Bread

Bread has been a staple food around the world for most of history. It is eaten in different forms in almost all cultures of the world and has been so important in some cultures that it was used as currency. Think about the bread you eat at home with a typical meal. Is it a flatbread or a yeast bread? Is it made of white flour or whole grain? Is there any herbs or spices added to it for added flavor? As each of us picture our typical and our favorite breads we have a different picture forming in our head than the others in the class. Bread means different things to different people and some folks feel very strongly about what is (and isn't) bread.

In this unit we're going to try and define bread and find out how it became such a unifying food. We'll explore the different kinds of bread and take a quick look at how it differs in other parts of the world. There will be time to learn about the science behind what makes yeast bread rise and why it's harder to make a risen yeast loaf without gluten. We might even try some experiments with alternative flours to prove the importance of gluten to structure and texture.

Here are a few of the breads you will learn to make in this unit...

References:

Myhrvold, N. & Migoya, N. (2017). Modernist Bread Volume 1: History & Fundamentals. The Cooking Lab, LLC.