Day 13: bread
What the hell is it about lockdown that drives one to make bread? I can't eat much bread without my stomach objecting, but I've made two loaves in the last couple of weeks, and my social media feeds are rife with sourdough experiments. Sourdough does ungodly things to my digestion, but I might concoct a starter anyway, it's been years since I had one and it's fun.
Bread-making under these conditions seems to be a particularly powerful confluence of urges. On the one hand it's purely hedonistic: if you're only buying groceries every few weeks, you can't have fresh bread. I usually live off frozen pre-sliced wholewheat, given that my bread consumption under normal circumstances ends at the occasional slice of toast, but there's something particularly wonderful about fresh-baked bread that seems to prompt making it, and a concomitant need for its sensual reassurance in difficult times. On the other hand, it also fills in the time nicely while in lockdown; the ritual of mixing, kneading, proving, baking, is something one actually has space to do, now that one's bound to the house for days on end. On the proverbial third hand, there's something particularly real and vital about yeast, the tactile intimacy of kneading, the almost magical pleasure of watching the dough grow. Like my garden, it becomes a defiant pursuit of life in the midst of illness and death. And on the demi-octopoid fourth hand, it's a bold and intrinsic statement of self-sufficiency. Confine me to my house, it seems to say, restrict my access to grocery stores, threaten me with shortages, see if I care! I bake bread!
Today's effort was supposed to be olive bread, which plan came to a screeching halt just after I'd measured the flour, when it transpired that I'd actively hallucinated the jar of olives in the cupboard. (My cupboards contain a lot at the best of times, I like to be able to spontaneously cook elaborate meals at a whim without shopping, and right now, under lockdown, they contain a lot. But, apparently, no olives.) However, I can attest that this recipe makes damn nice fancy bread if you do half wholewheat flour, and substitute the olives with a large red onion, chopped small and caramelised, rosemary, and half a little plastic thing of sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped. I think I also gave the dough a squirt of olive oil on general principles. It's really good bread. I am having grave difficulties restraining myself from eating inadvisable quantities which will cause me to spend the night with my guts in a knot.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/977885.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Bread-making under these conditions seems to be a particularly powerful confluence of urges. On the one hand it's purely hedonistic: if you're only buying groceries every few weeks, you can't have fresh bread. I usually live off frozen pre-sliced wholewheat, given that my bread consumption under normal circumstances ends at the occasional slice of toast, but there's something particularly wonderful about fresh-baked bread that seems to prompt making it, and a concomitant need for its sensual reassurance in difficult times. On the other hand, it also fills in the time nicely while in lockdown; the ritual of mixing, kneading, proving, baking, is something one actually has space to do, now that one's bound to the house for days on end. On the proverbial third hand, there's something particularly real and vital about yeast, the tactile intimacy of kneading, the almost magical pleasure of watching the dough grow. Like my garden, it becomes a defiant pursuit of life in the midst of illness and death. And on the demi-octopoid fourth hand, it's a bold and intrinsic statement of self-sufficiency. Confine me to my house, it seems to say, restrict my access to grocery stores, threaten me with shortages, see if I care! I bake bread!
Today's effort was supposed to be olive bread, which plan came to a screeching halt just after I'd measured the flour, when it transpired that I'd actively hallucinated the jar of olives in the cupboard. (My cupboards contain a lot at the best of times, I like to be able to spontaneously cook elaborate meals at a whim without shopping, and right now, under lockdown, they contain a lot. But, apparently, no olives.) However, I can attest that this recipe makes damn nice fancy bread if you do half wholewheat flour, and substitute the olives with a large red onion, chopped small and caramelised, rosemary, and half a little plastic thing of sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped. I think I also gave the dough a squirt of olive oil on general principles. It's really good bread. I am having grave difficulties restraining myself from eating inadvisable quantities which will cause me to spend the night with my guts in a knot.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/977885.html. Please comment there using OpenID.