Real Men Make Bread

Real men do make bread.

     When I was in law school, a female friend of mine--a liberal Northeasterner who was pro-gay marriage, pro-choice,  and pro-everything that would seem to obliterate the difference between women and men--mentioned that a guy she liked had invited her over to eat some bread he had made.
     "Bread?" she said.  "I mean, it's fine that he likes to cook, but baking bread?  That's a little weird."
     Well, I found it a little weird that she found it weird for men to make bread, since she was fine with women playing professional football, women working on auto assembly lines, and women serving in combat zones in the military.
     Why can't a dude bake a loaf of bread?

The masculine art of making bread.

     Weird or not, I assure you that some very real, macho men do make bread.  My wife's grandfather--a man's man of Sicilian descent who eventually settled in Guatemala--ran a bakery for many years, and all of the workers who made the bread (including his son, my father-in-law) were men.  And when I worked as a prep cook at a very expensive French restaurant, the baker was also a man--a very large, rugged man named Hal with several tattoos.  You have to be pretty buff to throw 50-pound sacks of flour around the way Hal did.

This guy reminds me of Hal the baker--except that Hal was bigger and buffer.

     But as final proof that real men make bread, the wife of an auto mechanic I know--who wouldn't be able to get in touch with his feminine side if his life depended on it--once revealed to me, sotto voce, that her husband made the best bread in the world, but he had forbidden her to tell anyone about it.

Roman men baked bread:  why are today's men squeamish about it?

     Why are some men embarrassed to have it known that they make bread?  Why are some women turned off by men who bake bread?  Those are questions for future doctoral dissertations, but could it be that when they think of making bread, they have a vision of Betty Crocker, dressed in a red gingham apron, taking hot loaves out of the oven as her tired hubby walks in the door?

If this is your vision of making bread, think again.

     If you have that vision, replace it with a realistic one--one of a hot, sweaty commercial bakery that has more in common with a steel plant than with Martha Stewart's kitchen.

Commercial bakery:  more locker room than ladylike.

     For some great bread--and a fun family activity--try the following recipe, which came from my Grandma Williams (c = cup, T = tablespoon)  My kids like to mix the ingredients, play with the dough, and form it into loaves.  (Oh, yeah, and they like to eat it.)
     Although it's called French bread, this recipe produces nothing like the true French baguettes that scrape the skin off the top of your mouth as you try to chew through them.  No, this bread is "American-style" French, like the soft squishy loaves you get at grocery store bakeries.

Your bread will turn out more like this...

...than this.

Grandma Williams' French Bread

1 c warm water
2 T yeast
1 1/2 c warm water
3 T sugar
1 T salt
1/3 c canola oil
6 c flour
   
Dissolve yeast in 1 c warm water.

Combine 1 1/2 c water, sugar, salt, and oil in large bowl.  Stir until sugar and salt have dissolved.  Add yeast mixture and stir.

Add flour all at once.  Stir until soft dough forms.  Dough should not stick to your hands.  If it does, add flour--one T at a time--until it doesn't.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in microwave (don't turn it on--the microwave is just a warm, draft-free place for dough to rise).  Allow dough to sit 10  minutes; then cut through it several times with butcher knife.  Return dough to microwave and allow to rest another 10 minutes.  Cut with butcher knife again.  Repeat process 4 more times.

Remove dough from microwave and punch down.  Then turn onto floured board (that means you sprinkle some flour on a cutting board so the dough won't stick).  Cut dough into four pieces.  Take one piece and pound flat with hands on cutting board.  Roll up like jelly roll and place on cookie sheet coated with non-stick spray.  Repeat procedure for remaining pieces of dough.

Optional:  brush tops of loaves with beaten egg white (this gives more of a crust).

Slash top of each loaf diagonally--about 1/4 inch deep--in four places.

Bake 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Eat while hot!