Flour, salt, yeast and water - makes bread - or does it?

Yes it does.
I make my own using 100% durum wheat flour (Pasta flour 00).
Only a small amount of yeast is used so that the dough can ferment overnight. it's then knocked back and allowed a second rise before being baked.

Sorry, missed your reply yesterday zorrostrikes.
I used to use the dutch oven method and it's very good. If you allow the dough to mature for 12 hours or more then there is no need to knead it as the gluten will hydrate fully naturally.
Best to put the dough on baking paper to avoid it sticking.
The longer the dough can mature (within reason) the better the bread seems to taste.
Although I sometimes make spelt bread and rye bread my preference these days is for Pugliese style Italian bread using pasta flour and it really is easy. Although traditional recipes use a "Bigga" (pre-fermented dough) this really isn't necessary. The way I do it is as follows:
Use only a few granules if dried yeast and start it in part of the warmed water to which a teaspoon of barley malt or sugar has been added to feed the yeast.
Weigh out the flour and salt and mix by hand.
Add the yeasty water and the remainder of the water and bring together by hand in a large bowl
Cover with plastic bag and leave overnight.(on top of the fridge is warm enough).
Next day flatten out, roll, into a ball and add a little olive oil to the bowl to prevent sticking. Cover and leave to rise again.
When risen to double it size with bubble blisters showing under the surface, carefully slide out onto a baking tray, slash the surface and immediately put into a preheated oven as high as it will go. After 10 minutes turn down to gas 6 or 7 and leave until fully baked (about 20 minutes depending on oven)
I usually turn it upside down and give it another 5 minutes at this stage.
Cool on rack then enjoy.

If you experience any problems then flag them up and I'll do my best to help. Good luck.

Bread machine are terrible.

I make all my bread. Flour, salt, yeast, water and sugar. Sugar is important to activate yeast and make it work efficiently. Use electric oven. Bread baked in Mason terracotta dish, rectangular, circle, baguette. No metal dish. Factory bread are horrible with all those ingredients that expanded the bread to make it look bigger but when you eat then the bread form a ball of paste inside your mouth and difficult to swallow. My bread are natural and crumbly as it should be.
If you are making wholemeal bread and finding it difficult to get it to rise compared with white bread. Do this. 500g of flour and put 250g in one bowl with 250ml of water with yeast and sugar. Salt goes into the remaining 250g in another bowl. The water and flour will make the mixture groggy like weetabix and leave it for 30 minutes. Use remaining flour with salt and use mixer. My kenwood titanium mixer is a dream. no kneading and the machine will do it for 10 minutes.

Foinavon - that sounds just like Jim Lahey's recipe for no knead bread.

(http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread)

Makes great bread and extremely easy.

The dutch oven is important if you want a good crust.

Yes, looks like my bread too since he's using a high level of hydration which gives the large spaces.I use durum wheat flour which gives a golden colour to the bread rather than the greyish white of "all purpose" flour. It's best to weigh the ingredients as it's more accurate than using cups as they do in America.
Using a dutch pot is virtually fool proof and ideal for a beginner but watch out not to burn yourself on it.
These days I prefer to bake the dough directly in my gas oven as it takes a shorter time than in the dutch pot.