Breads of the World

[ancatsidhe]

My PA Dutch grandmother, my mother and now my wife make pork loin boiled with saurkraut and dumplings. These are the drop dumplings that are formed into a ball on a spoon and then dropped into the boiling liquid. I think I have the recipe for the Philadelphia Stick Buns you are looking for. I will look it up and post it. It's in my mothers recipes somewhere.

I

Ah... it's been ages since I've had a good saurkraut-- probably not since my own grandmother died, in fact, and I certainly miss having it for New Years.

If you find that recipe, post it by all means-- the closest we ever got to it from Aunt Katheryn was along the lines of "a pinch of this, a dash of that, and there you are."

L

[chas]

In my house, bread made with spent (or sometimes new) brewing grain is the rage. I make a normal white or whole-wheat bread and add 2 cups (for 2 loaves) of spent (or 1 cup of fresh) crystal malt, and if desired, sweeten it with malt extract.

Of course there are the various quick breads -- banana, cranberry, apricot, etc. These are very popular with my 3-year-old.

Irish brown bread.

The various Indian breads made in tandoors. My favorite is naan, which is leavened with baking powder and yeast.

There are also the egg-risen group like Yorkshire pudding and its less-exciting relative, popovers. These aren't exactly breads, but then neither are some that have been listed.

[Darwin]

I just realized that I left out the Chinese mantou, a plain white yeast bread that's formed into a ball about the size of a pool ball and steamed. There's also baozi, which is the same dough, wrapped around a slightly sweet mixture of chopped pork, chopped green onion, and maybe a little fried, shredded cabbage, along with a bit of corn starch, and steamed the same way.

The Japanese do a small baked version of baozi, filled with something like sweetened red bean or chestnut paste, but call it "manjuu", which is the Japanese pronunciation of "mantou". Guess they got a bit confused at some point.

You could fake a pretty good baozi or mantou using dinner roll dough from one of those exploding cardboard tubes. Put them on top of a round of waxed paper or oiled parchment paper to keep them from sticking to the steamer. As you might imagine, steamed rolls tend to be very moist.

[emmline]

Bread pudding...very yummy. Courtesy of my Virginian ancestry.

[scottielvr]

My grandmother, of Jugoslavian extraction, makes a fabulous, wonderfully moist and flavorful bread using a "flour" entirely of ground nuts (walnuts, I think). It's terrific warm. But what's really on my mind right now is: Beignets.

[Walden]

I start by grinding my wheat fresh.

I might would too, if I had me a good water wheel.

[Darwin]

I start by grinding my wheat fresh.

I might would too, if I had me a good water wheel.

Doesn't most of Oklahoma have electricity now?



The Ultramill Grain Mill.
I worked with a woman who used one of these and never bought a bag of flour--or so she claimed.

Then there's this:

[Walden]

I start by grinding my wheat fresh.

I might would too, if I had me a good water wheel.

Doesn't most of Oklahoma have electricity now?

Quite a bit of it does, yes.

[jbarter]

Lincolnshire Plum Bread. Yum!

[GaryKelly]

For a good many years I used to bake my own bread. Messy but fun. Brought back memories of 'helping' my mum in the kitchen back in the days before that bloody awful "Mother's Pride" was invented.

Apart from the standard white loaf and the slightly more daring brown wholemeal, I particularly enjoyed baking the good old fashioned Soda Bread. Particularly enjoyed eating it too. My bread rolls were always a disaster though.

On this side of the pond, bread is the stuff you toast and spread with butter and Marmite. Or marmalade. Anything with fruit in is a cake, which is a dessert (except perhaps in Lincolnshire).

[burnsbyrne]

My Italian wife and I eat almost exclusively Italian style Pugliese bread made by a local baker. It has a hard crust with moderately soft insides (not Wonderbread soft). There is an old saying that Italians like bread with holes and cheese without holes as opposed to some northern Europeans who prefer the opposite.

In multi-ethnic Cleveland we have access to kolachys all year round as well as Irish soda bread and echter Deutcher vollkornbrot. And don't forget the sweetbreads.
Mike

[Flyingcursor]

I picked up some stuff in Holland Michigan that was some sort of rye bread. It must have had the density of gold because a tiny little chunk weighed 24 ounces. It had a gummy texture and very strong rye flavor. In fact it resembled compressed rye seeds more then bread. Wasn't too bad with jelly or peanut butter or even Marmite. I can't remember what it was called.

I found some great bread at this place down the street. It's made by somebody called "Day Old". It's a white bread somewhat crusty and hard. Occasionally they embellish it with a furry blue spread right in the loaf.
Ummmm! Funny though, the ducks don't like it.

[TomB]

My PA Dutch grandmother, my mother and now my wife

Ron

Umm, these are three different people, right?

These are the drop dumplings Ron

These are the type of dumplings that my Dad, and my wife, (yep, two different folks), make. Unfortunately, although my wife can make this type of dumpling, she doesn't do so often, as she prefers the "flat" dumplings. Of course, she does not know how to make those. My grandmother made them that way, but unfortunately nobody ever watched her enough to learn how to do them that way, and now of course, it is too late. I have an Aunt who can probably make them that way, but she certainly doesn't measure anything and would not be able to write down the recipe. Maybe we can visit her and watch her make them, if she still does- she is 89 now.

All the Best, Tom

[peteinmn]

Brot, Brot glorious Brot. My fav is rye bread. In my younger days, there were Jewish bakeries in Chicago that made the best! You would walk by the store after school and the most wounderful smells would waft out the door. One of the shops used to bake small rye rolls especially to hand out to us urchens that would walk by on the way home after school. I can still remember the crunch of the crust and the taste of the warm inside.

[susnfx]

My bread rolls were always a disaster though.

My sister (who has an "understanding" with yeast) makes white rolls that I swear rise to be four or five inches tall. Fluffy and soft all through with a golden crust. I could eat a dozen. I've tried to make them but because yeast and I do not understand each other, I've never equaled hers. *sigh*

Susan