Hello and welcome to Sourdough and stories beyond.
I’m your host Mykola Nevrev.
In each episode of this podcast, I am going to share a story to inspire you to have more empowering experiences in your life.
Today’s story is about Nuclear bread, its creator and the connection between Swiss army mobile bakeries and the Bake for Ukraine project.
I personally find this story very inspirational, as it shows the degree of devotion a person can have to a single topic–in particular, the topic of bread.
So, I was surprised to find out that despite being well known for its long-standing neutral political status, Switzerland actually does have armed forces and when it comes to the topic of food, the Swiss army does not mess around.
After the Second World War, the Swiss army standardized its use of bread, including high quality options like bread that was close to a French style countryside loaf or even sourdough bread.
The person behind the most interesting bread baking inventions by the Swiss army was Walter Kuchen (whose surname Kuchen actually means cake in German). Mr.Kuchen was a visionary when it came to big scale bread production, but unfortunately, he had an allergy to gluten so he wasn’t really able to try products of his own work.
Mr.Kuchen’s first known inventions date back to the 1970s, including mobile mills as well as mobile bakeries that ended up supporting full scale bread production.. We will return to the topic of mobile bakeries a little later in this episode.
Now let’s talk about the bread. In the beginning of [the 1970s], Mr.Kuchen patented a recipe for bread that had a 2-year shelf life. The bread consisted of standard ingredients like flour, yeast, salt and water. But The key to this extended shelf life was ethanol, which was supposed to kill all the germs inside and outside of the bread. This alcohol was injected into the bread and then the loaves were packed into plastic bags and vacuum-sealed.
This type of bread was called Atombrot which means Nuclear bread and was clearly created as a dooms day option during the nuclear tension of the 70s. Nuclear bread came in two options, classic and a version with dry fruits.
This boozy bread was intended to be opened a few hours before consumption to allow the alcohol to evaporate. It also came with recipes for how to use it, including recipes like bread soup, French toast and a desert made from AtomBrot with dry fruits.
Some comments about the taste of this bread were not so positive, with a lot of complaints about a strong ethanol smell, but the bread could serve its purpose and at least provide some calories. Some people even liked it, praising the recipe and especially the method for its clean ingredients.
The method proved to be effective, too: Mr.Kuchen’s son-in-law actually tried a loaf of this bread that was 18 years old, and it was still good.
What is also interesting is that AtomicBrot was not just a preserved bread in Switzerland, the German army also had it’s own version in the form of canned bread.
Now let’s talk about another invention of Mr.Kuchen’s: mobile bakeries. This was an absolutely genius invention that provided everything necessary for baking bread in field conditions.
A Mobile bakery essentially looked like a truck trailer with 10 tons of weight and the following set up: a kneading machine, a dough tray, working tables with a scale, a fermentation room, three ovens with a total of 9.6 square meters of baking surface, a cold water tank, a hot water boiler, a water mixing tank and a power generator. These engines were able to run on diesel, wood or coal and the ingredients could be easily carried on the truck pulling the trailer.
168 mobile bakeries were ultimately produced and in combination with mobile mills provided a full scale production cycle. Mobile bakeries were a part of the Swiss Army until 1995 when they were discontinued during army reforms. Some of the machines were then sent to Ukraine and Mr.Kuchen reportedly trained new bakers on how to operate them.
The bread genius sadly passed away in 2017, but the story of mobile bakeries is far from over.
In 2023, a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of Mr.Kuchen’s mobile bakeries was discovered by the team of Bake for Ukraine NGO. The vehicle was in good shape even after 60 years. After crowdfunding made with UK author and journalist Felicity Spector Bake for Ukraine managed to buy the bakery and to replace it to Odesa, the biggest city in the south of Ukraine.
Since then, the Mobile bakery has been fulfilling its purpose of providing bread for people in need. Currently, this bakery operates out of the Mykolaiv region, and with the help of the local church community Bake for Ukraine plans to bake bread for remote parts of the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions. These areas are closer to the firing line and the food supply chain is often very unpredictable, making bread a product of great demand.
Just a few months ago, Bake for Ukraine discovered another 2 mobile bakeries, this time on the very North side of Ukraine, close to Belorussian border, in a region that is at high risk of invasion. After an almost James Bond style mission, both bakeries were transported back to the Bake for Ukraine hub in Odesa.
Inside of Bake for Ukraine Mobile bakery. Pictures by Alexander Baron
Unfortunately, these vehicles are not in such great shape and some reconstruction is needed. As the co-founder of Bake for Ukraine, and on behalf of our entire team, I would like to ask for your support. You can help us by making a donation at bakeforukraine.org
Of course, I can’t say exactly, but I’m pretty sure that Mr.Kuchen would be happy to see that his invention is doing such an important job in 2024, 64 years after the first mobile bakery was produced.
This episode was recorded in the beautiful downtown of Bratislava Slovakia.
You can find the text version on my website mykolanevrev.com
Many thanks to Mandy Jones and Pilota Creative for producing this podcast.
I’m looking forward to sharing another story in two weeks. Until then, remember not to leave your bread on the shelf for two years.
Sources
https://daspaulimagazin.ch/de/portrait/das-brot-von-kuchen-atomar-gut-ein-nachruf-auf-den-backergeneral
https://www.muehle-fraubrunnen.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF-Downloads/Brot-News-Beitraege/2015-01-01_Erstes_6-Kornbrot___Baeckergeneral.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WXzAOmm2Q
https://fspector.substack.com/p/two-new-mobile-bakeries?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2