Extended fermentation. Twenty-four hours for the sourdough culture to build flavour and structure. Like pushing film — more development time extracts more information from the emulsion. The result is complex, tangy, textured.
Sourdough fermentation is the ultimate long-exposure technique. You're not just mixing flour and water — you're cultivating wild yeast and bacteria, letting them work over time to transform the dough. Twenty-four hours in the fridge is your development time. The starter breaks down complex starches, builds flavour compounds, creates gas for lift. It's a living process. You can't rush it.
Focaccia is forgiving. High hydration means it's wet, sticky, hard to shape — but that wetness creates the open crumb and crispy crust. The dimpling is functional: it prevents large bubbles and creates pools for olive oil to collect. The rosemary and tomatoes are toppings, but they're also compositional elements. Green against gold, red accents, salt crystals catching light. You're arranging the frame.
When it comes out of the oven, the crust is crackly, the interior is soft and tangy, the olive oil has fried the bottom to a golden crisp. You tear it, not slice it. The irregular edges, the random crumb structure — it's imperfect, human, alive. That's the point. You're not aiming for factory bread. You're documenting a process that happens once and never repeats exactly the same way.