The bread dough would roll onto the counter with a soft and squishy plop. A whisper of flour would dust up around it and settle back in a soft cloud.
Then the kneading would begin: a quarter turn and a push, a quarter turn and a push. After the ideal number of repetitions, which she knew innately, the dough went back into a bowl, its floury bottom was buttered and it was set to rise.
Eventually two fragrant loaves would be turned out on the counter and smeared with another dollop of butter, the better to keep their crusts shiny and moist.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
Nana made bread at least once a week and she was a great believer in the ability of fresh, simple ingredients to make things taste good.
Butter was a staple in Nana’s kitchen, which is why her bread and especially her butter techniques came to mind as I read about the Aug. 13 death of famed chef, author and cooking show host Julia Child. According to newspaper tributes published upon Child’s death at age 91, butter was one of her favourite ingredients too.
But beyond butter and its associated delights, it was Child’s philosophies about food that plucked the chords of memory about Nana, a woman of the same era.
Child believed the enjoyment of good food depended on moderation, and she advocated small portions of particularly rich dishes. As a specialist in French cuisine, she knew all about rich dishes.
The famous chef had this to say about food preparation: “The meals don’t have to be anything elaborate, just something simple to share with your family.”
Simple meals with simple, fresh ingredients, and simply shared? What a concept.
Was it only that particular era that produced women with such elegantly basic attitudes toward food? It seems so, what with today’s obsessions about weight loss and flavour-of-the-month fad diets.
Low-carb diets have been a boon to the meat sectors in recent years, and the change couldn’t have come at a better time, as it turned out. But some of that popularity came at the expense of other food groups, which created other problems.
Food fads and weight-loss diets come and go. Meals and ingredients deemed unhealthy yesterday reappear tomorrow on the list of healthful foodstuffs.
Curiously unchanged is the wisdom behind the food philosophy of Julia Child, and of my grandmother and yours.
Eat in moderation. To lose weight, eat smaller portions. Exercise. And if you want to use butter on the bread or the pancakes or the popcorn, go right ahead.
