There is something wholesome in the act of baking bread, something otherworldly. I don’t know if it’s the yeast coming to life in the warm water, or the repetitive act of kneading, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a more spiritual moment then when I’m covered to my elbows in flour.
Bread was a central part of life in my childhood home. I lived across the street from my Great Grandmother until she passed away when I was 12. I don’t remember if she was still working when I was a toddler, but it seems to me that she was always retired. Many times when I got home from school, I’d come through the door to the sound of the phone ringing. Nana would have known that Mom was working that day and she would call to say that she had cooked for the lot of us, and that I was to tell Mom and Dad not to worry about supper. The meals were never fancy but they were always filling. It was the bread that was the highlight. I remember Nana’s rolls being tall, as if she had baked them in a particularly deep tin. When I remember her bread, it is always Cracked Wheat, though I know she more often made Brown and White. If you asked her though, her bread was a poor second to Jean’s. Jean is my Grandmother.
You see, Nana was a full time teacher, and worked while her family was growing up. Jean, or Grammy as she will henceforth be named, was her eldest daughter. Nana had planning and marking to take care of when she came home. Her three girls were all responsible for chores and keeping the household from a young age, a task they’re still more adept at than most people I know.
Grammy’s bread is white. She makes whole wheat and brown, but her crowning glory is her white bread. Her rolls are the doubled, heart shaped kind that you bake in muffin tins, though I remember a time when like her mother she baked pan rolls. Her’s were shorter though, perhaps half as tall.
One day while living in Ottawa , I was feeling particularly useless. I decided that I was going to bake bread. I had been to Grandmother’s place before for a lesson in the art, but I’d never practiced it on my own. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a recipe. A quick call home, and I had the expert on the line. Over the next couple of hours and a half dozen phone calls, Grammy walked me through the process. The results were quite good but being a fool I didn’t properly store it, and by morning my bread was solid as a rock. The end product aside, the experience was a fulfilling one. I always assumed that it was just the joy of chatting with the old girl so many times in one day while I was far away from home. I vowed to call more often, and make more bread. I did neither.
It would be nearly 9 years before I tried bread again. As my father would say, I’d “put many miles on the power train” and was now living in Nunavut, teaching high school. That summer while I prepared to go North, I asked Grammy if she’d give me a refresher course. She thought it was a lovely idea, and said we should do it Monday morning.
I walked through her door at a quarter to nine. I heard her quick, short steps approaching the kitchen. She stopped and looked at me accusingly with her hands held high by her side, reset her glasses on her nose and answered my “good morning” with “and what time do you set bread in your house?” I was late for my lesson.
Things improved rapidly. Grammy doesn’t measure anything with a standard measure. Her cup was a smallish coffee mug. Her tablespoon, a soup spoon. Her teaspoon was the palm of her hand. She translated measures roughly for me, and walked me through the process like she was walking a child through their first lesson in multiplication. When we set the bread to rise, we sat and had a cup of tea, and talked about a lot of things. About her life, and mine, people long gone though greatly missed. She told stories about people I didn’t know, or had only vaguely heard about in family mythology. I discussed my latest move, my latest shot at love and my growing endearment with settling down.
When the second cup of tea was done, the kneading began. Grandmother has her father’s strength in her hands, and after watching her knead I know how she’s kept it. After a few flips and rolls, she pushed the dough my way, and refined my technique. We listened for the telltale squeak that said the dough was ready for the pan. While it raised again, we chatted again. A while later, our golden loaves were cooling on the cupboard. It had been a good morning’s work.
Since my lesson, I’ve made 3 more attempts at bread, each with varying final results. One thing, though, is constant: each time, I find myself emotionally overwhelmed. The smell of the yeast working is more moving than any whiff of incense, the kneading more hypnotic than any kneeling or prayer. This is a spiritual moment, a quasi-religious awakening.
It would be easy to say that this is just me making a connection to the women who I’ve mentioned through an act that I associate so closely with them, but it goes beyond that. When I’m working the dough, I can feel my Aunt Anna working with me, Anna whose rolls are more highly prized by my father than gifts and gadgets. I can see my Grandmother McKibbon working her bread in her house by the river, a house that was torn down years before I was born. Clarence Crowley, a colleague of my father’s, mixes his dough as we talk of planting and seeds. My Great Grandmother Martha works with me, humming Stephen Foster’s complete repertoire. Mary Anne Lawlor, our old family friend, smiles and chats in her gentle way. Beyond those I know, from kitchens around the world and across the ages comes the gentle thump and squeak of kneading.
frankenough 