the Romans did it, and you can too!

[bedlamsbard]

There is nothing that irritates me more, when it comes to recipes, than people asking if it's possible to make bread or pasta or something of the sort (cinnamon rolls, bagels, that sort of thing) if they don't have a KitchenAid, a food processor, or a bread machine. (That one shows up less often.)

How do you think we have been making bread for the thousands of years before the KitchenAid mixer was invented? YOU KNEAD IT. BY HAND. (Well, you start with a wooden spoon, and then, once all the ingredients are incorporated, you knead it by hand. I haven't made pasta from scratch, but I believe the process is similar.)

The ancient Romans did it and you can too! So did people in the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, and colonists in the Americas! If the pioneers could make bread on the Oregon Trail, then you, a modern independant human (presumably) can make bread in the comfort of your own kitchen! AND YES WITHOUT A STAND MIXER.

(And I actually prefer doing it by hand as opposed to a stand mixer (although I usually do the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day version because I don't have the space in my dorm kitchen), because you have more control over the dough and you develop a much better feel for it. Plus, communing with the ancestors and feeling very accomplished and so on, but that's just me.)

(Western-oriented because I'm not familiar with the food traditions in other countries, but I'm pretty sure the point stands whatever your tradition is.)

Erk. This is why I try not to read the comments on food blogs. (Although I end up doing so anyway, sometimes there are good tips in there.)

Comments

[snacky]

Cheoreg! Time consuming but amazingly delicious and so worth it.

Yay, that's available on Kindle! Up next on my list!

[bedlamsbard]

Oooh, that looks really interesting. What are those, sesame seeds on top?

[snacky]

Yes, black and white sesame seeds. The rolls themselves can be either braided or twisted in knot.

This is a batch we made last year:



That's as many as we could fit in the bowl (which is the bowl the dough is made in), the rest are in bags waiting to be given away on Easter. Note the time - that's PM. It takes about 12 hours on Good Friday to do the whole thing (make the dough, let it rise, punch it down, let it rise again, make the buns, let THEM rise, brush them with egg wash and sprinkle with the seeds, then bake, cool and pack).

They're traditionally made to break the Lenten fast on Easter morning. My Armenian grandmother always made them by hand, and taught my mother (not Armenian, but married to my Armenian father) to make them that way. When I was a kid, me and my mother and my aunt and cousins used to make them every year in my grandmother's kitchen. It was an assembly line!

And probably more than you wanted to know, but om nom nom, so good.

[bedlamsbard]

NOM.

That is so cool! My family, alas, has no awesome food traditions.