Reinventing The Loaf

Pictured above is the whole wheat focaccia that I made the other night. I give it a C-, tops.

Generally speaking, the bread that I bake is sub par. It's decent when eaten hot (all bread, I have come to learn, is decent while still hot) but as soon as it cools it turns into roofing tile. This "rustic" focaccia in particular struck me as something that Medieval peasants might have turned up their noses at. All in all, not really what I'm going for with the homemade bread thing.

I know enough about bread to know that my problem lies somewhere in the kneading and/or rising components; unfortunately, I do not know enough about bread to be able to fix it. Not even after I bought Jim Lahey's acclaimed book, My Bread, which has been hailed as an "idiot-proof" method for baking bread. Well, apparently a few idiots manage to slip through the cracks, because my bread still sucks.

And yet I have bread baking in my blood. My aunt and grandmother, both farmers' wives, made their own bread. It's a ritual that relies on experience, carefully honed technique, and attentiveness to the smallest of details, which makes it a skill much better handed down from generation to generation than read about in a book. I never learned it from my aunt or grandmother because I wasn't interested in cooking while either of them was still alive, and in the past few decades it has not been fashionable to take a young girl aside and force domestic skills upon her.

Thus, my roof tile quality bread. I've decided two things. First, I will press on, reinventing the wheel if necessary in pursuit of a bread making method that yields the desired results. You're likely to hear more about this in the coming months. Second, when I have children, they will be the only fifth graders who know how to make a flawless baguette.