Bread (with recipe)

            In Roman times, whiteness of bread carried an “upper class” connotation; dark break was the fare of the common people. For in those days it was far easier simply to use whole ground wheat kernel for bread than to sift and bolt and age the flour to attain a whiter color. Today, however, the tables have turned! It is now far easier and cheaper to produce lily-white bread than whole grain bread. The white bread of the rich has become the food of the people, and the dark loaf of the poor graces the tables of the well-to-do.

            Expect bread made from stone-ground, organically grown wheat to be expensive. The fact that the flour is stone ground, grown without pesticides, contains the germ and bran of the kernel, and has not been bleached adds to the expense. And all these essentials that make whole bread healthful and delectable are anathema to the industrialized food field.

            Consider by contrast the manner in which bread flour is treated by the food moguls. First the grain is grown on chemically fertilized and pesticide-laden soils; next it is robbed of bran and germ, taking away its very essence and leaving primarily starch; then it is pulverized in grinding machines that reach such degrees of heat that the resulting flour is actually “precooked” (with a corresponding loss of nutrients). Finally the flour, if it can now be called so, is bleached with chlorine dioxide (a poison). This wondrous white powder is now prepared to sit for any number of years on the grocer’s shelf – no fear that it will spoil or bugs will touch it – or it is made into loaves of spongy tastelessness, shot with emulsifiers to imitate eggs and cream, with dye to imitate whole wheat, with mold inhibitors, hydrogenated fats, and synthetic vitamins.

            By giving up white “commercial” bread, you need not be doomed forever to the leaden loaves (nonetheless delightful to the appreciative taste) of the intrepid macrobiotic. Not at all! If your nearest natural bakery or health food store cannot satisfy your desire for a buoyant loaf that will not overpower the food that accompanies it, become a baker yourself. It is a joyous activity, and if your experimentations don’t at first reach your ideal, at least they’ll make the most delicious rejects going. By juggling the amounts of whole wheat flour, whole wheat pastry flour, unbleached white flour, etc., you will be able to achieve loaves as heavy or as light, as strong-flavored or as subtle-tasting, as you desire.

            Bread crumbs (toss a few slices of bread in the blender and voila!) and bread dishes take on an extra dimension when made with whole grain bread. Try the easy “soufflé” below and you will see.

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GOLDEN CHEESE “SOUFFLé”

2 eggs

2 cups milk (part of this can be cream if extra richness is desired)

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon paprika

½ teaspoon dry mustard

3 teaspoons minced onion

2 tablespoons butter, melted

6 slices whole grain bread (or more, if needed)

¼ pound cheddar cheese, grated

¼ pound Parmesan cheese, grated

·        Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

·        Beat together eggs, milk, salt, paprika, mustard, and onion. Put melted butter in bottom of a shallow baking dish. Arrange alternating layers of sliced bread, mixed grated cheese, and egg mixture, ending with grated cheese on top. Bake 45 minutes at 325 degrees.

·        Serves four.