Humans have had quite a long history with bread. Surprisingly, it has been part of the human diet, even before agrarian societies began 10,000 years ago.[i]A 1989 discovery (a stone pestle used to grind seeds[ii]) in a cave in Italy provides evidence that humans were grinding flour 30,000 years ago! Bread has been eaten by workers on the pyramids of Egypt as well as stocked in their burial chambers; bread was, and is today, a form of currency in Egypt[iii]. By the 5th century BC, the Greeks had commercial kitchens with free-standing ovens solely to bake bread. Really! They would go on to develop 72 different types of bread.[iv]Bread was often used as a political tool. It has fueled revolutions: bread shortage was the prequel to the storming of the Bastille[v]. In many countries and time periods, bread could be the humble, solitary offering on a family’s dinner table or grace the feast tables of kings. Did you know that bread is the only food, in various forms, that is found in the diets of every culture in the world? Bread is here to stay!
I really enjoy bread, in part because it is a vehicle on which to smother deliciously creamy butter (Anything I can put butter in or on is awesome, but, I digress). Today, even in the midst of the popularity of gluten-free diets, gluten-filled bread is still a thing. Instead of being a staple of our American diets, bread is now a posh work of art at upscale cafes and a quick buy in the bakery section of Whole Foods. There are many types of breads: white, whole wheat, sourdough, potato, rye, focaccia, brioche, pumpernickel, challah, and pita to name a few. There are various opinions about the ingredients, method, and tools for making proper bread. Flour choices seem endless.
Packaged yeast versus Bread starters, passed from friend to friend or even generation to generation (and, in my case, accidentally, yet swiftly, killed). Bannetons for rising, cloches for baking, lames for scoring. Like any good reader, I like to begin by consulting actual books in my library for my information, and why not start with the old ones? A 1968 cookbook has this hilarious verbiage: “Treat yeast like a baby. – keep it snug and warm and free from drafts – and it will grow up into a big loaf of bread.” : D An aged Betty Crocker cookbook my grandmother gave me when I was just 11 detailed the role of certain ingredients in bread-making, including the tip “Recipes seldom give an exact amount of flour because temperature and humidity affect the dough’s softness. You’ll learn to adjust by “feel’.” This is an intimidating direction because if you’ve never made it before, you won’t know what it’s supposed to “feel” like. And, if it felt like what I produced below, you may think “this is an epic failure.”
My first experiments over a decade ago with whole wheat bread yielded hard, dry, tasteless bricks, which got better with time, but never great. I set out to make a sourdough bread that had a pleasantly hard crust and a soft, chewy inside. I blended together different tidbits, ingredients, and methods. Proofing the yeast smells wonderful but looks quite unappetizing. I added the dry ingredients and gave it a good mix until it looked like this (below), and then worked with it until all the flour was incorporated.
After that, it was time to let the dough rise, where the yeast eats the sugar in the dough and then releases carbon dioxide, which causes it to get bubbly and rise. Why is this important? Two-fold: 1) if your yeast is bad, you'll know it before wasting time on a second rise and baking time. 2) Giving the yeast extra time to work will produce a chewier texture and overall more interesting flavor. As Martha says, it's a good thing! This particular dough is very soft and loose, which means it does not need to be kneaded. Did I mention it's suuuuuuuuper sticky? Even with flour-coated hands, the more you touch it, the more it sticks to you. Remember the black goo that turns Topher Grace into Venom in Spider Man 3?It’s like that. Thankfully it doesn’t remain that way, or fuel vengeful behavior. But it is a mess to clean up!
After braving the sticky goo, and trying to shape it, it’s ready for baking. Baked in a very hot oven, it comes out in this little adorable oblong loaf, perfect for sandwiches or as a pairing with steaming fall soup. The inside is chewy and soft and it makes your kitchen smell fabulous. I'm still trying to get a more beautiful-looking top crust…maybe I should invest in a lame.
If you've experimented with bread-baking, share your hits (and misses)!
[i] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cereals-sought-much-earli/
[ii] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/flour-was-part-human-diet-32000-years-ago-180956675/
[iii] https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/world/africa/16iht-bread.4.9271958.html
[iv] https://thinkmagazine.mt/an-ancient-history-of-bread-part-one-the-child-of-civilization/
[v] https://www.history.com/news/bread-french-revolution-marie-antoinette#:~:text=The%20storming%20of%20the%20medieval,stoking%20anger%20toward%20the%20monarchy
Commentaires