[Sca-cooks] "Actual bread?" WAS gingerbrede

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Sep 9, 2009, at 5:35 PM, Judith Epstein wrote:

>
> On Sep 9, 2009, at 4:28 PM, Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
>
>> Another variable we haven't really talked about (AFAIK) is gluten  
>> content. We may be talking about lots or pre-gelatinized starch in  
>> medieval bread, fresh or dry, compared to many of the crunch- 
>> emphasizing dry bread crumb products on the market. A lot of them  
>> are not even actual bread before grinding, except in the broad  
>> sense that they're made from flour and baked...
>>
>> Adamantius
>
> Now I'm very curious as to what "actual bread" may be! The  
> definition for bread that I've always worked with is that of my  
> religious community -- you don't make the blessing over bread unless  
> the item in question is (1) made of only the four basic ingredients:  
> flour, water, salt, and yeast, AND (2) is baked -- not fried,  
> roasted, boiled, or any other preparation, but baked. Is there a  
> different definition of bread when speaking culinarily rather than  
> religiously? *puts on glasses, gets notebook and pen ready*

In short, yes. But that doesn't mean you didn't catch me out in a  
practical imprecision. The definition varies widely by culture, but,  
for example, many, many, many cultures produce what they call bread  
(or equivalent term) using many more ingredients (for example, some  
form of shortening, or sometimes-artificially-colored grain products  
like durum semolina). Some bread is indeed fried, and some is boiled  
or steamed, sometimes before baking, sometimes not.

What I meant by "not actual bread" in this case was that this product  
was never meant to be eaten in its unground form; it's basically a  
sort of rusk.

I'd say from a culinary standpoint, bread is almost invariably made  
from ground grain (examples of things called bread made from seaweed,  
curds, and various starchy tubers notwithstanding) processed into a  
dough or batter such that it can be cooked in a cohesive mass or unit  
(unlike, for example, couscous).

Everything else is probably negotiable to some extent defined by the  
speaker. Part of the imprecision in term use improbably due to the  
fact that some things are called (or otherwise grouped with) bread by  
one culture which might be thought of as pastry by another. So, for  
example, that paper-thin lavosh which is bread in Turkey is just the  
basis for strudel a short distance to the North, and suddenly it is  
pastry. Conversely, the fat-rich circles of pastry-like dough which  
are fried in India and called poori are generally regarded as bread.

I trust that that makes everything perfectly unclear ;-).

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter