The bread in your hand is the body of the cosmos
My love letter to bread and baking my first bread loaf.
Love Letter to Bread
“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread. It will be a great day for America, incidentally, when we begin to eat bread again, instead of the blasphemous and tasteless foam rubber that we have substituted for it. And I am not being frivolous now, either. Something very sinister happens to the people of a country when they begin to distrust their own reactions as deeply as they do here, and become as joyless as they have become.”
- James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
I can’t imagine a time when James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time will not continue to be my favorite book. In just over 100 pages, he writes about the American experience with a nearly unfathomable and tender understanding. As my favored love letter to humans and America, I invite you to read it for your enjoyment and prosperity.
I highlight his quote because it captures the non-dualistic honoring of body and soul through breaking bread and beckons us to engage in this. Bread is a gift from, or with, the cosmos- soil, micro-bacteria, water, sunlight, grain, farmers, millers, bakers, and those with whom we share bread. And from Challah to Naan to gluten-free bread and everything in between, bread evokes our Earthly uniqueness- how we co-create with our one-of-a-kind environments and experiences. So, thank you, bread, for inviting us into connection with all other and tasting phenomenally delicious..
Leftover Oatmeal Bread and, Yes, More Apple Butter
In the kitchen I work in, we often have morning oatmeal leftovers for compost, and on my “Friday”, I instead took them home with me…sorry piggies. I found this bread recipe for using up your oatmeal leftovers and got busy, or rather, slowed down and enjoyed the meditative art of baking. What resulted is the first bread loaf I have ever baked :)
With the time between the dough rising (twice) and baking, I started another batch of apple butter. Hungry after work one day, I recalled a farm-stand two minutes from my house and popped in for an apple (I left with $26 of apples). Since apple season is at its end, I took up the mission of preserving the delicious fruit so that it can be enjoyed in a more ecologically compassionate manner throughout winter. Now that I am a seasoned apple butter connoisseur, I am not afraid to get creative; sparse fridge carrots and apple seeds/stems make this a sublime zero-waste recipe. Spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove, a drizzled with organic-Massachusetts maple syrup, it's difficult to mess up, and a recipe is unneeded.
As aforementioned about the bread taking a glorious amount of time, gifted was an opportunity to discover the story behind all the bread ingredients. And I came up empty-handed, somewhat. Having used a mix of organic flour from Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, efforts to locate flour origins were futile. Our dominant food system most often does not enable opportunities to feel our connection with our food. Whether companies wish for us not to know the source and story behind our food, who and what are positively/negatively impacted, or they assume a lack of care, we are missing an opportunity to feel and be aware of radical interconnectedness. I want to know how the land, animals, farmers, packagers, transporters, and so on are treated, for their wellbeing and my own.
In this time-filled abyss of bread-baking, I discovered that an organic label is not what is most important. Instead, I want to know the story. I looked up grain millers in this vicinity of the United States and became excited by the storied possibilities, like Farmer Ground Flour. Beyond bread, discovering the story behind whatever the food is in front of me is of the utmost importance to me. Enabling this consciousness, I believe we can engage food with increasing holistic enjoyment for our collective body and soul.
I will now conclude with gratitude for the generative nature of bread-baking, the spaciousness and patience which offers fruitful outcomes. Thank you, bread, for the aforesaid gifts and insights. I love you.