Watson Winner Will Be "Loafing" Around the World Next Year
Gray Lyon checks out the local staff of life at Davidson's "Knead It" bakery.
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4/27/2004
Contact: Bill Giduz 704/894-2244 or bigiduz@davidson.edu
by Timothy Cook ‘ 04
Gray Lyons ‘04 will be breaking bread worldwide next year. Lyons has received a $22,000 fellowship from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation to spend a post-graduate year studying bread making customs at bakeries in five different countries.
The project, entitled “The Staff of Life: Bread and the Baker,” developed from personal motives. “I was raised in the Deep South where cornbread and buttermilk biscuits are a mealtime staple,” said the Birmingham, Ala., native. “I’ve also been making bread for years as a hobby and as a means of preserving part of my upbringing.”
Lyons plans to study both the cultural position of bread and bread making, and its nutritional value, in the different environments of France, Hungary, India, Vietnam, and Trinidad. “I wish I had a more noble reason for my selection of countries,” he said. “But I just started picking countries on the map with one each from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, East Asia, and so on.”
Lyons said that his previous experiences studying abroad in both France and Mexico have helped broaden his view of the world, and sparked his interest in cultural experiences.
He is now working with professors, friends, and acquaintances to make connections in each of his destination countries. At his first stop, Lyons will work with a retired baker in Paris on the several different styles of French bread baking. Lyons hopes to participate in the entire process, from kneading the dough to pulling the loaves out of the oven. “Most tourists find their way into a boulangerie-pastisserie (bakery), but few understand the influence of bread in French history and culture,” he explained. “Bread has been an institution of French society and national identity since the time of the French Revolution.”
He plans on making a side trip to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, to learn the role of bread in feeding undernourished populations of the world. Since a major emphasis at WHO is food fortification, Lyons hopes to learn from that organization about the possibility of using bread as a tool for delivery of nutritional supplements. “Learning about nutrition will add an extra dimension to the project,” he explained.
His second nation will be Hungary. In the capital, Budapest, he will learn the trade secrets of four different types of bread that play important roles in major holiday celebrations—the bagel, potato bread, Jewish traditional bread, and a type of poppy seed bread called beigli.
The next stop is India, cradle of one of the world’s oldest civilizations. Though there has been much commercialization of bread baking there, many people still use methods that are thousands of years ago. Lyons plans on staying with several Indian families who have preserved those traditional arts of bread making.
Vietnam, his fourth stop, might be the most challenging target nation, since rice replaces the typical Western grains in Vietnamese breads, and the cultural and language barrier will be challenging. “Vietnam was a bit of a stretch,” Lyons conceded, “but it works because it’s a great mix of cultures.”
He explained that Vietnamese bakeries and stores sell traditional Asian rice breads side-by-side with French wheat-based baguettes.
Lyons' last stop, the small Caribbean island of Trinidad, is also a melting pot of different cultures. In addition, it features a variety of breads that Lyons will not have seen in previous countries. “When new and old world crops were mixed with far-eastern plants, new bread dishes began to emerge,” he explained. “Today, the Caribbean islands are known for their sugary breads like banana bread and coconut bread.”
Lyons was one of four Davidson seniors nominated by the school to compete for the fifty Watson fellowships awarded nationwide this year. Davidson is one of fifty colleges and universities invited to submit nominees each year. Two years ago, four Davidson students, the maximum for one school, won Watson Fellowships.
Lyons is a premedical student at Davidson, and after he completes his Watson fellowship, he will attend medical school and pursue a career as a physician.
Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,600 students. Since its establishment in 1837, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently ranked in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News and World Report magazine. Davidson is engaged in “Let Learning Be Cherished,” a $250 million campaign in support of student financial assistance, academic resources, and community life.
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