Dewey Memorial Hall in Sheffield, Massachusetts is inviting home sourdough bread bakers to show their stuff — and for the rest of us to be the tasters at the Sourdough Bread Baking Contest on Friday, March 4 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. The community event is a fundraiser for the stately stone hall bult on the Sheffield Green in 1887 to be a center of activities for the residents of Sheffield and neighboring communities. Its original mission was “to promote good and kindly feeling, cheerfulness, and intelligence.” Could there be a more appropriate way to celebrate our initial forays back out into the world than breaking bread with each other?

Organizers are calling for up to 30 home bread bakers to compete, an act that means entering two, two-pound loaves of bread, one for tasting/judging and the other to be raffled off. (Deadline for pre-registration is March 1; entry form is here.) What’s in it for the bakers? Bragging rights, to be sure. But also cash prizes for the best traditional sourdough bread and the best gluten-free version.

For the attendees, the rewards are just as great. Along with sampling the contestants’ breads, they will enjoy wine from DePart, beer from Big Elm Brewery, and cheese from Rubiner’s Cheesemongers.

The event is the brainchild of Beth Carlson, Dewey Hall board president. She was inspired by the pandemic sourdough craze and all those tantalizing bread photos on Instagram. Knowing the need for Dewey Hall to recoup shortfalls incurred by the pandemic, she turned to sourdough to bring in some bread. “We thought we would try to bring the community programming that used to happen in the hall in its early days and make it relevant for the 2020s," she said.

She asked Katy Sparks (chef/owner of Katy Sparks Culinary Consulting — and Rural Intelligence recipe contributor) and Evelyn Battaglia, food writer and brand consultant and former executive editor for Martha Stewart Living, to take on the task of coordinating the judges, the sponsors and the decor.

Additional sponsors are Warrior Trading and The Berkshire Food Co-op. The culinary celebrity judges will be Rachel Portnoy (former owner of Chez Nous/Cafe Triskele and baking instructor at Canyon Ranch), Patrizia Barbagallo (owner of Pixie Boulangerie), and Robbie Robles (owner of Roberto’s Pizza). There’ll be entertainment, too; writer/performer Melanie Greenberg will serve as MC, with live music provided by the Michael Junkins Duo.

The generosity of local businesses would be remarkable except for the fact that, like Dewey Hall’s mission, “good and kindly feelings” are a hallmark of the region. Sparks, who still considers herself new to the Berkshires, commented on the consistency with which people say “count me in.”

“I can’t believe the community spirit around here — it’s more than I’ve experienced in any places I’ve lived,” she said. “We’ve been able to get such wonderful sponsors and donors.”

Battaglia, who has lived in the Berkshires fulltime since 2015, echoed that sentiment and encourages people to be part of the community supporting “an amazing venue.”

As an avid baker, though, she’s taken on an additional mission.

“I feel like my role is to advocate for sourdough,” Battaglia said. “There’s a misconception that it’s so difficult. I’m here to demystify that. You just need to seed the starter.” (For the uninitiated, it’s basically a mixture of flour and water that produces a collection of wild yeast and bacteria that in turn becomes the rising power for the loaves.) You can nurture the starter or even neglect it for months and it will still work for you if you finesse it a bit.

“During the pandemic, people were looking for things to do at home,” said Battaglia. “There’s a ritual to the process that was very comforting and rewarding. It also helped to pass the time and became something to look forward to.”

But you don’t have to feel like an expert sourdough baker to enter the contest.

“If you’ve always been curious about sourdough starter, if it’s really as complicated as it looks to be: No, it’s not,” Battaglia said. “The best way to find out is to do it.”

Tickets for attendees are $25; proof of vaccination and i.d. are required for entry. Masks will be required when attendees are not seated and eating.

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Written by
Lisa Green