Gourmet

Molly O’Neill talks to the founders and participants of Skowhegan, Maine’s Kneading Conference about how they’re trying to save the world, one loaf at a time.

It was just past 8 a.m. and Albie Barden’s well-pressed denim shirt was dotted with dark, indigo patches of sweat. It was nearly 90 degrees; nevertheless, Barden, an Episcopal minister and the founder of the Maine Wood Heat Company (a wood-burning stove and oven company) couldn’t stop himself. On the first morning of the fifth annual kneading conference in Skowhegan, Maine, he inched closer and closer to the blazing mouth of his newest mobile oven.

Perched on a heavy-gauge steel trailer and covered with seamed copper, the oven resembled the back end of a vintage Airstream. It had just been unveiled, and as he discussed his company’s latest design, Mr. Barden’s face was barn red, his white hair was damp, and his blue eyes glowed like those of a True Believer. “We needed aerodynamic,” he said. “We’re going to haul this oven to schools all over the state using it to teach kids about local food.”

The Kneading Conference is a midsummer summit of some of the nation’s most noteworthy philosophers and practitioners of the locavore creed. For three days every July, they gather at the fairgrounds in the former mill town one and a half hour’s drive inland from Portland, Maine, to build wood-fired brick and clay ovens; teach the science of flour, yeast, and fire; and debate strategies for what the conference program describes as “decommodifying grain” and “creating local grain economies.”