagnosed with a health issue and several doctors told me like, just don't eat bread, that the, that the, that the fix was to not eat bread or to not eat really, you know, starches of any kind.
And so I had this, you know, this, this internal. you know, quandary of like, this is the thing that brings me so much joy. This is the career path I feel like I'm supposed to go down. And also I'm told I'm not supposed to eat it. Um, and so that led me into, I studied anthropology in undergrad. And so I was really interested in, you know, anthropology of food and nutritional anthropology, just [00:04:00] understanding like how have humans eaten throughout history.
Um, and so that, you know, if you start looking at how have humans eaten for all of human history, you're, you're looking at a story of bread and how bread has developed over the course of human history. Um, and so I started to realize that there is so much more to bread than just, you know, the loaf that you buy off the grocery store shelf.
Um, and so that is what got me really going down kind of more historical anthropological, um, direction. And then with that, these theological questions began to arise as well. If, you know, we see bread at play all throughout the narrative of scripture, and it's almost so present in scripture that we kind of, um, we treat it as though it is purely metaphor and not, not actually literal bread itself.
Um, you know, it's like, well, Jesus is the bread of life. Of course, that's a metaphor. Well, you know, the feeding of the 5, 000, like, yeah, maybe we believe that truly there are 5, 000 loaves, but like, it's a story that's a metaphor. You know, it's the, when we talk about bread in scripture, we often don't think the bread as like literal bread is the point.
We think that the bread [00:05:00] somehow is pointing to something else. Um, and I, I think the bread is pointing to something else, but I think that it's significant that it's bread, that there's significance to the bread, too. And so that, um, you know, that, that journey took me down these, these questions of how do I determine what's best for my body and how do I grapple with the fact that bread is so central to the story of my faith, um, and through that kind of experienced healing relationship to food and to my body and, and how I think about food.
Bread.
Andrew Camp: Um, yeah, because you, you also talk that bread is this simultaneously simple organism, but then rich and complex and something we can never fully understand. Um, and so how do we, what is that tension? And then how, how, how does that play out in our spiritual lives?
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah, well, I love looking at, you know, I say that bread is at the same time, incredibly simple and infinitely complex, that it is made up of four basic ingredients.
flour, water, [00:06:00] salt, and yeast. You can make it without the salt. It doesn't taste as good. The texture is not as great, but you can do it. You can make it without the yeast. We've all heard of unleavened bread. So, you know, at its most simple, it can be flour and water. And yet, humans have been baking for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.
And we are still learning new ways to manipulate flavor and texture out of a grain, but a baker can commit their entire lives to learning the craft of bread baking and still have more to learn. And I think there's such a beautiful picture of our faith in that, that, you know, our faith is the Christian faith is incredibly simple.
We say that Christ has died. Christ has risen and Christ will come again. But you know, the, the faith can be encapsulated in those three phrases. And yet at the same time, we can commit our entire lives. To the study of the things of God and still have more to learn. Um, and one of the things that I've loved in thinking about both bread baking and theology kind of hand in hand is that I think different personalities are drawn to both in different ways.
And we see this kind of beauty of the [00:07:00] diversity of God's creation in that, that on the bread side, you know, there are some, like many bakers who have been baking, you know, without any. complex recipes or scales or thermometers. You know, they just know through the feel of their hands passed down from generation to generation.
And then there are the bakers who love to read all these books and fully understand the science behind it and tweak one little thing, you know, a microgram of flower and tweak a, you know, 10th of a degree of the water temperature and see how the bread is affected. And I think both find joy and sustenance in what they do and approaching it in a different way.
And I think in the same way we have, you know, there, there are some of us, I, myself included, who love to have these bookshelves that are totally packed full of all these different theological texts and can find great joy in, um, you know, studying, studying, studying, To no end, you know, scripture and theology.
And then at the same time, there are so many who, um, you know, I don't know [00:08:00] the exact statistics, but I would guess the majority of people throughout, throughout the history of Christianity have not even owned or been able to read a Bible and have known God in, you know, the, the quietness of God's voice.
And so that all of this reveals something beautiful about both the simplicity and the complexity of, of our faith.
Andrew Camp: Yeah, no, there is something beautifully simple and I, I was fortunate to be raised in a home where my mom baked bread every week, you know, um, and she was the one that I don't know if she ever had a recipe, but you know, and she never used a stand mixer was a wooden spoon glass bowl,
Kendall Vanderslice: you
Andrew Camp: know, and then needing the bread, you know, knowing exactly what the touch and the feel is.
Kendall Vanderslice: It is such a tactile art that it's hard to communicate. You just have to experience it.
Andrew Camp: Yeah. You can have the right ingredients. You can follow the recipe, but based on humidity, based on stuff beyond one's control, your bread will turn out very different.
Kendall Vanderslice: [00:09:00] Absolutely.
Andrew Camp: Because I'm guessing in, you know, North Carolina, the humidity plays an impact, whereas where I'm in Flagstaff, Arizona, where it's dry heat.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah. And then you've got the elevation and you know, that totally changes it as well. Yeah. I love, I teach bread baking workshops. Um, and I started teaching them virtually during COVID. Um, and at first I thought it was going to be a big issue because. You know, it's such a tactile craft that it's hard to teach people over a screen.
But one of the really fun things that came out of that was that I could teach a workshop and have folks all over the country. And in fact, all over the world, I taught workshops that had, you know, someone in Hawaii and someone in the UK and people all over the United States. States. And, you know, someone had a couple of folks who stayed up through the night to get to attend a workshop live.
And what we could see is that, you know, we could visually see how everyone's dough turned out a little bit differently because we were in different environments. Um, and it was really fun to note those differences kind of all baking at the same time. [00:10:00]
Andrew Camp: And so then, you know, some of, for some of us who are control freaks, that doesn't, we don't like that because bread doesn't, abide by certain rules.
Whereas, you know, if I cook a steak a certain way over a certain heat, you know, I can get results, consistent results over time. Whereas with bread, any, it feels like any given day, it can change out different, why it can change, come out, the outcomes are very different. And so like, how do we wrestle then with this idea of control?
Versus improvisation and fluidity that we need when we're baking bread.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah, so I love to think of bread baking, not in terms of recipe, but in terms of liturgy. So a recipe gives us this idea that you can, you know, use the exact same ingredients, follow the exact same steps, and get a replicable end result every single time.
And bread just doesn't work that way. You know, for these large professional bakeries that are trying to provide you [00:11:00] a consistent loaf every time, they have to be highly attuned to these changes in weather and humidity and understand how to adjust the recipe they're working with to those changes. Um, and so it is.
You know, it's just, the recipe gives you a false sense of control that does not work with bread. Um, so I love thinking in terms of liturgy instead. So liturgy is kind of the rhythm of our worship. The words that we repeat, the rhythms and the movements that we repeat. And they're designed to be repeated over time, and our understanding of them and their ability to shape us takes place through that repetition over time.
And bread baking functions very similarly, that it takes practice of baking again and again and again, and really paying attention to how is this bread changing from batch to batch to really be able to understand Um, the, the craft of bread baking. Uh, and so I am all about using bread baking to help us let go of this longing for control, um, [00:12:00] and this sense of control.
And, you know, for some people, there's a lot of joy in letting go of that control and just saying like, I have some good bread. It might not be the excellent bread I aspire to, but I have good bread week after week, and then for some people it becomes, you know, um, Impetus to like commit oneself fully to the craft and fully try to understand what it is there that they're doing.
Andrew Camp: I love that idea of, you know, bread baking as liturgy versus recipe because you're part of your journey to and your invitation to your to us is really to see baking as praying, you know, and the whole process as one of of a prayer. Journey, which, which I love and I got to talk to Gisela who you've met and you're familiar with and who's just a delightful person and she talks about drinking wine as, as prayer, you know, to sip is to pray, you know, and you're saying to bake is to pray.
Which I love because it's the wine and the bread, and [00:13:00] we need both. And so what, what is it about baking that leads us into prayer, and why do we need both the wine and the bread?
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah, so I think oftentimes, you know, we think of prayer as something that is word centric, and that is kind of, um, mind centric.
That it is the words we repeat in our mind, and that that is kind of where prayer takes place. Um, but, I think that prayer is, in part, being present with God, uh, and so we can be present with God and we can, you know, we can share, like, our excitement and our concerns and our worries to God, we can express that with our body, and we can experience God's presence in our body as well, and so this bread baking, um, as a form of prayer becomes a way of understanding that the, the movements of our bodies that are, you know, every breath can be a way of, um, of expressing our prayers towards God.
And so I write my recipes in [00:14:00] terms of liturgy to give a very practical kind of step by step, um, in how to pray with your body through the act of baking. And when I do apply words to it, To those liturgies, you know, words that you can pray while you're baking. Um, both for breath, prayers and prayers. You can say signed sort of while the, the bread is resting.
But my hope is that by repeating the process, um, using the words that I have supplied, people will be able to then kind of sense how it is that their body is participating in the, in the prayer process itself. Um, and then be able to riff on these liturgies and, and just understand their baking itself as a form of prayer.
Um, but I, I am such a huge fan of G'S work. We actually laugh. Fall, we got to collaborate on an event and do a bread and wine tasting together. That's fun. And so we, we took turns with each sort of course, we had three different pairings of bread and wine. Um, and we each got to share a little bit about sort of our work with each, with each set.
Um, and one of the things that I oftentimes think about in terms of how our work sort of goes together is a line [00:15:00] from Robert Farrar Capon in The Supper of the Lamb. Um, and he says that, um. He's talking about the Eucharist and how bread is kind of this, this source of nourishment. But then he says the wine elevates the meal from mere nourishment to conviviality.
That it is sort of the pleasurable, like that, that our, our eating, our, um, our sharing a meal together and even our sharing the Eucharistic meal is not just about nourishment, but it's about joy and delight and pleasure that we find in the food itself and the community that we share it with.
Andrew Camp: No, and I love how you say, you know, the two are intermixed in that wine and bread bring this connive, I can never say that word correctly, conniviality, um, to the table, but they also both represent, there is a crushing that has to occur, a death for both.
To come alive again. Yeah. Um, and you know, the, well,
Kendall Vanderslice: and not just that there's a death, but then there's also both require fermentation. Right? This sort of process of, of reviving, of bringing life back into the things themselves. [00:16:00]
Andrew Camp: Yeah. No, exactly. And it takes time. Mm-Hmm. and it's slow. Um, you know, both are, can be mass produced and both can be arti, arti, artisanally produced.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah, absolutely.
Andrew Camp: Um, and there's a difference. And, and you know, part of what I love too is your story. Um, and the invitation is to see the commercial aspects of bread for what they are and what they're doing, and how it's taking us further, maybe further away from what scripture is inviting us to. So could you explain a little bit about This commercialization of bread and what you see, um, in it.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah. The sort of the history of, of bread in the United States in the last century is fascinating to me. Um, so we had, you know, a little over a century ago, um, More than 150 years ago, we have, you know, Louis Pasteur suddenly, you know, finds, understands the, like, bacteria. We have a better sense of what is behind this fermentation.
And [00:17:00] with that, this sort of fear grows around, like, we now know that this bacteria is existing in our world, it's in our food, it's on our bodies, it's all over. And so this sparks in the early 20th century kind of the sanitary movement. This big movement in food, in home economics, was all about cleanliness, keeping everything as Sanitary as possible as pure as possible.
And so bread making becomes this point of massive concern that the bread becomes the bread because of the yeast and bacteria that are transforming it. Um, and so these at this same time become comes the invention of commercial yeast that we no longer have to sort of capture wild yeast, um, either through the sort of beer brewing process or through the sourdough process.
And so we have commercial yeast that we can mix into bread. Um, and so these industrial bakers, bakeries start to pop up and they're able to massively increase their production of bread. Um, but they faced this concern, which is that most Bread was made by [00:18:00] housewives in their home, and so they had to convince housewives to stop baking homemade bread.
Um, and so it's sort of the marketing messaging that helped make this shift was to talk about the danger of bread being touched by human hands. That bread made in the home requires Help in the process and how unsanitary to have to make something, you know that our hands touch and that these wild, uncontrollable yeast are a part of.
And so these industrial breadmakers made a really concerted effort to get red. Out of the home and into these industrial bakeries. And they are Advertised that, um, our loaves are made without ever being touched by a pair of human hands. That was kind of the marketing point was like, no, no hands, no human.
No humanity has been involved in the process of baking this bread. It's all been done by machines. It's all, you know, replicable. It is pure. It is sanitary. Um, and. It turns out this bread is also flavorless and it's also really hard for our bodies to digest. Uh, [00:19:00] that this, this long sort of uncontrollable process of transformation by the yeast is actually what gives bread its flavor.
It's what gives it its texture. And it's what gives us, um, it's what makes it easy for our bodies to digest. And so the result of this commercialization and industrialization of bread baking becomes, Bread that is bland and, and nutritionless, but also bread that is hard for us to eat. Um, and so we are now kind of in this revival moment of this more artisanal approach to bread baking.
And, um, I think when I, I think that by losing this sort of very human. part of the baking process, the very tangible, like, hands in the dough part of it. We've lost a large understanding of what bread is in the first place. Um, and so I'm thrilled that there is kind of a, a movement pushing back against that.
Uh, and I think there's so much opportunity there.
Andrew Camp: And so then what, you know, as you're talking about flavorless bread, [00:20:00] but bread that's hard to digest, I sometimes think of the evangelical church, which can be hard to digest or, you know, and it's the church I was raised in. It's the tradition I have. And I'm pretty sure it's the tradition you grew up in, if I'm correct, remembering, but at the same time, there's There's a revival of something more or a longing for something more.
And as you've done these workshops, what do you feel like you're tapping into, into your, these people you're coming in contact with?
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah, I think that most often people are most excited about, um, this realization that there is more here than they ever New was there, you know, that for me, communion growing up was something we did once a month and it was, you know, we passed, we passed the plate of oyster crackers down the aisle.
There was no sense of historical purpose. There was no sense of connection with other people. There was no sense of the cracker, the oyster cracker and the little thimble full of grape juice having any significance in and of themselves. [00:21:00] Um, and I think that as. People are learning how to bake bread and getting their hands involved in the bread baking process.
They're realizing, oh, there's so much more to this very simple, fundamental food item. Right. And with that, it helps me understand then what it means for bread to be present all throughout scripture. And then that helps me understand even more what it means for bread to be the central element of the faith.
Um, and it is, you Not just something that's exciting sort of mentally to be able to connect to this larger historical community and tradition that they're a part of, but also that it's something our entire bodies get to experience, that our faith is not just something happening in our minds, that our faith is something happening in and with and through our entire bodies.
Andrew Camp: No, and to get As I've talked to more people about food, it, this theme of getting in touch with our bodies and this embodied spirituality just keeps, it's a theme that keeps emerging. [00:22:00] Um, you know, it's the embodiedness, but it's also then the broken stories that food can tell. Um, which you combine both, you know, you know, through your health issues, you know, you have come to a richer understanding.
I don't think it's something you may have chosen, but I, it seems looking back now you, you understand God's hand maybe in it or can see a richer expression. So So, for people that may struggle with food issues, whatever they may be, like, what's your journey and how, what words would you have for, for those listeners?
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah. So, I think we see from the very beginning of scripture that bread is both a sign of the goodness of God's creation and also the brokenness of God's creation. That, you know, humans were created to eat from the very beginning. Genesis 1 and 2 is, you know, God creating the fruit trees and, you know, placing the, the first humans in the garden and, [00:23:00] and, you know, encouraging them to eat of the fruits of all the trees at this, enjoying the delights of God's creation were a part of, you know, creation from the beginning.
And also this story of the, the fall is a story of eating that it is, you know, the eating of the forbidden fruit that brings brokenness into the world. Um, but in this very passage in Genesis, actually the very verse, Genesis 3, 19, um, where sort of this, this ramifications of the fall are being proclaimed, um, that, that God says it is from dust you come and to dust you will return.
Um, that, but also that, that by the sweat of your brow, you will eat your bread from dust you come and to dust you will return. That it is in, in the exact same, you know, phrase in which God is saying like this, this, it is by the sweat of your brow, you will eat that, that this creation is broken and that you will, your bodies will experience sort of the pain of this creation.
And yet at the same time, they're offered this gift [00:24:00] of bread, um, that it is, you know, our eating though, is also something that we get to participate with God and the transformation of creation, that bread is not just something that grows on a tree. It requires hard work to labor in the fields to grow and harvest the grain.
But also we get to be a part of transforming that grain into something really delicious and nutritious, which is bread. Um, and so I think all throughout scripture and all throughout human history, we see humans grappling with this tension between the goodness of food and the goodness of God's creation and the goodness of being able to build community and share, you know, history and tell stories through food.
And yet at the same time, there is this ongoing brokenness in relationship to food and though the labor required to grow food in the wars that have been fought over trying to acquire sufficient food, um, over the ways that food has been used to fight wars by withholding food from those who need it, you know, we see the ways that [00:25:00] That the groaning of creation is, is present in relationship to food.
Um, and I think today for many people that, that maybe looks different than it has at different points in history, but oftentimes it expresses itself in food allergies or in just difficult relationships to our body and our, our, you know, our, our beauty standards that are present here in our present age.
Um, but it's also true as far as, you know, Ability to acquire food goes, or, you know, there's just so many ways that we still do each individually experience at once the goodness and the brokenness. Um, and so I think the first step is, is to recognize that, that food is gift and food is a gift that is.
difficult. Um, and so we're never going to fully get rid of that tension. Um, this is why we are sort of waiting for this new creation, that we believe there will be a day, um, in which this full healing and restoration of creation happens. But until then, We're in this place of wrestling in this tension.
And yet also God has given us this gift [00:26:00] of food as something to nourish us and to carry us on through until that day. Um, and so learning to see food as a gift, I think is the first step in being able to then reevaluate how we engage with this gift that is good and yet also broken.
Andrew Camp: No, that's yeah. And to hold that intention, because I think It's easy to, you know, we all verge towards one side of the tension, probably, and so how to help our own bodies recognize it, um, you know, and then just to tell the true story, the full story, you know, of what food is and can be, um, is so important.
Kendall Vanderslice: Absolutely.
Andrew Camp: Um, and so you, you have a new book coming out in October, um, in which you sort of take these gleanings and make them hopefully accessible to people who can't join you in a retreat, you know?
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah.
Andrew Camp: Or, and so what, what can you tell us, the listeners a little bit about this book and what, what you're excited about [00:27:00] it?
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah, so this book is called Bake and Pray Recipes and Liturgies for Baking Bread as a Spiritual Practice. I think I got the subtitle correct. I, I get the order of those words wrong sometimes. I understand. You got the general gist. Yep. And I like to say that it is a prayer book So the first half of the book is this workshop that I teach in book form.
Um, and so it carries you through six different lessons with each lesson. We pay attention to a different part of the bread baking process, both to understand that process better, but also to probe some of the spiritual parallels that are present in that process of bread baking. Um, and so the, the rhythm of that first half of the book will help you.
understand this liturgy of bread baking and practice again and again and again, that process of getting to understand bread more deeply every time you bake. And then the next section of the book is, um, recipes for the church year. And so I have bread recipes for every season of the liturgical calendar that are all drawn from [00:28:00] different, um, different parts of the world, different, you know, moments in history that, that, so it, it is meant to show that, you know, the Christian faith is this incredibly diverse faith.
And yet we are also made one in this bread that we share. And that bread looks different in different places and at different times. Um, and so you get some of that sort of history and folklore behind these different breads along with the recipes. Um, and then the next section is a series of prayers that you can incorporate into the liturgy so that you can have prayers for baking.
for any occasion. Um, so there's a liturgy for if you are, you know, baking bread for communion, or if you're baking bread for a new neighbor or baking bread for some, you know, someone that just had a baby, or you are baking with kids or through a time of grief through celebration, et cetera. Um, so the book as a whole is meant to help you incorporate Um, use to use your bread baking as a prayer practice, uh, while also coming to a fuller understanding of both bread and the Christian faith.
Andrew Camp: And sounds delightful. Um, you [00:29:00] know, and just the idea of helping people see bread baking, you know, as more than just a physical nourishment act, um, but ways that can spiritually enrich us. And, you know, as a dad of two young girls, um, who works, you know, and we got jobs and. Life and sports and all of this, I think for me, some of the hesitation or, you know, the, the tension to, to wrestle with is the time needed, like,
Kendall Vanderslice: and
Andrew Camp: so what, how do you, how can.
Busy parents or single moms or just wherever you are in life in which you feel busy and overwhelmed in the idea of baking your own loaf of bread feels just another thing to do. What. What encouragement or, you know, how can we get past this?
Kendall Vanderslice: So the way that I like to teach bread baking is to make it as accessible as possible, as unintimidating as possible.
Um, some bread books will really lean on to that complexity of bread baking. Um, you know, because They are wanting to help people [00:30:00] troubleshoot all the possible things that can go wrong. I am the opposite. I like to lean into that simplicity of bread baking and make it as sort of simple and intuitive as possible.
Um, and the wonderful gift when it comes to bread is that most of the flavor and the texture is developed while both you and the dough are at rest. Um, so this bread baking process is, it takes a long time. It takes between 18 and 24 hours from start to finish. But the majority of that is passive. Um, so you take, you know, about five, ten minutes to mix up a loaf, and then you let it sit for a really, really, really long time.
And then you come back to it, you know, maybe the next morning, and you shape it for a few minutes, and then you let it rest again. And then you put it in the oven. So there are, you've got to time it and have these little pockets of time, but the actual active time involved is minimal. Um, and this, this bread is very flexible in how exactly you can time it.
And so I provide all of sort of the information that you need to be able to figure out how to fit that timing [00:31:00] into your busy life.
Andrew Camp: No. And there's something as you were talking about it of, I loved your phrase that You know, when the bread rests, you rest. And so what's that rhythm look like? Cause I've never heard it phrased like that.
And so that feels there's something very Sabbath y about what you just said. And so how does bread then help us engage? And Sabbath rest may be in different ways than other things could.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah. So I think oftentimes, you know, one of the hiccups that people have when it comes to rest is that we think about all the things that won't get done if we take time to rest, that it is hard to rest because we're so aware of what's not happening while we're resting.
And we've just got that lot, you know, that list. It's just spinning in our brain of all of the things that need to be done. Um, but bread is this constant reminder that if we were actively involved in the breadmaking process from start to finish, we would have really bad bread, that this bread needs that time to rest.
And it needs that time to just be in [00:32:00] order for the transformation inside of it to take place. Um, and what I have been challenged by in this process again and again, is to begin questioning, you know, with. With the bread forces me to question, not what happened, what, not what does not happen because the bread is at rest, but rather what does not happen if I don't give the bread time to rest.
And then I am able to apply that same question to myself and say, like, you know, I, I get really concerned about what am I missing out on or what is, you know, being set aside. when I take the time to rest. Um, but instead what I need to be asking is what am I missing out on when I don't take the time to rest?
What am I losing? What is not happening in me or around me? Because I want to have this sense of control and I want to have this, you know, this sense of optimizing my time. And so that's been a real helpful way for me to engage with rest more fully and to see rest as a gift like bread, um, and rest as [00:33:00] something that actually transforms me and shapes me in a really necessary and beautiful way.
Andrew Camp: So for our listeners, what happens when bread rests? Because it is a vital part.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah. So while the bread is resting, um, in the early part of the process, they, uh, as soon as the water starts to mix together with the wheat, um, it begins to activate enzymes that then start to unravel these protein strands inside of the grain.
And then as the after the protein strands unravel, and they begin to form bonds with one another, and those bonds are what develop a structure that can capture carbon dioxide. Um, so then as the yeast starts to wake up, the, you know, these protein strands are unraveling, um, it starts to unlock these, Starches that are naturally present in the grain, which is then the food for the yeast to eat.
So the yeast starts to eat its way through the grain. As it does, it releases carbon dioxide that gets captured in that net. And that's what allows our dough to grow. Um, so this process is what gives us Texture. It's what gives us height to our bread. It's what [00:34:00] allows our dough to rise, um, but it also is what helps to transform this grain into something that's digestible for our bodies.
That without this slow transformation, it's hard for our bodies to assimilate the nutrients that are present in this grain. Um, you know, most people think of bread as being a, like, nutritionally void. Food that has been sort of the narrative here in the U. S. For the last 30 or so years that, you know, carbs are bad.
It's straight sugar that it's, you know, there are no nutrients to it. Bread actually has most of the nutrients that humans need to survive. We could survive off of just bread and water for a really, really, really long time. It has protein. It has a lot of vitamins and minerals. It has so much of what we need.
Um, but it takes this long, slow transformation to be able to, uh, to, for, to get those nutrients in a form that our bodies can absorb. Um, and so a slow fermented bread, Is not straight sugar. It does not cause your blood sugar to spike. It actually, um, it is [00:35:00] incredibly nourishing and it's something that is, is really, really wonderful for us.
Andrew Camp: That's so insightful. And again, the more I hear you talk about bread, the more spiritual aspects just seem to naturally arise of, you know, bread needing to be needed and stretched and gluten develop so it can withstand. The rising and give it a shoe and excuse me, some resilience, but also needing the rest, um, you know, to, to find flavor and to, to develop and to, for more things to happen.
And so it's, again, the spiritual aspect of needing and resting, um, that both must occur, um, in bread and I think in our own, own lives.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah. Absolutely. It is just this gift that just keeps continuing to teach. I feel like I am forever learning more and more from the bread itself.
Andrew Camp: Nice. And also in your book, you're, you're wanting to tell some stories of, of maybe some forgotten saints.[00:36:00]
Right. Like, um, you know, and some of the women that maybe church has overlooked because we want to elevate the thinking people, you know, in the mind. And so what, what saints did you discover or have you discovered that the church. Um, could benefit from,
Kendall Vanderslice: yeah, one of the, the, um, Ancestors in the faith that I have learned the most from in this work has been Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, uh, who is, you know, her work is read regularly in Mexico, I think most school children read her work, but here in the U.
S., um, I had never heard of her until I encountered her work as a graduate student, um, but she was a nun in Mexico in the, I believe, 17th century, 16th, 17th century. Um, and she has this wonderful line that is, you know, if Aristotle would have cooked, he would have written a good deal more. Um, and so Sorowana was, she was an intellectual.
She was an incredible, you know, thinker. Um, and her, her work really [00:37:00] challenged, um, her bishop and her confessor. And ultimately she was sort of. kicked out of the Theological Academy, um, or the equivalent in her time, that she was told that she couldn't write and publish and she couldn't actually read because they were challenged by her thoughts on theology.
And so much of that stemmed from the fact that, you know, her work had her doing this domestic work, largely cooking, and in the sort of relationship between the tactile tasks that she did in the kitchen and the intellectual work that she did, Um, in, in the library, uh, she was able to see in a different way, I think, how God was at work in the world, um, and that, that, that work proved very challenging to the established church.
And so, um, I just love, her work has been, has been really meaningful to me. She has this fabulous play, um, Or an allegorical play that she wrote, The Loa to Divine Narcissist, where she essentially depicts this sort of an alternative to how the interaction between the Spanish and the indigenous [00:38:00] Americans could have unfolded.
Um, where those who were indigenous, you know, they had all of these, um, there were these, Indigenous rituals that had to do with bread with these tortillas or with with corn with corn loaves that mirrored in many ways the Eucharist and the scared the Spanish when they arrived, they, their writings where the Conti conquistadors saying that they thought the devil was masquerading in this Eucharist like form.
And she flips that on its head and instead challenges and says, like, maybe actually Jesus had already revealed himself to these people, um, through the form of bread, that they knew God through the bread that they ate. And if the Spanish had seen that, they could realize, like, we worship the same God who has revealed himself to us in bread.
Um, and so her work, things like that, that way of thinking has been so transformative for me. Um, but then also. You know, rather than specific individuals or specific saints, it's much more been looking to just the quiet work that women have done, you know, whose work, who don't get named, um, and, and [00:39:00] beginning to realize that I think there are so many women who, who spent their lives making food and feeding their communities, um, and they, I think new God in this really tangible, beautiful way, um, that, you know, we, we get to tap into when we bake as well.
Andrew Camp: No, for sure. And so what was the name? You said it so fast. I couldn't quite catch it. Sorry. Yes.
Kendall Vanderslice: Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.
Andrew Camp: Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yes. So Sor like sister. She was an SOR and then Juana, uh, S O J U A N A de la Cruz. So C R U Z.
Andrew Camp: Awesome. No, that's so cool to hear. And yeah. The more you study history, the more you realize that there's just these delightful stories hidden behind so much.
Um, and so what, you know, as you reflect on your journey a little through Brad, like, what does faith look like for Kendall these days and in ways that is very different?
Kendall Vanderslice: Different [00:40:00] to how I grew up or how you grew up
Andrew Camp: or, you know, yeah,
Kendall Vanderslice: I mean, I did not grow up in a tradition that really, um, centered on the Eucharist all that much.
It was kind of this afterthought, this thing we did once a month. Um, it was always called communion, not the Eucharist, you know, um, and I, this, I think my journey into a tradition that centers itself entirely on the Eucharist, um, came hand in hand with my journey into this love of bread. Um, and so for me, it is, you know, I think all of my work, all of my faith, all of my life really does center around, um, this breaking of bread, both at the communion table and also breaking of bread at dinner tables with others.
Um, and so I think my faith now looks. It is very communal, it is very tactile and tangible, um, and it is very focused on how do we see God revealing God's self to us in these tactile, tangible gifts of food.
Andrew Camp: And to tag along with that, it's question I love to ask [00:41:00] all my guests, um, but what's the story you want the church to tell?
Kendall Vanderslice: I think I want the church to tell the story of, of bread, that we are a, we are a faith that is centered on bread, on a God that calls Godself the bread of life, um, on a tradition that is, you know, takes place at a table that is the sharing of bread, um, that, that bread is, at the center of our faith and it has so much to teach us about that faith.
Um, and so that's if, you know, I would love if I could just have everyone, you know, I've had some people read my books and say like, I'll never take communion the same way again. And I would love for anyone who does not, you know, currently see this to be such a, a beautiful, powerful, central piece of our faith.
I hope that that changes with, with my work.
Andrew Camp: Yeah. I've always, Longed for the day when I walk up to a church and smell the smell of fresh baked bread being prepared for the Eucharist, like I, there's something about it that I'm like, I, [00:42:00] I would love to have that experience, um, versus a stale matzah cracker.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yes, yes.
Andrew Camp: That is
Kendall Vanderslice: not, you know, you don't want to think that God tastes like, you know, a stale.
Andrew Camp: No.
Kendall Vanderslice: Cracker.
Andrew Camp: No. And I've always thought that. A little piece of
Kendall Vanderslice: cardboard. Yeah. That sticks to the roof of your mouth.
Andrew Camp: Exactly. Yes. Washed down by Welch's grape juice. That's right. That was invented solely for the, you know, to celebrate communion.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yep. Yep.
Andrew Camp: And so, cause I've always thought that the Eucharist should be a, an amuse bouche of the kingdom. You know? I love that. Yeah. Awakens our palate. Yes. Um, and so fresh baked bread.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yes.
Andrew Camp: It does awaken the palate. Absolutely. You know, the smell, the, the aroma. Um, there's nothing quite like it.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah.
Andrew Camp: Um, and so as we wrap up, there's some fun questions I'd love to ask and to hear people's responses.
Um, and so Kendall, what's one food you refuse to eat?
Kendall Vanderslice: Ooh, um, [00:43:00] well, this is, I will try most foods pretty much at least one time. I'll try it all. Um, I'm currently doing this sort of fun side project where I'm cooking my way through church cookbooks from every state and it's been a blast. There's one recipe that makes itself, you know, it appears in many, many, many books that I do not desire to try.
But I feel like for the sake of the project at some point, I will have to. And that is tomato aspic.
Andrew Camp: Ah, yes.
Kendall Vanderslice: Essentially a tomato jello with vegetables suspended inside of it.
Andrew Camp: Mm hmm.
Kendall Vanderslice: That might be the thing where I draw the line and say I don't, I don't want to taste. Taste that.
Andrew Camp: Yes. That actually just came up at our dinner table last night.
Um, both my wife's parents and my parents were in town and we were talking about somehow we got onto jello and tomato aspect. Yes. Yes. Something from the seventies that I don't quite understand why.
Kendall Vanderslice: Well, you know what, it's actually even [00:44:00] earlier than that. And it's really fascinating. It maps onto that same sort of history behind the commercialized bread, which is in this sort of sanitary movement.
There's this desire for control, um, and a. Salad is something that is uncontrollable, right? Like you can't, you can't structure it on a plate. Um, and so serving salad was seen as being sort of lacking in class. Um, and so with the invention of Jell O, which made it much easier, you know, prior to the invention of Jell O to gelatinize things, you had to take the, you know, you had to, Soak the meat bones and get the gelatin and whatever.
It was a long process. So Jell O made it possible to suspend things. And when you suspended vegetables, you now had a way to serve fresh vegetables, but it was controlled. Interesting. And so the first version of this is called Perfection Salad, is, is what it was called. And it was truly this idea to have a fully controlled, formed.
Salad on the plate. Um, there's a historian. Um, oh my goodness. I'm blanking on her name But her book is called perfection salad and she digs into this history and so interesting. It's fascinating.
Andrew Camp: That is [00:45:00] super fat. Wow Okay, another book to look into
Kendall Vanderslice: Yes
Andrew Camp: So on the other end of the spectrum, what's one of the best things you've ever eaten?
Kendall Vanderslice: Oh, man, I just love you know a really good slice of bread with really good butter I think nothing tops that or a really good cheese and a glass of wine, you know that You just don't get any better than that
Andrew Camp: Nope. The simplicity.
Kendall Vanderslice: Absolutely.
Andrew Camp: Yep. Um, and then finally, there's a conversation among chefs about last meals as if, you know, you knew you had one last meal to enjoy, what would it be?
And so if you knew you had one last meal, do you know what might be at the table?
Kendall Vanderslice: Well, I know this sounds really cheesy, but I just think my work and my life is so focused on the idea of like, you know, we're working towards this new creation that I don't know if I'm, if I'm all that concerned. I don't know if I'm all that concerned with the idea of a last because in my mind, it's It's like, no, we're, we're looking ahead to like the fullness of creation, the fullness of time where we get to, to eat everything.
Um, so I, I still think maybe just like really nice bread [00:46:00] and butter and wine and cheese. That's all
Andrew Camp: I need. That's all you need. Yep.
Kendall Vanderslice: That's all I need.
Andrew Camp: I understand. Yes. I know it's always a morbid question, but it's always interesting because I think it does give us a glimpse of, you know, what we value and what we long for.
Absolutely.
Kendall Vanderslice: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Andrew Camp: Absolutely. So thank you, Kendall. Um, if people want to learn more about your work, um, where can they find you? And, um, yeah, learn more about these, these ideas.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah. So you can find me at kendallvanderslice. com. Um, which I, the name sounds way more intimidating than it really is.
It's spelled exactly like it sounds. Um, but so you can find me at kendallvanderslice. com. You can find me on Instagram at knvslice. Um, and yeah. You can, let's see, where else can you find me? Um, you can, I have a podcast called Kitchen Meditations. There's about 30 different meditations designed to be listened to while you're in the kitchen.
Um, so that's the other best place to find me, anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Andrew Camp: Um, and your new book, um, which I'm just breaking, Bake and Pray, is now [00:47:00] available on, to pre order. Um, it's out in October. Um, and so if this idea of baking and praying and learning how to experience bread as a spiritual practice, um, excites you, I highly recommend ordering Kendall's book, um, and to enter into it as the fall approaches, cool weather, you know, it's a great time to be baking.
You know, and then the liturgical year starts on Christmas, and so you'll be ready for, for that. Um, so, Kendall, this was a delight, a joy. I love hearing you talk about bread. Um, thank you so
Kendall Vanderslice: much.
Andrew Camp: You know, and your writing has, um, blessed me, um, and caused me to question and grow. And so, um, please do, uh, Read Kendall's work, follow her, find her, her church cookbook videos on Instagram are a delight and fun, um, because church cookbooks are a species of their own, um, that I think would be fun one day to, you know, revisit maybe doing [00:48:00] small group curriculum around church, you know, doing a small group based solely on church cookbooks would be, uh,
Kendall Vanderslice: yes,
Andrew Camp: could be a fun project.
Kendall Vanderslice: Absolutely.
Andrew Camp: So thank you for joining us on this episode of The Biggest Table where we explore what it means to be transformed by God's love around the table and through food. Until next time, bye.