The Staff of Life—Bread and lots of Butter.
My adventures with yeast dough are legendary. Even today, I am appalled at my audacity in passing myself off as one of the living legends of bread making, to the extent that I even volunteered to make the Communion bread at my church. I am the type of person who becomes and expert on any subject and before long, have everyone believing that I can do it better than you can.
I had always viewed yeast bread with suspicion; the sort of challenge that could easily get out of hand. It ultimately did. The yeast bread caper started when Judy and I read an article in the NY Times, back in the 70’s, about a course being offered by the prestigious yeast bread group of Cornell University. I believe they had developed a special program through a research unit. It was held at Riverside Church in NYC for several weeks.
From the beginning it was obvious that we were the rank amateurs in a group of erudite teachers and students, all of whom seemed to know each other from previous classes. But we were unintimidated. Starters, sponges, first and second risings, kneadings, punchings, temperatures and a menu of what to do and what not to do in any situation. Despite it all, we were happy, ignorant and arrogant.
Hang onto your hats. Despite many failures including poorly shaped loaves, lumpy dinner rolls, square bagels, raw middles, we did learn how to bake yeast products. My new knowledge made me an overnight zealot, a missionary, a crusader; no one should eat anything but homemade bread. As soon as I finished classes, I made arrangements to teach bread baking in my kitchen.
I don’t bake bread anymore. It is time intensive and frankly, a nuisance. This was back in 1970 and in the years that followed, wonderful bakers and bakeries were springing up across the county in cities, towns and hamlets. Even at home, new technology and kitchen appliances did the kneading for you. Bread machines actually did everything. The death knell sounded for me when I moved to an apartment and space for baking anything was at a premium. My kneading days were over.
I wept a few tears because yeast dough is an experience you should not forgo. As you knead and punch, it brings a sense of freedom from the ordinary pressures of life. I rarely used the bread hooks or machines, there is nothing like getting your hands in the dough slowly forming it into a smooth ball. It’s just you and your glorious creation.
I had several good baking years when the kids were growing up. I learned how to prepare an all-purpose sweet yeast dough in large quantities for immediate use and then for storing in the refrigerator. My children and their friends recall coming home from school and finding a just baked fruit pastry on the counter—apricot, peach, lemon, almond or a crumb concoction—awaiting them.
This was a remarkably adaptable dough. The only caveat was remembering to punch it down just before you went to bed—or tragedy! David came running up to our bedroom one night at about 2 a.m. shouting, “Mom the dough exploded and it’s all over the refrigerator. What a mess.” And a mess it was—dough strands from top to bottom, covering all food, and invading every crevice imaginable. The resulting three day clean-up, ended the luxurious concept of continuous yeast dough.
Everyone has a sour dough story. San Francisco sour dough bread had made its way east and I felt compelled to give those west coast bakers some competition. I would make an original New Jersey starter. I do not remember the recipe anymore, but for two years it produced enough breads to extend across the country, or so it seemed to me.
My recollection is that the starter is kept in good shape if you replenish it after each use. If a recipe calls for one cup of starter, use it as directed for the bread, and then stir one cup each flour and water back into the starter jar. If you think about this, it could become a never ending process. People tell me that some starters have existed practically forever. But believe me, that was no going to be my little old New Jersey sour bread starter.
My first loaves were greeted with awe and wonderment. But as the breads continued to come, day in and day out, the grumbling started. Too sour. Too boring. What happened to that Portuguese bread? My explanations that sour dough starters improved with use fell on unwilling and deaf ears.
If those ungrateful people in my own family were not interested, I would bake sour dough bread for my neighbors. Same pattern; after a month or two my wonderful sour dough, polite “no-thank you’s”. I moved on to other streets, but always the same reaction “STOP”. I was proud of my starter and had already thought of it as being worthy of selecting a suitable person to pass it on to; a sort of family heirloom. One day I just looked at the unused starter, much the worse for lack of use, and without ceremony, threw it into the garbage and returned to more varied bread baking.
As you have already probably figured out, I am a clumsy person. When I bake, the top layer seems to have a lot of elasticity. It slides every downward. My rolled cakes are obviously patched. My pies have ungainly holes on the surface. Everything taste good, but looks bad. Nothing is magazine picture quality.
The matter of my bagels was a serious issue. I never saw a bagel, or for that matter heard of one, until after I was married. Lew insisted I try one and one taste was enough—a rubber tire disguised as dough and ten times as tough. I loved hard, crusty or soft, airy rolls. Bagels back in the 1940’s and 1950’s were not as popular as they are today and were only available in Jewish bakeries. They were small and somewhat chewy compared to the huge, doughy bagels that seem to have mass appeal today. But regardless of size, I think we can all agree that bagels are round and have a hole in the middle.
That’s where bagels tripped me up. Since we never had them and I wanted to please Lew, I decided to surprise him with a home baked batch of bagels. It is a relatively easy process and somewhat unusual in that the bagels are boiled in water before the final baking. The first batch came out of the oven golden tan and shining from a brush with an egg bath.
I arranged them on a platter and without a word , presented them to Lew, delighted with my marvelous skills. My husband, known to always say something nice, did not rise to the occasion. “Van, there’s a problem here. These bagels are square.”
I knew that the bagels had a different look, but who cared. Round or square they would be better than those little rubber tires. They were! We loved them and I proudly added them to my yeastly skills. I loved the square look, but why where they that shape? Would it catch on? Van’s square bagels…..again pipe dreams of fame or infamy, both were a possibility. No, square bagels did not catch on. I found out soon enough that I was not pressing the ends together securely enough in the initial forming of the circle and they just collapsed into this new spectacular shape.
I continued baking them at rare intervals and did not see fit to change the shape. I think my family was somewhat ashamed of them. Time passed, and they switched what little loyalty they had for my sweet little square bagels, to those big, fat, distorted and round bagels, all covered with seeds and garlic and dried onions. A pox on all of them. Bagel shops sprung up on every corner, and I gave up my square contenders—not that they ever were in the running.
Bread was always a problem in our marriage. Other couples were hung up on finances, children, religion and other matters of import. While we faced a few of these issues ourselves, nothing was so important as bread.
Of course, it was all my mother’s fault. I never ate anything but white read in my pre-marriage life. More than likely it would be Wonder Bread or soft cardboard, but sometimes it was white bread from the Dutch bakery. Never rye, whole
wheat , pumpernickel or multi grain or anything, just white bread lathered with butter and mayo. In late spring when sweet, small New Jersey strawberries were available at the farms, my mother made our favorite treat, a strawberry sandwich. She massed him into the soft, cushion like wonderbread, sprinkled it with sugar and topped with another slide. It was like eating strawberry short cake, or at least we thought it did, having never had strawberry short cake. The other sandwich fillers of choice were baloney, Lebanon ham, American cheese, jelly.
Lew came from a rye bread and mustard background. I think he was horrified by the amount of white bread and mayo that now occupied a place of prime importance in his kitchen. But that sweet man, actually got to the point of loving these meager offerings.
Our first serious battle happened over the bread issue. I had no experience with either pastrami or corn beef and Lew convinced me to try corn beef on a visit to a Jewish deli. I asked the waiter for corn beef on white with lots of mayonnaise.
“We would never, under any circumstances, serve a sandwich like that,” the somewhat belligerent man shouted. “We only have rye and pumpernickel or al hard roll.”
“Then I will not eat here.” I was the customer, who was this person. I walked out with Lew fast on my heels, saying, “You have to get out of that white bread and mayo world, it’s doomed. Mustard, ketchup, salt, sugar, horseradish—try them.
I assured him we were having a serious cultural clash that could only be resolved with a baloney sandwich with mayo on white bread. He agreed, “what’s a man to do if he’s hungry?”
I still have a passion for mayo and white bread, but I certainly have learned to bake credible rye, whole wheat, cinnamon, and multi-grain breads. It is sort of strange that bread loomed so important in our lives in those early days of marriage. Say what you want, it had a great deal to do with cultural differences and how we had to learn to bridge them. We did .
I know there are a lot more pressing duties than baking bread. I don’t do it anymore, if for no other reason that I am always counting calories and homemade bread can be impossible to resist. But on some snowy day, when the kids are driving you crazy, give yourself a few hours to bake bread. Tensions will somehow or other disappear and so will the bread into the waiting mouths of the young ones.
Recipes
Peasant Bread
Finnish Vipuri Bread
Portuguese Sweet Bread
All Purpose Sweet dough
Honey Whole Wheat bread
Monkey bread
Dilly Cheese bread
Bagels
English Muffins