Aleris E. Canis, a master baker, prepared his dough according to the latest methods and shaped his loaves on a stone table. He stamped them with his name and a word to describe the kind of bread he had baked. When the loaves were proved, he pushed them into his up-to-date oven, equipped with a compartment for water so that the steam would keep the crusts soft. His entire bakery and his implements were modern, perhaps more modern than many present-day European bakeries. An Englishman took the loaves out of the oven 1,800 years later and found them perfectly preserved, complete with name and description. Vesuvius had erupted and buried Pompeii in the ashes which had destroyed the town, but preserved the bakery and the bread in its oven.
After I read every word, the real work began. The authorities and the milling companies agreed on one point—temperatures. Naturally, I started with a thermometer. I became the woman who knew the exact temperature at the corner of the kitchen counter when the thermostat was set at 72° Fahrenheit. I knew how warm my flour was in the canister, and, having discovered that it was cold, poor thing, I changed my kitchen around so that the flour would always be 72° Fahrenheit. As I intended telling my readers to test water until it was lukewarm, I heated and cooled countless pans of water and tested the water on my wrist. In a small way, I became a heating and air-conditioning engineer. I knew the temperature over the radiator, the difference in temperature between an outside and an inside wall—I even knew my own temperature.
Having established the correct temperatures, I turned to recipes. Some expensive, beautifully bound German books had to be discarded because they urged their readers to run over to the brewery for a cup of brewers' yeast. Some gold-tooled English books advised going to the baker for a cup of bakers' yeast. Still another—rather a primitive one—suggested taking yeast from the air. To make sour dough bread, I had to find a warm place well sealed from my living quarters lest they be permeated by a strong-smelling batch of souring dough. Sour dough could also be obtained through the mail.
After I had discarded half the recipe books, I made a chart of the rest. Ingredients could vary, but my prospective loaf would have to be prepared in an “Even Draughtless Temperature.” And it would have to be “Kneaded.”
By this time. I was baking bread on weekends and writing about it on the train each day en route to the job which a provident fate had arranged for me, since living on bread articles alone would not be easy.
My breads were carefully prepared: Temperatures were adjusted, flour was sifted, dough was kneaded, sponges rose in proper splendor in protected corners of my house. Doughs, covered by immaculate preheated dish towels, rose double their bulk on schedule in well-chosen locations The surface of the dough was oiled and creamed as carefully as a cheek at Elizabeth Arden's. Yeast was dated and watched—hadn't 1 just learned it was alive? A new pet, in fact, that had to he fed and cared for. The utensils, the ingredients, and 1 were warmed to the proper temperature. Alarm clocks were set. notes were made, and recipes were written. The article was completed. Only one step remained to be taken.
During my entire bread-baking period, while I had been eating, testing, baking, living, and writing bread, 1 had encountered only one perfect loaf among the many I had tried—a loaf so finely textured, so beautifully crusted, and of such perfect appearance and taste that I knew my search was ended. Its creator was obviously a cook who had mastered every last detail, who meticulously followed directions, who knew her temperatures and had conquered the knack of kneading, I asked if I could spend a day or two with her to see the bread baked, to confirm all my findings in golden reassuring perfection.
Jean said I needn't come in the morning—the afternoon would be time enough. It would take about half an hour. Our appointment was arranged without any consultation as to whether the day was to be sultry or clear and cold.
I went over to Jean's house at three thirty. Her kitchen was cool, the windows were open—she didn't own a thermometer. She took an ordinary cupboard-temperature bowl and placed in it monstrous heaping spoonfuls of shortening, sugar, and coarse salt. On this mixture she poured boiling water. After measuring warm water from the tap into a battered cup, she emptied two packages of yeast into the cup. We went into the living room to look at some books. Jean thought she had the absolutely-impossible-to-find book on bread upstairs—then she remembered it had been sent to a rummage sale. We returned to the yeast, which had just risen over the lop of the cup. She combined her mixtures, stirred in eggs, added unsifted Hour, and stirred the dough. She added more flour and stirred a little more. She protected the rough, unbuttered dough with an a plastic cover and put it into the refrigerator. She said we should come back for dinner at any time, no sooner than two hours and no later than eight days. The dough would be ready. We returned at dinnertime the same day. The dough had risen up to the tight cover. Jean divided it into three parts with a knife, creamed her hands with vegetable shortening. picked up each piece, and squeezed the air out of it. She worked the pieces in her hands for a few seconds and laid them into cold unbuttered pans which, like the omelette pan and salad bowl. had never been washed. She then found a lovely drafty spot exactly between her bedroom door and the outside door. placed the bread pans on a tray with a dish towel over them, and put them on a suitcase rack. We had cocktails and dinner, and in an hour and a half the bread had risen. Jean put it into a moderate oven, immediately reduced the heat slightly, and looked at it once after fifteen minutes to change the pans around—the back of her oven is hotter than the front. After ten minutes more. the bread came out of the oven and out of the pans. The loaves were laid on a wire rack on their sides to cool. Tasted next morning, it proved to be the perfect loaf: unkneaded, ungreased, unpampered, and unsung. It was only perfect. I discarded my article.
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