Comments on: Dietribes: Give Us Our Daily Bread

By: Keith Law

Keith Law — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:14:49 +0000

I bake 2-3 loaves a week in addition to making my own pizza dough (bread by another name), and keep a 100% whole wheat starter in my fridge. I even brought it to Arizona for spring training and kept making bread out there.

If anyone is interested in learning about bread-baking, Peter Reinhart (who teaches bread-baking at Johnson & Wales) has two superb books on the craft, both written for the home cook:
http://meadowparty.com/blog/?p=478

One is mostly about white-flour breads, and the other is entirely about whole-grain breads. Each book contains a pizza dough recipe too.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:16:33 +0000

Love bread. I love baking it. I loved tending my sourdough starter before I foolishly forgot it and it got moldy. Well made fresh bread and rolls are amazing.

Perhaps a mention of the relation of bread to beer? Some scholars believe the yeast of beer begat bread yeast, and some argue it was the reverse.

The cup of water in the oven is good, but what works really well is to preheat with an iron pan or plate in the bottom of the oven and toss a few ice cubes in it when you put the bread in. The steam created has a similar effect to the boiling of bagels and pretzels. If only you could somehow add some alkali to the steam…

By: AmyD

AmyD — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:32:35 +0000

I LOVE bread! In my family, we make an Italian cheese bread called crescia (ka-RESH-ah). It’s a dipping bread, and you’re supposed to eat it after you’ve dunked it in your wine. It’s traditionally an Easter bread, but we make it for any occasion. It’s just flour, eggs, yeast, parmesan cheese, romano cheese, olive oil and black pepper. Absolutely yummy!

By: Beth

Beth — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:58:46 +0000

I make bread every couple of weeks. I use the bread maker to mix everything together and to do the first knead after rising. I then dump it out onto a pan, knead it one more time and let it rise again before baking. I get a much lighter bread and can also make some really neat shapes. Plus then I don’t have the bread maker bread look.

By: Marisa

Marisa — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:31:05 +0000

I work at a Panera Bread. Our bread sucks.

By: anotherfascist

anotherfascist — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:20:36 +0000

I used to hate bread, until my girlfriend worked at a high end bakery and I tasted truly good bread. Now I’m an addict and only eat fresh bread.

By: Kate

Kate — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:09:58 +0000

When I went to Paris as a kid (well, 12yrs old) with my folks, all I did was eat bread. Seriously. We were only there for 4 days, but I remember eating baguette after baguette after baguette. I still love them-it’s what I have at Epcot when I have too much wine, ha.

As for the fungus you mentioned, there was an episode of House where a girl was hallucinating because she ate moldy bread. Crazy.

By: EV

EV — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:57:30 +0000

I once wrote up an email (but never sent it) suggesting a Dietribes about ‘alternative eating’ diets people follow, either by choice or by necessity. The only examples I could come up with were gluten-free, vegitarian, and eating raw, though there must be more obscure and interesting diets out there that people follow for all sorts of reasons.

Anyways, sorry for being OT. Back to the bread . . .

By: Elye

Elye — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:33:07 +0000

Yay! Someone commented about celiac! I would love to see Mental Floss find out some cool stuff about that!

My brother has celiac (diagnosed last year) and used to exist on pizza and bagels (true New York kid). It’s amazing where gluten hides – not just bread!

By: Marion

Marion — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:25:32 +0000

My babysitter hates bread, I guess it’s just too bread-y for her… but I love it, to me, bread is a gift of love. My mom used to make paska, which is a Ukrainian yellow bread (heavy with egg yolks) and white raisins, only she’d make it in those large round juice tins. Round raisin bread! It made the most awesome toast… Nothin’ says lovin’ like bread hot from the oven.