To all the breads I’ve loved before
Ah, bread. The staff of life. A French poet once said of it, ‘Stale bread is not hard; what is hard is to live without bread’. Some scholars view it as one of the driving forces behind much of human conquest. From the time we formed agrarian societies to the moment those communities ultimately founded democracy, all the way to the forging of empires and colonialism’s reign; all of it, fueled by wheat.
Oh, bread! How we quiver before your crusty-yet-soft, glutenous unanimity. You bring us sustenance and joy upon which to feed. Bread—powerful bread! You are versatile, essential in a myriad of cuisines. You are just as irrepressible served simply, dipped in salt and olive oil, as you are in your most luxurious, sugar and butter-laced forms. You are caloric optimization, an edible mop for sauce-laden plates that demand cleaned. Each of your many forms, be you natural or artificial, flat or round, light or dark, sweet or savory, is as unique and delicious as the next.
Bread. What would I do without you?
My brother and I have an ongoing joke about our father's irrational love of bread. We grew up in a household where dinner often came late, around 9:00 PM or so after the restaurant my parents (still) own and operate closed. We ate lots of different stuff growing up; one of my favorites was my mother's half-hazardly formed meatloaf, a Tex-Mex variation if my memory serves me well (If there is a bad meatloaf in this world, I have yet to meet it). We ate dinner at or from the restaurant 3 nights a week, a positive if not repetitive tradition. A lot of Greek food was involved.
However, without fail, there was bread. No matter what we ate (Greek-style roast chicken with potatoes, BBQ ribs from the restaurant) or where we ate it (at home, or at the 'family' table at the restaurant, a round corner 4-top, oftentimes crammed to seat 6), a loaf of warm bread sat among us. My dad insisted; a meal without bread was incomplete, according to him.
This always amused my brother and I. Sure, bread is good, but does it really belong on the table with fried chicken? "Without bread, I'd rather die," my father would proudly proclaim whenever my brother and I teased him.
The older I got, the more I began to understand my dad's irrational (and perhaps sentimental) attachment to bread. He grew up in a different time and place than my brother and I. Throughout his childhood, bread was inevitable. It had little in common with the factory-made croissants or the pre-sliced, shelf-stable sponges/loaves that populate so many American pantries. Bread—good bread—was an unspoken privilege. Entire meals were organized around it; the time it took to knead, proof, then bake.
Traditional Greek bread (Ψωμί χωριάτικο).
In my father’s youth, his mother was in charge of the family bread supply. My grandmother did her work out of a small, stone-brick oven dug into the earth, next to where the wine was stored below their home. She would stoke hot coals in a separate tinder box and shovell them directly into the oven, closing its iron maw to allow it to preheat. As soon as the coals were extinguished and the bread was finished proofing, she would slide the loaves inside the oven’s blazing cavern, then shut the door once more, baking them to crusty perfection.
This was an almost daily exercise, the fresh-baked bread destined either for the family table or for the tavern, which they operated as a collective out of their house’s basement. I can only imagine the efficiency and fluidity of movement my grandmother would have developed by kneading, forming, and firing so many perfect loaves. She was a master baker; untrained, but a master regardless.
While I never got to taste my yiayia's bread, I have sampled that of her protegees. In past years, girls in the village would look to their mothers (or their unofficial theías [aunts]) to learn the craft themselves. A few went on to open their own bakeries in and around the hometown, preserving the tradition for decades to come. And I promise—you can taste the care they put into each of their breads. All of the kneading is done by hand, incorporating olive oil into the dough itself. The resulting bread has a thick crust and a springy, chewy texture, and for whatever reason resist staling incredibly well. The purity of the good is obvious, as is its divorce from the typical factory-processed and above all ‘convenient’ bread found elsewhere.
The young take lessons from the wise at Tsoukoulas Family Bakery (Αρτοποιείο Οικογένεια Τσουκουλά).
I've had many affairs with different breads throughout my life. My addiction has become apparent; despite my body’s adverse reaction to most non-sourdough bread, I keep heeding its call. I realized I’d inherited my father's constant yearning for bread at a young age, when I used to tear through the soft Sara Lee dinner rolls we served at the restaurant. I spent most Friday and Saturday nights there growing up (Who needs a babysitter when you have an entire staff to watch over you?), hanging out in the corner of the bar or in the small back room where most of our storage inevitably piles. My brother and I would arrive at 4:00 PM, when our mother was due to crunch some numbers and direct front-of-house operations. Immediately, my brother and I would line a plate with Land O' Lakes 'butter' spread and rush to the stainless steel warming drawers where the rolls were kept for service. We would then proceed to pile warm rolls on top of the packets (to help soften the margarine) before escaping to our post for the night, most likely in the bar, where things tended to stay lively. We dug into our emergency appetizer often, peeling the cellophane off of each packet before aggressively mushing each roll into the semi-solid vegetable oil.
I miss the days when margarine was a staple in my diet.
We still serve the same rolls, though we do occasionally pimp out our complimentary baskets with fresh-baked ones instead. Last year, during the restaurant’s carryout-only phase, I found myself packing the rolls into wax-lined packets for to-go orders. I began copying my brother and I's past strategy, packing the butters followed by the warm rolls, sealing each packet into a self-insulating pouch. I hoped someone would pick up on my packing strategy and enjoy the same soft, fat-soaked spheres my brother and I had for so many years. Whether anyone else developed our irrational fondness for the treat, I can't say.
Other breads have appeared on my radar for varying lengths of time. One that has consistently tempted me is the untoasted, thawed-out baguette that my aunt has laid out at family dinners for the past 20 years. Its tough, chewy exterior is unmatched in the sopping up of oil-laden Greek cuisine. I’ve had shorter, more dependent relationships with bakeries in the places where I’ve lived and studied. I may still be at the mercy of the University of Illinois' ludicrous tuition, but by God the on-campus institution The Bread Company made forfeiting my financial independence well worth it. And if you ever find yourself in Granada, Spain, I highly advise you to seek out ‘the bread lady’ (la mujer del pan). It's a fitting name for a business that's based out of a see-through vestibule in the Plaza de Mariana Pineda. Somewhat of an enigma, her traditionally-crafted breads are amongst the best I have ever had. Whether the temperature is pushing 100º F or below 40º, you will find her, clad in a flowing white apron, exchanging provisions until she's sold out (which she always does). One might argue that la mujer del pan (or Eugenia, as you’ll come to know her) is responsible for maintaining the plaza and its surrounding neighborhood’s general cheery vibe.
Hungry Granadans line up to see the bread lady.
M’lady Eugenia, proudly showcasing her wares.
The quote-on-quote 'best' bakery I have frequented is probably Leviathan Bakehouse. It's my current go-to stop in Indianapolis for some of the best bread in the city, if not the country. Leviathan specializes in 100% sourdough breads made from locally milled grains. While their bread centers around old-world techniques, each beholds a certain twist to suit a modern clientele (Try their braided marble rye, spiked with just a hint of cocoa—unexpected, but absolutely delicious). The crumb on their bread is so sophisticated, moist yet still airy in the center, that your knife leaves the loaf slicked with a tacky resin of sourdough goodness (I’m told it’s a product of their higher-hydration yields). The bread is at once light and satisfying; I could eat a whole loaf and dance the night away afterwards.
The boule at Leviathan, emblazoned with their insignia (available on Saturdays only—trust me, you need it in your life).
Leviathan is as good of a classic, European-style bakery as there is in the country. All of their products are crafted with care and attention. However, it is also worth pointing out how much there is to be discovered outside of the traditionally Euro-centric bakery sphere in America. Non-European cultures with rich baking traditions can be found across the globe, and they don’t earn nearly as much credit as they deserve here in America. From Mexico to China to Australia and beyond, there is great bread that is just waiting to be discovered. While many of these more 'niche' styles have yet to become popular throughout much of America, I highly encourage you to seek them out if they are available to you. I look forward to the day when East Asian mooncakes become just as ubiquitous as the French croissant.
There is a purported downside to bread addiction. It is a serious ailment that bears consequences. Bread and other wheat-based products have for years now gotten an increasingly bad rap as being 'inflammatory' or 'unhealthy'. Bread’s bastardization can be directly attributed to the legions of pseudo-gluten ‘intolerants’ and others searching for a health-driven cause to fall under, the terrifying and recent advent of keto/paleo/carnivore diets included. To have a food allergy is to be part of something greater than yourself, a member of some exclusive tribe or sadist cult. And while it is true that people have varying abilities to digest gluten, might I ask, did you simply tried avoiding excess gluten before adopting a fad diet? Does anyone not feel tired and bloated after consuming a pound of commercially processed pasta? I think not; elbow macaroni wasn’t designed to be healthy for you to begin with (which is a shame—the most affordable foods in the U.S. are so often the worst for you).
Yet it is not just quantity that plays into the equation; quality plays a major role as well. I've experienced the same discomfort that many non-celiacs falsely correlate with a gluten allergy; I too tend to feel like shit after eating a supermarket doughnut. But that cannot be wholly attributed to gluten (a natural forming protein that forms when water meets wheat flour). There are a whole lot worse things in that unholy pocket of deliciousness than gluten: sugar, processed vegetable oils, Jesus's tears, etc.
All I'm saying is, before you entirely attribute your chronic inflammation to a gluten allergy, try this: find the nearest bakery specializing in whole, naturally leavened bread (i.e. real bread), buy some of their masterfully crafted goods, and experiment. Take a slice of their sourdough, spread butter across its delicate interior, then treat yourself and see how you feel afterward. If you still experience discomfort after having just a slice, then yes—maybe you should restrict gluten from your diet. But what you may find is that the discomfort you in the past attributed to a gluten allergy is not caused by gluten, but by the other stuff that is present throughout the American diet—sugar, preservatives, caking agents, etc.
So say screw it, and have another slice.
Bread, in all of its versions, means a whole lot to people. While I am admittedly snobbish about my bread, many people embrace and even identify with the untoasted slice of Wonderbread that lies beneath an excellent piece of barbeque. I am not one to tell someone what’s good and what’s not; things that some might consider ‘unsophisticated’ (if I ever become the person who says that, please, escort me to the nearest euthanization clinic) draw on certain memories for others.
Though I’ll confess, it makes me sort of sad to see my father continue to cling on to bread, bread that is largely separate from what he grew up with. Sure, the Italian bread my mom used to buy from Kroger was fine and all, actually decent when crisped up in the oven. But still, it failed to replicate what my father was once accustomed to. There was no compassion, no love put into the making of those supermarket loaves. Evidently, my father had either forgotten or abandoned what he once knew.
Yet he insisted that our family break bread at every meal, regardless of how the table was set. We followed this tradition, adopted it for ourselves, and to this day we eat together as often as possible—bread being the one true constant (though our preferred loaf has elevated slightly since). And so, even if our family’s dinner bread wasn’t as wholesome as it was in the days of yore, it still fulfilled its purpose; it brought us together. We’ve shared stories and bonded as a family, all over store-bought bread.
In a sense, my childhood was not all that dissimilar from his.
