Remember during the pandemic, when everyone was baking their own bread? 

Well, Wild Cultures’ owner Dan Beach, his wife Brooke and their family friends, Josh and Kim Lawrence, still are. They’re also making bread, pastries and all sorts of goodies for customers in Hernando. 

Wild Cultures Sourdough Bakery opened its first brick-and-mortar location in Hernando in February, bringing natural fermentation-style baking techniques to North Mississippi. It began as a pandemic passion project then turned into a farmer’s market pop-up before it became what it is today. 

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The Beaches and the Lawrences run the operation, pumping out an eclectic mix of savory and sweet breads and pastries, all made from naturally leavened sourdough. More recently, the team has also started making and selling their own homebrewed kombucha and lacto-fermented vegetables, such as sauerkraut.

Gut health is something many of us — surrounded by a world of processed and mass-produced foods — take for granted. To eat fermented foods is to eat like our ancestors did, before the days of commercial refrigeration and preservation methods. It helps our bodies better digest food and strengthens our immune systems with the introduction of cultures of good bacteria endemic to our locale. 

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Alright, alright. Health soapbox aside, fermented food is delicious. Natural fermentation unlocks surprising flavors that are otherwise unachievable from cooking alone.

Dan Beach gets it, which is why he created Wild Cultures. And when I heard it had opened, I knew I had to get a taste. I’m an instant fan of anybody taking risks and getting freaky with the ferments.

Unlike what you might imagine from a sourdough-forward bakery, Wild Cultures isn’t just about the bread. There are plenty of pastries to choose from, from the more familiar players, such as snickerdoodles and chocolate croissants, to deeper cuts, such as pain aux raisins spiced with cardamom, and Danish-like laminated pastries topped with spinach, ricotta and prosciutto. Fluffy, crusty loaves of bread, too, come in savory and sweet varieties.

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I got a few things to try, but admittedly ended up doing a little more than trying. It took some white-knuckling on my steering wheel to not eat all of my baked goods alone on a drive down to New Orleans this weekend. But we don’t have to talk about that. Here’s what I got:

Rosemary and olive sourdough boule

I could tell from the beautifully lamed and crackly crust of this boule that it was going to be a good loaf. It was deeply aromatic and herbaceous. You know — that strong rosemary smell. Cutting down the center, the cross-section of the crumb inside was airy and bubbly, soft and spongy, and studded with brown and green kalamata olives.

The texture and taste matched up to the visual appeal of this loaf. The salt was on point, and the tang from fermentation was well-balanced — not overwhelming. I sliced off a thick slab and topped it, untoasted, with well-ripened local tomatoes, Buffalo mozzarella, extra virgin olive oil, Maldon salt and basil from my garden. Sometimes you can’t beat the simple things in life.

Pain aux raisins

This pinwheel-shaped pastry, sometimes called an escargot or Russian bread, is a French breakfast classic but it’s not quite as common around here. Wild Cultures’ version, called The OC, is made from laminated pastry dough and rolled up with generous amounts of raisins, orange zest and cardamom pastry cream. The result is is a sweet and airy pastry that’s both lovely to look at and perfect to dip, piece by piece, into a cup of morning coffee.

Irish Cheddar & Jalapeno Focaccia

It’s nearly impossible for me to avoid a carbo-load when I spot fresh focaccia. Such was the case in this instance, but I did stop myself from buying more than one slice. Impulse control, people.

Wild Cultures’ focaccia is a well-oiled and fluffy pillow, topped with a solid, crusty layer of mature cheddar augmented with baked-in jalapeño slices. It’s got that rich, savory, slightly-burnt-cheese-at-the-bottom-of-the-pan flavor. You know what I’m talking about. And with a little heat from the jalapeno and acidity from the sourdough, it’s the perfect midday snack. Probably even better dipped in some tomato soup. Just throwing out inspiration.

Ricotta, Spinach and Prosciutto Spinner

This Danish-like pastry really got me. Like a good shoulder to cry on. The pastry dough itself is super thick and stacked with layers that seem near impossible to achieve. In the center is a concave cradle, lined with thin slices of prosciutto, that holds a little pocket of whipped ricotta with folded-in spinach. The result is a surprisingly filling savory pastry that seems to reveal new flavors with each bite. It almost feels like a reward when you get to the dollop of ricotta in the center (I ate around it and saved it for last. Again, impulse control.)

Watermelon Kombucha

If you like sweet and mild kombuchas, this one probably isn’t for you. Luckily, I like mine rather strong and funky. (I usually opt to make my own so that I can ferment it to a level of sour usually not found in stores.)

Wild Cultures’ kombucha, imbued with fresh, local watermelon juice, is right up my alley, with a pungent punch of carbonation and fruity funk that will save you from the oppressive heat as much as it will wake you up.

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In all, Wild Cultures is doing some really special things with fermenting — things that are rather hard to find at your typical local bakery. Why? Because wild fermentation is never 100% reliable; it takes procedural experimentation and the acceptance (and learned growth) through inevitable failure.

But when it succeeds, wild fermentation usually produces something beautiful. At Wild Cultures, Beach and his team have got it down to both a science and an art form.

Wild Cultures Sourdough Bakery at 127 W. Commerce St. in Hernando is open 7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Thursday-Sunday, and closed Monday-Wednesday.