Tara's Kitchen Table: The Complexity of Bread

Bread is as ancient as civilization its self. From the Egyptian pharaohs and the Israelites to the Wonderbread at the local grocery store it has remained constant, going through changes and modifications, trends and various incarnations... yet somehow simultaneously remaining fairly unchanged. Wonderbread is a far cry from the bread pulled from Egyptian ovens but both are easily recognizable as bread. It is a heritage that all nations, all people share.

Bread is highly regarded in the Bible. Christ did not take a piece of meat and tell us to eat it in remembrance of Him; He took a piece of bread to be His body, His flesh. I believe this is because the nature of bread is so complex, yet so basic. Bread is a transformation of living to dead and back again. Live wheat becomes dead flour. Dead flour becomes living, growing dough through yeast. The yeast gives up its life for the bread in the heat of the oven. The Biblical connections to this process are fairly clear. Nothing other than bread does this. Cake batter does not live and grow. Meat is alive and then dead and that is all. Bread is a cycle of life and death. Sacrifice and reward.

Baking bread can also transform the baker. I can go into a kitchen angry, sad, or moody and have that change once I start making bread. Working the dough calms my emotions, makes me feel prayerful as I consider the Biblical links to the process of making the bread and connects me to every person before me who has mixed water, yeast, flour, and salt to create bread. I can feel the human heritage through the kneading process, and can see the hands of future generations that will work over dough just as mine do now.

Today I am working on just some basic French loaves, not complicated or interesting but certainly worth writing about. My bread baking mentor is Peter Reinhart, a master bread maker. His books are where my passion for bread and pizza really developed. I read his blog on Pizza Quest (check out the link over there on the side of the page) regularly and just yesterday I discovered he has a new Artisan Bread class in Craftsy.com, I signed up and have been enjoying it, thoroughly. The bread I am making is the first project from this course. If you're interested in learning to make breads like these I recommend checking out Peter's Craftsy class, blog or any of his books. (Crust & Crumb is my personal favorite.)

So, now for the fun part! Pictures!