Bread Continued
Lee Welch
Lee Welch responds to Lynne Chatterton’s article on "The Miracle of Bread" that appeared in the April Newsletter.
I enjoyed the piece on bread in the Research Centre’s newsletter, and it reminded me of when I moved to Ethiopia to live back in the early 90s. I hadn’t made bread before but I did remember a family folk tale of an uncle who used to drive the dough around to the park on sunny winter days. He would read a book while the dough rested in the warmth of the car and then drive home to bake his loaves!
Now he lived in the Adelaide hills. I wasn’t suffering from the cold where I was, several thousand feet above sea level on the very edge of the plain that flowed to the Red Sea with the mountains at our backs. I had my secret weapons: Larousse Gastronomique and a subscription to Vogue Entertaining. I really learnt about seasonal cooking, adapting ingredients and going with the flow. We only saw a supermarket twice a year.
It took a lot of practice and some really awful results before I found my way to a recipe that I could rely on. Given the high population of expats lurking within the dozens of aid agencies in the area, the recipe soon travelled. I have a photo on my fridge of some bread rolls made by a friend using the recipe in Addis Ababa, and it has also travelled through most of Asia with many of the aid workers who were in Jijiga with us. The biggest challenge after perfecting the recipe was picking the time to make the dough. Unless I chose a day when my partner was guaranteed to be in the field for a few hours, I stood to lose the lot after the first rise because he would grab it by the handful and make johnny cakes for morning tea!
The area around Jijiga is predominantly Somali but the management at that time was the role of the royal tribe of Ethiopia, the Amharas. The Amharic traditional bread is an enormous flat bread called injera, made from a grain called teff and fermented for a couple of days. To say it is an acquired taste is an understatement. The first time I saw the grey, spongy results I mistook it for a plate warmer! By contrast, Somali bread is made from millet and sorghum, resulting in a nutty-flavoured small pancake. The batter for these is poured onto the hot griddle with a flowing, circular motion using a cup with a hole in the bottom.
I haven’t made bread much since returning to Australia, though I do have to trot it out every time I have visitors from our time in Ethiopia. I am spoilt for choice with the Adelaide Central Market as my second home, but I agree there’s nothing quite so comforting as making your own. Lynne’s article has inspired me to dig out my dog-eared, fat-splattered notes and see if I can still match the picture on the fridge!
|
