9. Flour, Water, Fat and Salt, Nothing More

Anton: Picture a shepherd high on a stony hillside at dusk, far from any house. From his bag he takes flour, a little water, a spoon of fat and a pinch of salt. He mixes them on a flat stone, slaps the dough thin between his palms and lays it on a hot iron dome over the fire. In two minutes he has bread.

Vera: No oven at all?

Anton: None. Flour, water, fat and salt, nothing more. People have made bread like his for thousands of years, from the high pastures of the east to the dusty plains of the south. Today is the first time our children make a real dough.

Half Past Seven, Flour on the Table

Vera: Felix has climbed onto the step stool beside the sink and rolled his sleeves to the elbow without being asked. He has been waiting for this all week, he says, because dough is what real bakers touch.

Anton: He is right. A batter pours, but a dough holds its shape in your hands. That is the difference, and it changes everything that comes after. Once a child has felt a dough go from rough and sticky to smooth and soft, bread stops being a mystery.

Vera: How long does that take?

Anton: About five minutes of kneading. Not long for us. Quite long for a boy of seven.

At the Work Table

For 6 flatbreads, each about 18 cm (7 inches) across: 250 g plain flour (2 cups) and a little more for dusting, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons oil (30 ml) and 150 ml warm water (2/3 cup).

Anton: A child mixes the flour and salt in a bowl, adds the oil and pours in the warm water a little at a time, stirring with a spoon and then with one hand until a shaggy ball forms. If it stays dry, add a spoonful more water.

Anton: The child kneads the dough on a lightly floured table for five minutes: push it away with the heel of the hand, fold it back, turn it a quarter, and again, until it is as smooth as a river pebble.

Anton: Cover it with the upturned bowl and leave it for 20 minutes.

Anton: A child divides it into 6 equal pieces, about 70 g each, rolls each into a ball and then rolls it out with a rolling pin into a thin circle about 18 cm across, dusting with flour so it does not stick.

Anton: A grown-up heats a heavy, dry frying pan over medium-high heat, handle turned in. No oil goes in the pan.

Anton: The grown-up cooks each flatbread for about a minute, until bubbles rise and brown spots appear underneath, then turns it and cooks it for 30 to 60 seconds more. Hot steam can puff out, so faces stay back.

Vera: And they go straight into a clean cloth, stacked, so they stay soft while the rest are cooked.

The Stone Outhouse by the Fig Tree

Vera: When I was eleven, our neighbour Celia baked in a stone outhouse at the bottom of her garden, where the old fig tree leaned against the wall and dropped its fruit onto the roof. She made flatbreads like these every morning.

Vera: She taught me to knead by putting her hands over mine, and she counted the turns out loud in a low voice, like someone telling sheep. At a hundred she stopped, pulled off a piece of dough and showed me how it stretched thin as a leaf without tearing. That, she said, is when the dough is ready.

On the Bench Outside the Door

Question: Felix asks why the dough has to rest under the bowl after all his hard work.

Answer: Kneading pulls the dough tight, like a spring wound up. Resting lets it relax again, so it rolls out thin and does not shrink back.

Three quick questions. One: What four things make this bread? Two: How long is the dough kneaded? Three: Does the pan need oil?

Answers. One: Flour, water, fat and salt. Two: About five minutes. Three: No, it stays dry.

Anton: In hot lands where these breads are eaten, people drink salted yogurt with them. Whisk plain yogurt with cold water, a pinch of salt and a few torn mint leaves. Cool and sour, like a shaded spring.

Vera: Then let us take the glasses out to the bench, and the warm bread in its cloth.

Key Words

Dough: a soft mixture of flour and liquid that is firm enough to shape with the hands, unlike a batter, which pours.

Knead: to push, fold and turn a dough again and again until it becomes smooth and stretchy.

Dusting: a light scattering of flour on the table, the dough or the rolling pin, so that nothing sticks.

10. Even Thickness Is the Whole Secret

Anton: Look closely at one grain of wheat in your palm. It is about the size of a grain of rice, golden brown, with a crease down one side like a tiny closed book. Around it lies a thin, hard coat, the bran. At one end sits the germ, a speck that could grow into a new plant. The rest, nearly all of it, is a pale, floury heart.

Vera: And white flour is only that heart?

Anton: Only the heart. Whole-wheat flour is the whole grain, bran and germ and heart, ground together. It is browner, it smells of hay and nuts, and it drinks more water.

Wednesday, Before Sunrise

Vera: Ezra is here early, sitting cross-legged on the flour bin by the larder door, rolling a grain of wheat between his fingers. He says it looks like a seed, and he wants to plant it.

Anton: It is a seed. Every loaf is a field that never grew. These flatbreads come from the hot plains far to the south, where they are cooked fresh for every meal, and the best of them swell up in the pan like a small balloon.

A Tin Roof on the Southern Plain, Long Ago

Anton: I learned them from Doran, in a roadside kitchen on that plain. The tin roof ticked in the afternoon heat, and the flatbreads were stacked in a basket lined with broad green leaves.

Anton: Doran rolled with one hand and turned with the other, and he never looked down. Every single bread rose like a small balloon. When mine stayed flat, he laughed and said I rolled like a man writing a letter, thick in one place and thin in another.

Vera: Did you learn?

Anton: After three hundred breads. Even thickness is the whole secret.

The Flour Bin

Vera: Can I use white flour instead?

Anton: You can, but they will puff less and taste of less. Try half and half if the children are not used to brown bread.

Vera: And why does the brown flour drink more water?

Anton: The bran takes up water like dry leaves on a forest floor. Keep the flour somewhere cool and use it within a few months, because the germ is a little oily and slowly turns stale.

At the Work Table

For 8 flatbreads, each about 15 cm (6 inches) across: 250 g whole-wheat flour (2 cups) and a little more for dusting, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon oil and about 180 ml warm water (3/4 cup).

Anton: A child mixes the flour and salt, adds the oil and the water little by little, and kneads for five minutes into a soft dough that is only slightly sticky.

Anton: Cover it and leave it for 30 minutes. Whole-wheat flour needs longer than white to drink its water.

Anton: A child divides the dough into 8 balls and rolls each one into a circle about 15 cm across, as evenly thin as possible, dusting lightly.

Anton: A grown-up heats a heavy, dry frying pan over medium-high heat, handle turned in.

Anton: The grown-up cooks a flatbread for about 30 seconds, until small bubbles show, turns it, and cooks it for about a minute, until brown spots appear underneath.

Anton: The grown-up turns it once more and presses the edges gently with a folded clean cloth. It swells. The steam inside is very hot, so children watch from a step back and nobody pokes it.

Vera: Stack them in a cloth. A little butter on top, if you like.

Under the Hanging Pans

Question: Ezra asks what makes the flatbread swell up when nothing is put inside it.

Answer: The water in the dough turns to steam. The two thin faces of the bread have already set in the pan, so the steam pushes them apart, the way a bubble lifts the skin of a puddle in rain.

Three quick questions. One: What are the three parts of a wheat grain? Two: How long does this dough rest? Three: What is the secret of a bread that puffs?

Answers. One: The bran, the germ and the floury heart. Two: Thirty minutes. Three: Rolling it evenly thin.

Vera: The sun is properly up now, and the morning is getting busy, with bicycles in the street. In the next part of the day, I hope, the oven comes on at last.

Anton: It does. Mid-morning brings scones, soda bread and cornbread, all rising without yeast, and a warm kitchen to make them in.

Key Words

Whole-wheat flour: flour ground from the whole grain of wheat, bran and germ included, so it is brown and full of flavour.

Bran: the thin, hard outer coat of a grain of wheat.

Germ: the small part of a grain that could grow into a new plant.