The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1892-07-08
THE STAFF OF LIFE.
NO TWO COUNTRIES USE THE
SAME KIND OF BREAD.

Loaves tho Shape of a Cord Wood
I Stick-Varietios of tho Oriental Baker.
A broad assertion is made, but it is
nevertheless a true one, that there are
no two countries in the world where the
people make and eat the same kind of
bread. Even in such closely kindred
countries as England America there ex-
lists decided difference of opinion in re-
| gard to the consumption of this staple
article of food. The American custom
of eating biscuits as hot as they can be
handled from the oven is regarded by
John Bull with even a greater measure
of disfavor than that of swallowing big
tumblers of ice water at our meals. Mr..
Bull. he of the cellarful of fine old crusted
port, the daily round of roast beef, car
rots, mince pie and Gorgonzola cheese,
thinks the thinness, the nervousness and
the dyspepsia of his Cousin Jonathan
comes largely from these twin evils of
hot bread and ice cold water.
| In France the ordinary loaf assumes
the proportions of roll the size of a
mans fore arm, and four feet long. In
any French villsge, about meal times,
grown people and children may be seen
walking sedately along the streets with
q four-foot stick of bread thrust under
each arm. A careless youngster some-
times forgets himself to the extent of
letting the hindmost end of the stick
trail along the ground.
Not until one gets down to the princi-
palities of the Balkan peninsula does
any really noteworthy innovation occur.
Here one finds the medium between
Asiatic and European methods of making
bread. The medium is far from being
happy one, however; no more execrable
bread is to be found the whole world
round than is served up to traveller at
the wayside mehanas of Bulgaria. Be-
side being villainously heavy and we'll
nigh black, it is coarse and repuIsive,
almost as wet saw dust to the palate;
sand, moreover, enters very largely into
its composition from carelessness in
handling and milling the wheat.
This style of bread confronts the dis
gusted European traveller for the first
two hundred miles beyond the Bos-
phorus, until one gets pretty we'll out of
the Greek and Bulgarian settlements in
western Apatolia, where another decided
change is experienced. Here we coma
suddenly into the realm of the simon
pure unleavened variety of Asia. Bread
is now called ekmek, and takes the form
of fiat cakes or sheets about two feet in
diameter and the thickness of ordinary
blotting paper.
The necessaries for the preparation OF
this ekmek are coarse wheat flour,
water, mixing trough, rolling pin, a
large thin griddle and slow burning
substance called tezek for fire. Taking
these simple ingredients outside the
house early in the morning, the Turkish
or Armenian female kindles the fire,
mixes the dough, rolls it out, bakes it
and stacks enough of it up to serve her
household for the day. When fresh and
warm this bread is tough and cloggy; a
few days later it loses something of its
clogginess, but retains its toughness,
and as it advances in age it becomes
brittle and hard. 1t is as indestructible,
healthful and useful an article of food as
the hard tack issued to the ancient mar
.ner and the old man of the sea.
In Asia Minor, as in all other coun-
tries, however, the luxurious require
ments of city-bred people demand some
kind of improvement on the drivers and
goat herds. Therefore, in qualification
of their epicurean tastes, the ingenious
Oriental baker has conceived and pre-
pared little hoops or rings of bread about
the size of the rope quoits aboard an At
lantic steamer. These novel preparations
are made of finer and whittier -four than
the ekmek, and are rendered light and
aristocratic by the addition of sour
dough or other leavening substance.
This sort Of bread prevails throughout
the cities of Asia Minor, and the use of
ekmek extends eastward among the
i,easantry of western Persia as far as
Tabrees. Here the staff of life under
goes another transformation, and in
many respects change for the better.
The nune of the Persian city bazaars is
really excellent bread, most Europeans
giving itpreference over every kind they
are acquainted with. Nune is turned
out for proper consumption and approval
in the forms of fiat cakes foot broad
and three to four feet long. The baker
takes lump of dough of the proper size
and rolls it dexterously into the proper
shape and thickness on his bare forearm.
He then flips light shower of water
over its surface, and with a mastery
toss spreads it over a bed of heated peb-
bles
Contact with the almost red hot peb-
bles quickly converts it into a cake of
nicely Drowned indentations and spongy
risings that render it almost as light as
if leavened with yeast. The peasantry
of eastern Persia and Khorassan make
coarse imitation of this same form of
Dread, which is also very palatable and
wholesome when eaten fresh. The cakes
are smaller and thicker than those of the
city baker, and their baking apparatus is
altogether different. The oven is a huge,
upright earthenware jar. This is heated
so the proper consistency by inserting
live Goals and covering up the top. The
dough, being patted out into cake by
the hands, the woman sprinkles it with
water, dabs it against the inside wall of
the jar and then quickly replaces the
cover; in a few minutes the cake is
nicely baked.
In Afghanistan the people adopt the
Persian methods of bread making, with
out possessing the same skill or exer-
cising the same care and trouble in its
preparation.
Jay Gould carries in his purse a ten