Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

One of Mama's yummy free formed loaves

Did you know that my Mama has never bought a loaf of bread in all her married days? She has always baked the nourishing and rich bread to put on our table. Let’s see...baking four loaves a week for thirty some odd years makes it a minimum of somewhere around 7,100 loaves. Of course that’s a low estimate because there are always extras. There was the summer when she baked a few batches for the local farmer’s market (20 loaves a week for a summer). There are loaves baked special for holidays and parties, weeks when there was extra company at the table, sandwiches for threshing crews, and so on. We are just going to say Mama has made 8,000 loaves of bread. I don’t think it is a stretch at all, maybe even 9,000. If you are reading this in a year - then 10,000 loaves!

Pa comes from the old-style family where his mother baked eight loaves a week to feed her five children, most of which were bottomless boys. Like Mama, my grandma too set thousands of loaves of bread to rise. Grandma made her bread in an old-fashioned bread pail; a metal bucket secured to the table top with a clamp of sorts. Inside was a dough hook that was operated with a hand crank. The stress of turning eight loaves a week in that pail actually tore it apart over time. The pail affectionally showed many repairs. Grandma measured out her recipe by eyeing up a bit of this and a whole lot of that. Somehow it always turned out. My Pa and my uncles still eat bread with all their meals. Pa has been known to ask for bread even when we are eating pizza. I don’t think it would be entirely out of the question for Pa to have a slice of bread on the side with a sandwich. In the years before he worked at home, he easily put away a half a loaf a day between his tin lunchbox, sandwiches, and the supper table. 

Mama makes her bread much the same way as Grandma. Pulling her recipe from her memory bank, she dumps ingredients in a vintage-style bread pail, only sort-of measuring. Both her pail and mine have matching tin lids that rest over the tops while the dough rises. When Pa worked in a tool and die shop, he brought her a bread machine. It couldn’t make bread fast enough to keep up, so Mama went back to the tried and true way of making four loaves at a time in the pail. Just the way she has taught me.

To make the best bread in the world, you start with the wet ingredients. Warm water, yeast, oil. Then you add the dry stuff and cup after cup of flour. Last that metal lid slips on and it sets to rise while Mama tends to chores, makes lunch, tends the garden, etc. When it is ready, a quick crank of the handle pulls the risen dough away from the sides of the pail and the ball of dough can be lifted out while still on the dough hook. 

The bread pail rising.

Mama’s floured work table features a wooden top made by Pa. Its honey color disappears and reappears under Mama’s hands as she kneads the mass of bread dough. She neatly divides it into four pieces, kneads each one a bit, and rolls it flat with her fist. The bubbles make a crackling sound as she squeezes them out. The flat-ish piece of dough is then neatly rolled into a round log. Mama places it in the pan and with a quick flick of the wrist, rolls it over so the top and sides are all coated with a bit of oil for a truly fantastic crust. The loaf pans, or sometimes free formed loaves, sit for a second rise under a crisp flour sack towel. Then into the oven they go!

The best part of making bread is when it comes out of the oven. Especially on the best fall and winter nights. Pa and I love when the Bread Day routine happens in the evening. Hot-out-of-the-oven bread with melted butter and drizzled with honey is the best bedtime snack. We enjoy it with a cup of sleepy tea by the fire with a great book. I sometimes call it a farmer’s doughnut. 

Today I mix bread in a pail too, a gift from my Mama. I turn the crank with help from my kids. I add the ingredients, I put the lid on, I knead (mine never snaps quite like Mama’s), I shape, I bake, and I especially enjoy a slice of hot out of the oven bread smothered with butter and honey. How truly delicious!