Nearly 30 years ago, a retired farmer gave the town of Norwich a piece of land. A local mason built a traditional bread oven on the property, available for anyone in town to use.
Since then there have been periods when the oven has languished, but in recent years it’s become a regular Friday stop for many local residents.
In an essay about the Norwich Community Oven a few years back, local writer Rob Gurwitt recounted the oven's history, explaining that years ago, “people would congregate for an afternoon of baking or roasting. But, “after the first rush of enthusiasm, it mostly stood cold and forgotten.”
The oven has sprung to life in recent years thanks to the return of Suzanne Lupien, one of the people who used it in the early days.
“The first time I slid a peel in this oven 25 years ago and heard that sound of the wooden peel on the brick floor I burst into tears! I thought, ‘Oh, my grandmother in French Canada,'” Lupien explained on a recent Friday morning as she slid loaves into the oven.
Each Friday from late spring to early fall, Lupien builds a fire and, using a wooden peel with a long handle, slides about about 175 loaves into the domed clay oven: Raisin bread, walnut bread, breads with olives and olive and rosemary.
"The first time I slid a peel in this oven 25 years ago and heard that sound of the wooden peel on the brick floor, I burst into tears." - Suzanne Lupien
Even before the baking begins people arrive to write their names on paper bags along with the bread they want to order. They’ll return later when their bags are filled with the warm product of Lupien’s labors.
By mid-morning, Lupien’s hands are caked with dough. There is a smear of white flour on her chin and her clothes and shoes have a liberal dusting.
Each week, she arrives at the oven with the dough she’s prepared. She lights the oven using strips of hardwood, which burn to coals that she sweeps out once she senses the oven has reached the correct temperature.
“You can get some indication of how hot it is in there from the quality of the smoke and the force of the draft,” Lupien says.
There are some constants in bread baking, but an outdoor oven tended by a decidedly free spirit adds some variables to the equation.
“Every week, the weather is different,” she says, explaining how baking conditions can change. "The temperature, the humidity, the wind direction."
Even what she refers to as "the level of peace in the heart” can affect the outcome.
Lupien, who is in her late 50s, grew up in Norwich in a time when farm life existed alongside the academic life of nearby Dartmouth College.
“We had 25 dairy farms, here. We also had retired professors and rocket scientists and chancellors of the Weimar Republic,” she recalls. “There was no hierarchy of type. We learned just as well from this one as that one.”
Lupien sees her bread as a great equalizer. She likes the idea that all sorts of people descend on this spot on Friday and witness the process of bread baking.
“Right now, it’s a really fundamental part of my work life and my heart, not just to make good bread but to connect with people and give them a chance to share something together,” Lupien says.
She is paid for the loaves. Customers pick up their bread and place their money in a little metal dish nearby. This is Lupien’s income. Her expenses are few.
In exchange for helping pay property taxes, she lives on a friend’s land without electricity or running water. She keeps two draft horses, which she uses to haul her firewood and cut hay for feed. She leads a busy life.
“I take care of my horses and cut firewood and carve spoons and make woodcuts and write articles and write poetry and cook food and read to old people and take naps,” she explains.
She’s left a few things out: Puppeteer, gardener, daily visitor to the assisted living facility where her mother lives.
They all say something about her and the handmade life that every Friday in summer brings her to the community oven in Norwich.
