One bread

Bread civilization. Nations are not different from each other as bread preferences. Who is what bread and how it eats - studied The New Times

The deputy commander of the tank battalion, where the author was urgent, Major Lukin was transferred to us after the service in Mongolia. A thin, always sniffing nose, the major loved to go into a soldier's smoke under dusty birches (usually after his visits, an emergency was declared, and the birch were washed with water and soap, and the pieces of bark were painted with a too retreating brush with white water -based paint) and talk with the personnel “for life”. He loved when he was asked questions. In particular, about Mongolia and the Mongols. It usually answered: “The country is beautiful. Mongols are strong, strong, decisive. But - pure animals! Milk and meat, meat and milk! They don't eat bread! "

Now we can say with confidence that the major used the word “animals” to emphasize the fundamental cultural and of course gastronomic differences between the people of nomads and the Russian people living on Earth and from it. Lukin was in his own kind, a wide, wide man, albeit a bitter drunkard, and this word did not want to offend the Mongols at all. In addition, the major, most likely, did not know that in the laws of Genghis Khan, and now revered in Mongolia, most of all, under fear of death, was forbidden to cultivate the land. Sow wheat, in particular. Therefore, the Mongols wore boots with their noses specially bent up - so as not to defile, so that even by accident, stumbling, not to plow the Great Steppe with a boot. “We will bring them from our bakery. As a gift. They still don't eat! " - Major concluded with sadness, extinguished his smelly (smoked “Red Army”) cigarette, quitting “freely!” He left, and then we sighed every time: yes, no matter how good any dishes, but it is completely impossible without bread! ..

Black and white

We can say that there are peoples (and even civilizations) “bread” and those who have bread either on the second roles, or is generally absent in the diet. The Mongols, apparently, can be placed on the extreme point of the scale. At the other pole, those who are connected with bread tightly: for example, living in the Mediterranean countries, in Europe, North and Central America and, of course, in Russia. However, everything is far from unambiguous inside the “bread civilization”, everything is far from simple. The differences between those who prefer fresh bread or yeast bread, white bread (wheat) or black bread (rye) are no less deep than between the farmers and all the same nomads.

Yes, it is unlikely to have something tastier than the huge wheat cakes baked by the Druzs of North Galilee. Their aroma is indescribable, their taste is divine. Especially if they are sprinkled with olive oil, sprinkled with a local spice called Zuttar, finely chopped herbs and pieces of acute sheep cheese are wrapped in them. But a person who is accustomed to real black Russian bread is even tired of such a yummy very soon. He will want to cut off a good break from the loaf, sprinkle it with salt and ... And if you need to sniff a slaughtered glass of a forty -degree? Well, how to sniff her with a friendly cake? Some kind of nonsense! But a crust - you can. Moreover, the aroma of this crust will allow you not to bite away from it, but, putting it, pour it on the second ...

We will leave, however, alcohol allusions and note that these “intra -shaped” contradictions are reflected in historical events and in literature. So, during one of the many Russian -Turkish wars, part of the Russian troops has already entered the territory of the Crimean Khanate, and the convoys with provisions, in particular with rye flour, as often happens, were very behind. The need to bake bread from local wheat flour led to the fact that not only the morale of the army fell: illness began. The situation was so critical that the adjutant who commanded the Field Marshal, Minikh, Christopher German, German von Manstein, noted in his diary: “The warriors bring the warriors to the weakness that they are accustomed to acidic bread, and then they were forced to eat fresh wheat wheat.”

On the other hand, Pushkin, in “Traveling to Arzrum”, describes a meeting with captured Turks, who, as his main request, addressed to the major dignitary Alexander Sergeyevich, put forward a wish to replace them with Russian rye bread with the usual wheat. Having favorably listening to the request of the prisoners, Pushkin went on and a few days later made a very characteristic record: “In the Armenian village built in the mountains on the banks of the river, instead of lunch I ate a damned churek, Armenian bread, baked in half with ash, about which Turkish captives in the Daryal gorge straged. I would give it expensive for a piece of Russian black bread, which was so disgusting to them. ”

The great Russian poet, most likely, was focused on a cake, which was baked in the lower part of the tandoor, a large clay furnace in the form of a pot -bellied jug. It is there that more ash accumulates, which is shed in bread in the form of different sizes of black crystals. Pushkin had to demand a churek from the upper part, clean and significantly softer. But already for these two examples, the whole gap between the bread is visible to rye and other breads.

The split is at home

So Jonathan Swift ironized over the nickels and stupids. But if you look at the differences between the adherents of wheat fresh bread and rye sour, then it will no longer be up to irony. According to many historians, it was rye bread that played extremely important in Russia's life, we can say - a fundamental role. After all, the division of the Christian church into Western and Eastern, into Catholicism and Orthodoxy occurred largely due to the dispute which bread should be consumed during the Eucharist, the Holy Communion. In the middle of the XI century, kvassy or acidic bread was consumed in Byzantium and in Rus', and fresh, or her suspects, in Western Europe. The Byzantine church hierarchs were simply forced to oppose the ban on the pope of Leo IX to use acidic bread, since otherwise the union with Russia would collapse. Even then, sour bread was perceived in Rus' as a symbol of national identity. It was completely impossible to abandon him.

Of course, there are significantly more pragmatic, and even conspiracy theories that explain the essence, haste

The differences, of course, are not in the form of a split, have been preserved to this day, even in those areas of bakery, where, it would seem, all components are the same. William Pokhletkin pointed out that in this case, the differences between bread civilizations are built as a result of certain technologies for baking bread, and as an example the Russian sitnik led, from which our traditional “white” and French baguette gradually “developed”. Sitnik is always thin, soft, not even a crust with a crust, but the baguette, like French bread, is always thick, dense, crispy. This, as said in one film, explains a lot. What can we say about Russian Kalach! Unless to recall the old joke about the merchant Filippov, caused by the Moscow General General, who put Filippov under the nose pulled out of Kalach Tarakan. "What is this?" The governor general asked menacingly. "Raisins, Your Excellency!" - Filippov grabbed from the hand of General Governor Tarakan, ate immediately, jumped out of the palace and rushed into his bakery to fall asleep in the dough for the Kalach of the real raisins. Fortunately, such an innovation did not vaccinate, but the kalachs remained ...

Sweet bread of captivity

... Major Lukin was as deputy for the technical part. Actually, in his care there were all these iron multi -ton boxes on caterpillars and guns. But this did not prevent the major from organizing, in addition to the subsidiary farm that had already existed in the battalion with cows and pigs, and his bakery. Frankly, the author never came across the bread tastier than that black that, by the way, baked an international big -tops: a Korean from Uzbekistan, a gloomy Latvian and a “western” by the surname of the throat.

However, knowledgeable people claim that in general the most delicious bread has always been baked and baked in army and prison bakeries. But this, as publicists like to write, is already a completely different story ...

The first “bread plant” should not be considered modern cereals, rye and wheat, but an oak. The gastric “bread”, as well as “bread” from legumes, which was made in Greece to the Dorian invasion, probably the first bread. Actually, initially, if you leave aside the long history of the cultivation of wild cereals, people ate raw grains. Then, having adapted two stones, a man created something like a millstone and learned to do flour. Having kneaded the crushed grain with water, he opened a new type of food - porridge, which became the "pramatier" of bread. Perhaps the accidental hit of porridge on the stones of the hearth led to the opening of one of the very first ways to bake bread

Sour bread appeared in Egypt 4-5 thousand years ago, and the role of beer is important here: both of these products are the result of fermentation, which is caused by yeast. The art of preparing sour dough and baking bread from Egypt from it passed to the ancient Jews and Phoenicians, and from them, after the victory of the Jews over the Philistines, that is, the Greekamidorians, to the Greeks in Europe and the Romans. The word “bread” itself has an ancient Greek origin: the Greeks baked their bread in special pots called “clibanos”. From here came the Gothic Hlyfs. In the Staronamet language, the word “hunes” was preserved, very reminiscent of our “bread” or Estonian “lab”.

Herring with bread in Latvian

Salt herring, 4 pieces of white bread, 15 g of butter, onion, 2 apples, 2 tbsp. l. 3 percent vinegar, 2 eggs, salt, ground pepper. Peel the herring, remove the bones, withstand in milk for 8-10 hours, cut into small pieces, add chopped apples and steep eggs, soaked on bread, rings of onions, pepper and vinegar to taste. Put in a form lubricated with butter, bake. Serve hot, with boiled potatoes.

Onion soup "Poor Lisa"

Bread is rye 100 g, water 350 g, onions are 130 g, margarine 50 g, salt. Cut rye bread with small cubes, slightly fry in a pan with margarine. Cut onions, fry, add fried bread cubes, fry together until golden crust, transfer everything to the pan, drain fat from the pan into it, pour boiling water and cook for 10 minutes.