Loafing

Marie Antoinette did not say, "Let them eat cake." Her exact words, according to Rousseau, were, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche." Modern man obviously does not live by brioche alone. From the vast panorama of the baker's art, he can choose pitas as made in Baghdad, Sicilian round sesame loaves and Swedish limpa, to mention only a few. What's more important is that he uses them not just as filler for his breadbasket but as a means of brightening his party tables.

For centuries, bread has been divided into two classes. Only the well-heeled, self-appointed Beautiful People originally enjoyed white bread--that is, bread made from the white interior of the grain--while the hoi polloi had to be content to eat dark breads made from all of the wheat or from nonwheat flours such as rye or barley. In 14th Century England, bread bakers belonged to one of two guilds, The Company of the White Bakers or The Company of the Brown Bakers. By the 18th Century, nations seemed to have drawn lines between each other based on the color of their bread. Thus, when Goethe fought with the Prussian armies in 1792, he noted that on his side of the border, there were light girls and dark bread, and that when his army later moved over the French frontier, he found a pleasurable mixture of dark girls and white bread. But the status of bread has since evolved to the point where the most elegant dining rooms offer black-as-coal Russian pumpernickel in the same cozy basket with snow-white dinner rolls.

The Middle East gave the world two magnificent products of fermentation--bread and beer. The Egyptians, in their haste to expel the Jews, didn't allow Hebrew bakers enough time to use yeast in their bread and thus may be credited with having indirectly created matzohs, now the base for canapés and dips in infinite numbers. But the Middle Eastern bread that is most cast upon the social waters these days is the pita--the flat bread disk torn apart at shish-kabob parties and filled with anything from felafel to curried lamb at sandwich parties.

Hopping across the Mediterranean to Italy, one finds huge round loaves with or without sesame seeds--light white bread at its plumpest best. Italians also bake a bread they call whole wheat--it can be found both in Italy and in the United States--but the little golden specks of whole-wheat flour are in such minute quantities that the bread, though lovely to eat, turns out to be only the most delicate kind of distant kin to the uninhibitedly dark breads of northern Europe. Italy also has its specialty breads, and one of the most interesting -- available in this country as well--is pane con cicciolo, or bread with rendered fat. It looks like a large circle of Danish pastry and is almost as rich and light, but its main flavor isn't fatty at all but a herculean spray of coarsely ground black pepper, enough to light up the weariest appetite at the aperitif hour.

In both Italy and France, you'll find round as well as long loaves, more round bread in the south of France than in the north. The Italian bakers seem to excel in big-bosomed, dome-shaped loaves, while French bakers are masters of the long narrow loaf. But when it comes to brioches and croissants, French bakers--or those trained by Frenchmen--are nonpareil.

As in Goethe's day, you must still leave France for Germany and the Scandinavian countries to savor the best of pumpernickel and other dark breads. Pumpernickel is to rye as whole wheat is to white--that is, it's made from unsifted, or unbolted, flour. And dark breads vary from the blackest of tart German Schwarzbrot to Danish mellem, made with a mixture of white and rye flours, the latter so muted that you have to taste the bread a second time to detect the presence of rye. There are other light ryes, such as Norway's grisle, a (continued on page 248) Loafing(continued from page 179) rye-wheat mixture still made from the viking recipe. It's creamy white in color, but the rye flavor shines forth like the midnight sun. Grisle is a luscious bread to include in any sm?rrebr?d (open-sandwich) party. The rye spectrum also includes German Bauernbrot, an extremely tender farm loaf made of three kinds of rye flour, magnificent for open sandwiches or for toasting. And Kommisbrot, a rectangular-shaped dark bread, was created in the German and Austrian army commissaries of the 1880s; it's a rich dark bread whose seemingly rough texture turns tender in the mouth.

In America, the dark bread with the crispest crust and the tenderest crumb is Jewish sour rye. (America's contribution to the bread world, the so-called quick breads, such as muffins and biscuits, using baking powder rather than yeast, are more closely allied to cake than to bread.) But many aficionados prefer West Coast sourdough, a bread so ravishing in flavor and so gluttonously enjoyed that it often dwarfs the seafood dinners with which it's served in San Francisco's wharf side restaurants.

Experienced amateur chefs who really know which side their bread is buttered on are wise in leaving the baking of bread to the professionals. One can easily be enticed by the few ingredients and apparently simple directions in a bread recipe. The best French bread, for instance, contains but flour, salt, yeast and water; and the prospect of punching dough and shaping it into a glorious loaf that will turn golden in the oven takes the fancy of many a man whose kitchen is his hobby. But the four simple ingredients, like the four strings of a fiddle, can produce a lovely melody or cacophony.

On the Continent, a young man who wants to learn baking as a craft usually spends five years as an apprentice and four years as a journeyman. Even with this long training, most of the master bakers in the fine bakeries seem to be men in their late middle years. The amateur who attempts to make bread normally finds one kind of white flour available--flour that isn't specifically designed for bread but intended as an all-purpose ingredient for sauces, soups, soufflés, etc. The professional baker, on the other hand, can choose from literally hundreds of grades of flours, from different grains harvested in different parts of the country, and blend them into incredibly subtle combinations. Scotsmen are realistic when they say, "Happy are they who find their bread already baked."

It's possible to judge the qualities of many a loaf of bread with a single glance. Plastic bags, sealed wax paper and all the other inventions of the plastic world are successful, indeed, in keeping bread soft for days. But who ever decided that softness alone was the quality men wanted when they broke bread? American packaged sliced white bread--and we have no quarrel with those who fortify, vitaminize and mineralize it--has for years gone unchallenged as the world's worst bread. Its pale exterior isn't a crust that shatters into succulent crumbs but a thin skin covering a spongy body. If you have a choice of a wrapped or unwrapped specialty bread such as narrow party rye, buy the unwrapped for its lively natural flavor. And shun breads that list calcium propionate--added to retard spoilage--among the ingredients. The true bread connoisseur knows that the loaf was made for eating, not for storing. To any man who has the use of a freezer for keeping his bread fresh overnight or, if necessary, for days at a stretch, the concept of bread spoiling is a stodgy anachronism. A few moments in the oven will bring a frozen loaf almost back to its bakery freshness.

Even with the honest baker's best intentions, breads differ widely in quality, and certain guidelines are helpful. The best loaves are large for their weight. The top crust of white bread should be a deep golden brown, with no cracks or unintended bulges, and the bottom crust a lighter brown. If it's French or Italian bread, it should have a fairly thick top crust that's crisp but not tough and that shatters a trifle when cut. It should have a characteristic resonant sound when thumped on the bottom. Each slice when pressed should be resilient. The crumb should be tender and never ropy or lumpy. The holes or pores of the out slice may be consistently large, as in gluten bread, or small or closely knit, as in a fine sandwich bread. Lastly, a superior loaf fresh from the bakery will carry an indescribably pleasant oven fragrance. It may disappear after a few hours, but when you've eaten the bread, the aroma lives on in the mouth and remains there as a delightful aftertaste, like the subtlest of wines or soft cheeses.

The English word companion, whose derivation implies one who shares bread with another person, isn't the same as the Italian companatico, which means those things that go well with bread, of which the most obvious is a swipe of fresh sweet butter. But there are many other accompaniments. In Italy, for example, children home from school ravenously gobble their fettunta, which is simply a thick slice of crisp bread doused heavily with olive oil and sparingly with vinegar, salt and pepper. And American hosts may avail themselves of the many variations on the usual oven-toasted garlic bread. Instead of slicing the bread three quarters of the way through before spreading it with garlic butter, cut the loaf horizontally in half. Spread both halves generously with butter containing a crushed clove of garlic, then sprinkle them lightly with oregano; fit the halves together; bake in a 350° oven 10 to 15 minutes; slice each half into two- or three-inch chunks. Or, following the same procedure, spread the bread with a mixture of butter, grated onion or onion juice and very finely minced fresh tarragon. Or butter the bread, then sprinkle it with dill salt and very finely minced fresh dill or dill weed. Herb-minded hosts can explore the possibilities of companatico indefinitely.

For some Americans an ultracasual party means sandwiches, and the party is successful only if the bread and what's between it are equally superb. If you're planning to make sandwiches in quantity using sliced bread, it pays to go to a delicatessen-restaurant noted for its sandwiches and buy the bread there. Deli bread will usually be larger, lighter and infinitely more stable for handling than the usual store specimens marked sandwich bread. When it comes to heroes or hoagies, the same advice cannot always be given. Many a quick-food shop specializing in heroes now uses breads that are hardly more than overgrown frankfurter buns. For a real hero, you need bread of heroic proportions. Sandwich caterers in large cities will, on special order, supply six-foot heroes filled either with an assortment of Italian sliced meats and cheese or with a trio of Jewish corned beef, pastrami and tongue.

If you're planning to make your own heroes, you'll want a long loaf of genuine French or Italian bread so crusty and delicious that a chunk can be torn off the loaf and enjoyed even without butter. Best bet is to go to one of the ethnic bakeries catering to French or Italian bread savants. The irresistibly tempting flavor and the slightly irregular shape of such bread stimulates the sandwich maker to cast caution aside and fill his heroes with a rich array of meats, pepper salads, anchovies, artichoke hearts, capers or anything equally delectable within reach of his hands and imagination.

There's a famed French version of the hero called pan bagnat, a specialty of Provence, particularly Nice. The name means bathed bread and there are two possible baths: olive oil and vinegar, or salt water, olive oil and vinegar. For those who haven't been introduced to pan bagnat, the very idea of dipping crisp French bread into water may be startling if not offensive. Be assured that the finished sandwich is as pleasant as leaping into a cool pool on a sweltering day.

A long loaf of bread (sometimes it's an individual round bun) is split horizontally, dipped briefly into cold salt water (one teaspoon salt to a pint of water) but not in such a way that the crust turns soggy. It's then doused very liberally with olive oil and sprinkled lightly with vinegar. The bread is covered with sliced tomatoes, green peppers, pitted black olives, sautéed sliced mushrooms or pickled mushrooms, artichoke hearts, onions, anchovies, capers, radishes--anything that has the effect of turning the sandwich into a glorious bread salad. Sliced eggs may be added, but most pan bagnat men prefer ingredients that are moist rather than dry. The bread halves are then put together, wrapped in foil, topped with a heavy weight, such as several large cans of food, and chilled in the refrigerator for at least a half hour. Then serve--and savor. The golden oil in the sandwich will soon ooze out onto your chin and hands, so oversize napkins should be provided.

Obviously, bread is not only the staff of life but a magnificent complement to meat, fish and birds at festive groaning boards everywhere. Like wine, its colors, flavors and uses are legion. If "Let them eat brioche" was a cruelly asinine thing for anyone to have said, Frenchmen showed their practical wisdom in their proverb "Sans pain, sans vin, l'amour n'est rien." "Without bread, without wine, love is nothing." Make doubly sure you have a crisp loaf of bread and a glorious jug of wine the next time you plan your paradise enow.