In all my travels through Asia, Stitch, I noticed that abundant selections of bread was mostly reserved for the visitors in the hotels.
Having had a mother who was undoubtedly the world's greatest baker of breads (this should start a lot of argument) and pastries, I assumed that all North Americans had the same appetite as I for bread, and that we were probably the biggest consumers thereof. I was in Jakarta with one of our V.P.'s who was from Romania, and while I was enjoying the Asian cuisine, I was surprised at the quantity of breads that he was selecting for breakfast and other meals. I understand that Europeans are probably the largest consumers of breads.
A cute story about wives and breadmaking. When my wife (now of 33 years) and I were first married, she tried and tried to make bread as good as my mother. Each loaf made pretty good door stops, but none found it to the dinner table. Over the years I had played many practical jokes on her, which she always took with good humour. One day, as I recall in about our 8th or 9th year of marriage, I came home to the wonderful aroma of fresh bread permeating the house. The bread was fantastic, but I was shocked that she went to all that trouble and only produce 1 loaf of white bread and 1 loaf of brown bread.
This continued for months, she would only make one loaf at a time. I was beginning to wonder about her, as I couldn't convince her to make more than 1 loaf. It wasn't until I went shopping with her and was looking in freezer section that I discover her secret was packaged frozen dough.
She has learned how to make good bread now, but we too have succumbed to the bread making machine, but what doesn't match up to the home made varieties, is replaced with the blends of other flavours with cranberries, fruits and different grains that can easily be added.
By the way, I don't think our machine will roll over at Y2K!
Regards,
JBS |
