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Showing posts with label Bread. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bread. Show all posts


Some years ago, a girlfriend introduced me to tomato sandwiches. When she told me we were having them for lunch, I thought she was crazy. It turns out she was anything but. Tomato sandwiches are simplicity itself, and deliciousness itself. 

There is no recipe for a tomato sandwich. To look at one is to know the recipe. I like mine as simple as can be; two slices of really good bread (I like a slightly sweeter bread); mayonnaise on one or both pieces; a thick slice of a beefsteak tomato fresh from the garden or farm-stand, salt and pepper. But you can use whatever bread you like - toasted or untoasted. Mayonnaise or not is up to you - or substitute something else, or leave  off dressing altogether, relying on the tomato to provide moistness. One slice of a giant beefsteak or big-boy tomato, or multiple slices of smaller tomatoes, or even a pile of thin tomato slices. The only thing that is important is that each element must be excellent – being such a simple, pared down collection, each must shine on its own. 

Here I am using a bread sweetened (and colored) with honey and caramel coloring, with gray salt.

As I have come to understand, tomato sandwiches really aren’t madness. Cucumber sandwiches are just the same – slices of a savory fruit on bread. [From a botanist’s perspective, both tomatoes and cucumbers are fruits.] Watercress sandwiches live in the same flavor-space. Arguably bruschetta is at its most basic a simple bread, garlic, and olive oil affair. I am told that after a long night of drinking, nothing pleases some in Asia more than rice with soy sauce and sesame oil – possibly with sliced scallions if one is feeling wild. I have no doubt that around the world there is a simple, savory something enjoyed in each and every culture. 

So, go nuts. Have a tomato sandwich. Then tell me who’s crazy.

The kind we grow here: 'Boxcar Willie'

For as long as I have known him, my friend William Rubel has been studying bread. As a member of the Culinary Historians of Northern California, I was privileged to taste a slice from a loaf of manchet that William baked. It was spectacular. Of course, it isn't fair to simply say that he baked it. He acquired historic wheat seeds from a seed bank, had a farmer grow the wheat, ground it, and then separated out only the finest white portion (as is required for manchet) by hand using a series of progressively finer bolting cloths.

For the past several years he has been working on his magnum opus - expected to be the definitive work on the leavened breads of Europe. About two years ago, Andy Smith asked William to write "a little book" about bread for the Edible Series he was editing for Reaktion Books. Having spent so much time studying bread in great detail, writing a small, 150 page book should have been a snap.

I'm sure many people in this circumstance would have "phoned it in" (so to speak.) But not William. Instead he took this as an opportunity to refine his entire way of thinking about bread. For years he had been focused on the minutia of European leavened breads - suddenly he was being asked to step back and take a look at bread in a very broad context.

Bread isn't just a food, he realized, it is a product. Moreover, it has been a staple food for most of the peoples of the world for most of the history mankind. With a few exceptions (e.g. manioc), it is the most highly manipulated staple food in the world. How curious, William realized, that the most important staple food product in the world is not a crop - it is a product, and as a product it is a pure reflection of culture. In the end, William spent two years writing a "little book" about bread - but it is a very big little book!

Bread: A Global History, by William Rubel is available from all the usual sources, including Amazon.com. You can also listen to an excellent interview with him about the subject on The Heritage Radio Network. Well worth reading and listening.