Would John Wayne Eat Bread and Jam?
Thirty-five years ago, after my first few meals in this country, it
became clear to me that here was culture gone horribly awry,
gastronomically speaking. Beer was thin and yellowish with a mean,
sourish taste--I could be pithier, but you get the point--and wine
came generic red in undated, gargantuan bottles. But the spongy, limp
bread puzzled me the most.
The American movies I saw as a kid, figured rugged cowboys, given to
eating large slabs of crusty dark bread topped with a bloody steak and
four eggs. The idea of John Wayne, after shooting his way out of an
ambush, coming home to a meal of fluffy bread and strawberry jam, say,
didn't fit. I just couldn't see the big guy wolf down his flaccid
sandwiches, jam dripping on the sweaty bandanna around his neck. So
why did Americans bake faux bread?
I never found out why, and now things have changed, of course. Crusty
bread is everywhere. The stores overflow with boules, batards, and
baguettes, their scarred crusts inviting us to indulge in simple,
hearty, peasant meals. Provided we can afford to eat like a simple,
hearty peasant, which is problematic at $3 a boule. So I decided to
bake my own bread, which is the real point of this rambling story.
In the basement I found an abandoned bread machine, purchased perhaps
in better days when I had a regular job. I dusted it off, filled it
up with the finest flour, yeast, and miscellaneous that money could
buy and pushed the button. After four hours, a cheerful tinkling
sound warned me that my bread was ready. Opening the lid of the machine
I found myself looking down upon a dwarfish loaf of extreme density. I
offered this first peasant meal to the squirrels, but they declined.
Subsequent experiments had the same results.
Following this, I did some research and found that a magic substance
called gluten would make my bread grow in stature. So I loaded my
machine with high-gluten flour. Long before the appointed time, the
lid opened and the bread rose out of the top of the machine like a
mushroom cloud. Desperately I punched holes in it. It sank down an
inch or so and then began to rise again. I had to punch it four times
before it gave up. The squirrels declined this bread too, although I
saw one squirrel chewing for five minutes on a little piece. Finally
she spat it out and shook her fist at me.
Well, that's where things stand. For the time being I'm eating crackers,
but I'm saving up to buy a boule of Mediterranean sourdough.
-Adrian Korpel At Random
