Guest Post: Why is there no bread here? A rant.

 

 

 

Ed note: A kindly fellow blogger, The Winegetter, approached me about doing an exchange of posts this summer, as he and his wife will be traveling throughout SouthEast Asia for 2 months and he wants to keep his blog updated with original content. I promised him a post if he promised to expand on a topic that he brought up the first time we met: why there is no good bread in the US. Let me back up: he’s German. There, now all of your questions have been answered. 

My wife says the easiest way to identify two Germans anywhere in the world is by listening to their first five minutes of conversation. Because, according to her, they will –100% guaranteed – complain to each other about how bad the bread is wherever they are and ask whether the other has found at least “decent” – or palatable – bread in the vicinity.

I tended to dismiss her assessment until I realized it is true. I do that. I really wouldn’t want to have to do that, but I have to do that. As a German, you grow up in bread heaven. Seriously. If you never lived in Germany, you have no idea. But if you grew up there, the smell of fresh bread is surrounding you, the variety of breads – and dinner rolls – is overwhelming and all of it is fresh, affordable, and – most of them – have a hard crust and a soft core. And no other country seems to get that right. Especially not America, where softness seems to be the key characteristic for bread.

Now, some bakeries here in and around Ann Arbor try. With the emphasis on try. Zingermans? Don’t get me started: Overprized, dried out bread that wants to be German so badly, but let me say it loud and clear: A dried out bread is not bread. Avalon? They actually do a decent job on their baguette, but then again, that is not really a bread, it is a baguette. Others? Not really. I buy fresh multigrain bread from Costco, which is still too squishy, but it is close enough…which I say with a sigh. Is that sad and pathetic? Yes.

Sigh.

Let me walk you through my random German bakery to give you an idea why I am so upset. You enter and are greeted by the danishes, croissants and other sweet stuff in the glass box that forms the counter. There are cakes, from streusel to plum pies, from strawberry tartes to serious cheesecake. There are croissants for under 1 euro ($1.30 – and I am talking actual, real fluffy yet rich croissants, not the Zingerman’s hard-as-a-rock-and-outrageously-priced-at-$3.50-crap. $3.50 for a “croissant”???? Seriously? They’re out of their minds…but then again, a look at their cheese prices is proof enough for that…sorry, I really really dislike Zingerman’s).

Photo from one of the branches of the bakery I am talking about:

 

Behind the salespeople is what I am really looking for: the bread rack. The bakery I used to go to in Germany had about 35 different breads on its bread rack. 35. Seriously. And they were all different: from sunflower seed to pumpkin seed, from rye to multigrain, from baguette to ciabatta, from whole wheat to superdark full grain….the choice was awesome. And for a loaf of bread, you ended up paying around 2.50 euros to 3 euros ($3.20 – $3.90). Best of all, they had one featured bread of the week which would sell for 1.99 euros. Try to get a bread that is half-way decent in this country for under $5. Impossible.

If you have never been to Germany, you really cannot understand what I am talking about. But ask your friends that visited friends in Germany, and you will usually hear them talk about how good dinner and breakfast was, and that usually involves bread. Real bread.

Oh, and by the way: The German breadmaker’s association is currently putting together a registry of bread types in Germany, in an attempt to apply for World Cultural Heritage status…that is how serious we take this shit. (For the curious: Apparently, there are over 300 distinct different types of bread in Germany)

 

As you see, bread matters to us. But there is a big reason for that: We tend to have it twice a day; for breakfast and dinner. Not as a side, but as the hidden star of the dish. The big meal in Germany traditionally is lunch, and dinner is a meal of cheese and cold cuts and bread. While a lot of Germans are switching up their routines and tend to have more warm dinners, my wife and I still managed at least two to three traditional dinners each week. If the bread sucks, that meal sucks. If you just want to scrape up your premade tomato sauce, I guess soggy crap is just fine…

My biggest issue with American bread? Most of it is squooshy and soggy. Even the “harder” crusts tend to be too soggy, too soft, too mweh, too blurb. I am lacking words, I am making disinterested, bored sounds with my mouth. The country that has a reputation for producing bland, boring bread in Europe is the Netherlands. Why is the only thing American culture incorporated from Dutch culture one of the worst cultures in the Netherlands? I don’t get it.

And don’t forget the other cardinal sin: Most American breads are too sweet. This country’s obsession with sugar (or corn-syrup) has led to an oversweetening of many products. Where it hurts the most, for me, is in bread. Bread should not taste sweet when you try it. It is not a dessert!

Germany is lamenting the decline of its bakery land of plenty, but let me assure you: It is still leaps and bounds away from pretty much anywhere else…yes, there is more and more supermarket and frozen bread sold, but there still are plenty of good bakeries providing quality products at fair prices…

So what do we Germans abroad do? We resort to tricks. A friend of mine brings German bread-flour mixes from Germany every time he goes and then bakes his own bread. I hate baking, and even bread does not get me to make it. Also, I wouldn’t know where to find a proper recipe. Because bakery bread is actually superior to most homemade breads in my opinion. It might be the ovens, I don’t know.

Another option is to get lucky and find a guy who makes proper bread. And then we are willing to pay even a fortune. I am going out of my way to try breads here that look promising, but I often end up let down. So, all that is left to me is binge when I am back home and that is not nearly often enough. It is a sad state of affairs…probably, along with affordable stellar Rieslings, the biggest prize I paid for leaving Germany.

Sigh.

…And Moses Said Onto Thee “Let There Be Sephardic Bread and Beet Normandy”

I’ve had quite the week. My birthday was last week (March 19) and since then I’ve had about 50 different celebrations. After this week of non-blogging and ruining my body from the inside out (particularly my liver), I’m ready to get back in the kitchen and nurse myself back to health. (Sidenote: John got me tickets to Book of Mormon in Detroit for my birthday, and it was literally the most entraining 2.5 hours of my life)

And hey, not only is it Passover, but it’s Oberon day! Being from Kalamazoo, Bell’s Oberon release day is somewhat of a city-wide holiday. Want to know more about Oberon? Check our A2GastroBoy’s post last week about this sun nectar. I vowed to take a week off of drinking, until I was honest with myself, so hey, I’ll catch up with that wagon eventually. But back to my Jewish roots. What to make for Passover? I didn’t have time to execute a soup (of the Matzoh-Ball persuasion), and I didn’t want to purchase a big ol’hunk of meat (Brisket) so let’s go a different route: Gefilte Fish? Well, not exactly, but a fish terrine seems to fit the bill. Pair that with a raw beet tartare, and throw in a new recipe for Challah, I’d say you’ve got yourself quite the meal.

{ Martha Stewart – Halibut and Salmon Terrine }

{ Food&Wine – Jessamyn’s Sephardic Challah }

{ Mark Bitman – Beet Tartare }

*Deep Breath* Let’s do this thing. Let’s start with the bread since there are about 4 steps that involve letting it rest and rise (great, it only bakes for 30 minutes…oh, that’s AFTER it rises for about 2.5 hours, splendid). Now, I’m no stranger to the Challah-d Arts, but this recipe really intrigued me. No eggs in the dough, toasted sesame seeds, and savory spices? I’m in. You Sephardic Jews are alright in my book.

Working on this bread made me thirst for the day I get a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer.

Doesn’t it hurt your arm just looking at it?? For this dough it called for proofing the yeast in about 2 Tbs of warm water while you mixed the other ingredients together, and then you add the yeast mixture. Well since I DON’T have a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer, I like to do a little mixing in the bowl, then transfer everything to a flat surface and just mix it by hand. When you’re adding liquid to a kind-of-already-formed dough ball on a flat surface, a lot of it just pours off and starts to roll across said flat surface. And a lot of times this causes one to freak out since the yeast is the best part of bread (perhaps this is where my beer love comes from?). After frantic scooping and the addition of some more flour, our dough came together. This recipe calls for Bread Flour, and since I have tons of All Purpose flour, I decided to keep my money, and obsessively look up what the difference is online. The answer: gluten content. Bread flour will give you a denser dough, but do you know what kneading does? It forms the gluten particles together, so by giving a good old fashioned knead-down, you’re setting yourself up for some (hopefully) great bread. But enough of that, it’s part 1 of it’s 2.5 hour nap.

It’s Fish time now. I decided to make this because it’s not quite Gefilte fish (which I’ve never had a good one of, I’m sure it exists, and I like both pickled things and fish, but yikes, not this pickled-hamburger-fish monstrosity that is served to the chosen people), but still fits in with the theme. And who doesn’t want a fish meatloaf on a Monday?

To begin we need to chop up carrots and Parsnips. Have you ever noticed how phallic parsnips are? Because holy-jewish-holiday they are. And as I peeled these long pale bad boys, I felt I was performing another Jewish tradition: The Bris.

 

 

Tee Hee Hee [sorry]. Anyhoo, after you have your root veggies cut and some onions sautéed, you want to mash up Salmon and Halibut in a food processor, which just kind of feels wrong. 2 Beautiful pieces of fish, ripped into a strange chunky fish paste. Hm.

 

So at this point you mix the veggies, fish paste, and all the other ingredients to make a fishloaf (I’m ashamed to admit that I used Panko breadcrumbs for the matzo meal since I didn’t want to buy it. What kind of Goyum have I become?), push it into a pan, put that pan into a bigger pan, and fill the bigger pan with water. And now we cook.

 

While it’s cooking, let’s check on our bread.

Awwww yeahhhh. When I poured it out of it’s napping bowl, it landed with a sound that was a mixture of shunk and thud {thunk? shut?}. We cut it in half and wait, roll it out and wait, roll it out again and coil it up.

And now we’re just about read to bak–damnit it needs to rest for another hour?? Ok, well let’s check on the fishloaf.

That’s right, it was too big for any of my plates, it had to rest on my cutting board. That looks tasty….well, it SMELLS tasty at least. And hey, I can nibble on this while I’m waiting for the brea–it needs to cool in the fridge for at least an hour? OH COME ON.

Fine, I’ll work on my Beet tartare. Chop everything up and mix together. Well, that took up about 4 minutes. I have 56 minutes to kill until it’s bread bake/fishloaf go time.

{the colors Duke, the colors!}

I’ve actually made this Beet Tartare before, and I really love it. It has a lot of flavor, and if you can put up with the next 30 hours of pink Beet pee and the ravaging of your digestive system, it’s a great [vegan] meal in itself.

Let’s fast forward to the bread being done:

It’s worth being a Jew just for that. Half the seeds/sesame seeds are in the bread, the other half are on the outside. I added some coarse KOSHER salt to the topping mixture, and wowza, just delightful. AND it makes 2 loafs, so bring one and brag about it at work the next day while everyone is picking seeds out of their teeth.

The Terrine (read: fishloaf) was cooked through and chilled thoroughly, but never quite kept it’s shape when cut. Unfortunately it looked a bit like wet cat food, but hey, bygones.

I’m not going to lie, this was a very time-consuming meal, but making bread from scratch AND putting beets into a food processor all in one night isn’t too shabby. And Mr. Oberon Sun was there to tell me “baby, you’ve done such a good job, I’m so proud of you. Let’s make this a Passover we’ll never forget” and I said “you’re right Mr. Oberon Sun, let’s never fight again.” And we never did.

John came home right after I made the Beet Tartare, and all I heard from the kitchen was “It looks like Beet Normandy in here” because I didn’t do the best job of cleaning up my beet mess (read: beet skin peels were everywhere with pink smears all over the counter, and I assume there was a tribal-like red beet handprint somewhere on the cupboards).

Happy Passover/Happy Oberon Day! I wish it would stop snowing!