Bread Snobbishness Is on the Rise

We couldn't go out to buy bread so we made our bread: the whole nation. Of course I've always done it; my bread-making machines, one large one small, are both more than 10 years old and treasured. Fresh bread flour brings out the taste of wheat, and there's nothing like it. For 15 years now when it's sleeting and people run to the store for "bread and milk," I pity them what they think is bread. 

When I finally crept out to the store, like, in June, there was no bread flour and only a foreign brand of yeast in one-pound vacuum packaging (brand name SAF), so I bought the SAF and went online to my favorite flour purveyor, King Arthur. (If there were a mill around here, I'd buy it here.) Bread flour was sold out. I signed their waiting list and waited.

 

Meanwhile I bought healthy-type grocery-store breads: 12-grain, whole wheat, nuts and seeds, sometimes Jewish rye. When the two five-pound bags of King Arthur arrived from Kansas, I used them up. While waiting for more and again eating store-bought, I found I had become a bread snob. The bagels had no character. Squishy hamburger buns with dehydrated minced onion on top are not kaiser rolls. Sweetening syrup and preservatives marred the mass-manufactured health breads. My own (machine's) finest is its French bread. Or the pepperoni bread. Or is it the olive oil bread? The English muffin loaf? The flavorful "Cornell Bread" is a high-protein loaf scientifically developed for institutions. Its secret ingredient is one-third of a cup of soy flour. Enjoy during lockdowns.

Do you have an unused bread machine? Please don't fuss with sourdough! A machine will make every kind of bread! Beer, nuts, cheese, herbs, millet, caraway, challah, black bread, raisins. I used to mix dough with a wooden spoon, and knead and knead, and check rising dough every half-hour, but now everything goes in the pan, I press a button, then loll while it labors and bakes.

With cunning and stealth I obtained locally another two bags of King Arthur bread flour and two new bread-machine cookbooks. Blame the pandemic. I am also a fan of SAF yeast. Yes, I slice and butter and eat pieces of fresh loaves while they're still warm; that's why the picture shows the loaf raggedy where it's missing a piece.