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Flour, Salt, Yeast, Water, Love

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Russell Frank

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It was the bread recipe “wannabakes” like me had been waiting for: “incredibly simple,” “absolutely reliable,” “fine-bakery quality.” It stayed on The New York Times’ most e-mailed list for weeks.

I had baked cookies a couple of times and was an accomplished Saturday morning pancake maker, but despite a deep appreciation of bread and a deep admiration for bakers, I had never baked a loaf of my own. The time had come.

That was three years ago. Last year, I went so far as to buy a packet of yeast. And no farther.

Then came last weekend. My daughters were home for the holidays, the weather was dreary: the perfect day for baking. I dug out the yellowing food section: Flour? Check. Salt? Check. Yeast?

The packet I bought last year had expired in March. I went online and found a way to test whether expired yeast still has what to takes to make dough rise: Add a packet and a spoonful of sugar to a bit of water. Wait 10 minutes. If the mixture grows and bubbles, you’re in business. We were in business.

A large part of the appeal of this recipe, which comes from Jim Lahey, owner of the Sullivan Street Bakery in New York, is that it doesn’t require kneading. All you do is mix the three ingredients, add water and wait a day for the dough to rise. Then you fold it over a couple of times, make it into a ball, wait another couple of hours, dump it into a big pot and bake it for an hour.

The recipe delivered. The loaf was round, crusty and tasty. I was reminded of a research project I worked on 20 years ago in an Italian-American community in southern California. A guy we were interviewing had built a forno, an outdoor oven, in his backyard. He invited us over for the baking and tasting of the inaugural pizza.

Posing in front of the forno with the pizza in his arms, he proclaimed, “I am the best man in San Pedro!”

I wanted to proclaim myself the best man in State College when my bread came out of the oven. Odd, isn’t it? I had done something anybody can do – Times food writer Mark Bittman claims an 8-year-old can make this bread – and I felt triumphant about having done it. Odder still is that I could have acquired a loaf just like it at the grocery store. We were even going to the grocery store that very day.

So let’s see if we can figure out where all this pride and pleasure come from.

First, there is the satisfaction of bending the material world to one’s purposes, of shaping and combining existing materials to make something new. When the process involves cooking or baking, it feels like a magic trick. Apply heat and presto, liquids (eggs) solidify, solids (butter) liquefy, hard substances (pasta) soften, soft substances (dough) harden.

Second, there is the complex of intense sensory pleasures associated with cooking and eating: the pleasures of aroma and texture and taste, and on a deeper level, the physiological pleasure of sustenance, of satisfying the body’s need for fuel.

Third, there is the pleasure of the gift. Complaints about the holidays as frenzies of consumerism and greed overlook the power of these exchanges. Gift giving is both selfless – money or time I spend on you is money or time I could have spent on myself – and selfish – I get to bask in your gratitude. The chef serves and nurtures others, then takes a bow. These are high-voltage moments. The currents that flow between us bind us to each other.

Finally there is the pleasure of concerted action. The holidays have become more precious since my daughters left the nest. Before, we enjoyed the break from the busy-ness of daily life and the opportunity to reaffirm, through the exchange of gifts, that we cared about each other. Now the holidays are a homecoming. The time off and the presents are secondary to the pleasure of reconnecting.

But we can’t just sit around gazing fondly at each other. What’s needed is some kind of frame within which interaction can occur. Playing games fits the bill. Lately, so does showing each other funny Youtube clips. But more and more, especially as the children have gotten older, we hang out together by preparing food together.

Outside, it was a cold, dark day in late December. In the kitchen, warmed by the oven’s electric fire, we sang, we danced, we teased and we told family stories. Our love for each other filled the house with the aroma of the baking bread.

Click here for the recipe. Write to Russell Frank at rfrank@psu.edu. Oh, and Happy New Year.

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