YOU'RE MISSING SOMETHING IF YOU HAVEN’T TRIED INDIAN FRYBREAD

For those of you who've never eaten frybread along with a meal or as a dessert topped with honey or maple syrup, you've missed a real treat. And if you're not from the U.S. Southwest, where it's a cultural icon, perhaps you don't even know what Indian frybread is. Basically, frybread is an all-purpose flat bread that's served like biscuits in the East and South or tortillas in the Mexican American parts of the US. But frybread has its own tradition, rooted in Native American history, and is something so easy to prepare and so tasty that you might find yourself hooked on it. Now, that's not such a bad idea at all, especially, if calorie-counting is not on your agenda.


Frybread is a comfort food delight and so good for campfire evenings.

The history of this simple bread is both interesting and sad. It's widespread adoption among Native Americans happened in the mid 19th century. That's when the US government's policy of decimating and displacing tribes left the survivors in areas of the country that didn't have the rich natural resources that had been their heritage for thousands of years.

The U.S. government provided rations of flour, salt and lard and almost nothing else to those that made it through the struggles of forced marches and other travails to end up in reservations. Having so few food choices,  Native American women used what was available, and that's how frybread became a staple food. It was originally baked wrapped around a stick over a campfire and only later became a skillet-cooked food. While the Navajos get most of the credit for popularizing frybread, this kind of flatbread was a common bread on many reservations throughout the U.S. Today, frybread has become a symbol of pan-Indian resilience and, as a cultural unity food, takes table-top honors at Indian powwows. But you don't have to be a powwow-goer to learn to make and enjoy this delicious flatbread.

Today, frybread doesn't usually keep people alive but is a savory addition to meals that gets raves when heaped with combinations of meat, beans, veggies and cheese. Some people call these variations: "Indian tacos." It also makes a wonderful dessert when topped with honey, maple syrup, or jam. Covered with powdered sugar, they taste a lot like cake doughnuts. And it's a great treat for young and old when the dough is wrapped on a stick and cooked over the campfire. Whatever it's uses, it's one of our U.S. ethnic and comfort foods that everyone should try.

And, for those who shy away from the use of lard, vegetable oils and butter make acceptable substitutes. Other potential ingredients include cornmeal, oats and an egg added to the wheat flour. And, however it's made or what it's purpose, frybread is a totally hands-on experience, with kneading as an essential part of the process. Here's a usual recipe.

How to make frybread (recipe is for approximately 10 saucer-sized, flatbread patties).

Ingredients
4 cups of unbleached white flour – OR -- 2 cups of white flour and 2 cups of whole wheat flour)
1 Tbs. baking powder
¾ - 1 tsp. salt
1 ½ cups warm water (2 Tbs. powdered milk can be added)
¾ -1 cup shortening, warmed to room temperature
Extra flour for the bread board and for hands

Directions
- Put flour in bowl, add dry ingredients. Stir.
- Mix in warm water to form dough.
- Cover hands in flour.
- Knead dough by hand until soft but not sticky. Cover with a cloth and let stand for 10-15 minutes.
- Shape dough into balls about 2 inches across then flatten them into rounds by patting and stretching the dough. Can also be rolled out on a board.
- Melt a quarter of a cup of shortening in frying pan. When the grease is hot, put just one or two dough patties - at a time - in pan. Fry one side till golden brown, then turn and fry the other. Continue frying, adding a bit more grease as needed, until all the patties are cooked.
- Patties may be drained briefly on a paper towel. Best if served right away.

Steamed brown bread, a recipe for your survival kitchen

Are you prepared as you can be for a calamity? Natural and man-made disasters often take us by surprise. So, it's a good idea to think about disaster survival preparation long before there are signs of major problems. Here are things that you’ll need for your survival kitchen along with recommendations for some simple foods that will keep your family full and healthy.

Power supply
Usually in emergency situations, the lights go out and your refrigerator, freezer, and electric oven become useless. Now, some of you have a gas oven, and that’s good because you’ll still be able to cook. Just be sure to have some matches in a waterproof container. And, if you have some fuel, an outdoor grill also can help you out – to be used outside the house, of course.

Staples
If there is no food left in the supermarkets or the conditions in the street are so bad that no one in the right mind would make a grocery run, then you’ll need to have a well stocked emergency pantry. Most vegetables, fruits and eggs are edible for a week or so when stored in a cool and dark place. Salt, spices, soda, baking powder, and dried egg substitutes will add a lot of other choices to your rather limited food selection.

Canned and dried foods are lifesavers in these situations. You’ll want to have cans of veggies, soups, canned or dried milk, stews, juices, dried fruits, cooking oil, Parmesan cheese, and a variety of crackers. Your pantry should have at least a 2-week supply of food items that can be stored without refrigeration. Purchase  foods for your survival pantry in multiples whenever you see them on sale, and store them in a cool, dry place.  Be sure to write down the dates that you bought the cans and boxes and rotate the older foods to the front so that can be used along with items in your regular grocery list.

Water
Water is necessary, not only for drinking but also for cooking and cleanup. So you’ll need a good supply of safe bottled water for drinking, cooking, and brushing your teeth. That means you’ll need a gallon of water per day per person in your household. A large garbage can of water or two can be kept in a bathroom for pets and hand and body cleanup. Surprisingly enough, you can wash your entire body and rinse with just a gallon of water, bar soap, and a washcloth. Not so much fun as showering but workable when it’s necessary.

Other items
Besides food and water, your emergency pantry should include hand soap, dish washing liquid, batteries, a radio, pet food, flashlights, candles, matches, and extras for prescription medicines. It’s also good to have a first aid kit and extra clothes and blankets in waterproof bags. You’ll want to have tanks of propane gas, a wood supply or carbon bricks for cooking although you do better to store these items outside the house or in the garage. Start charging your cell phone completely every day, and that way you’ll be sure to have well charged batteries in the event of an emergency. It’s also useful to fill up your car’s gas tank whenever it gets to half full rather than when it’s running on empty.

Recipes for the survival kitchen
For your emergency kitchen, you’ll need recipes based on foods that you have stored on your shelves. Since the power may be out and non-electric fuel will have to be conserved, you’ll want to make meals as quickly as possible. Oven-baked recipes take too long on a barbecue grill, unless you have a surplus of fuel and a tight-fitting cover on your grill. You should choose quick cooking/fuel saving recipes. Look for easy recipes that can be adapted for use with whatever canned or dried foods you have in your emergency pantry.

Now, with that rather extended introduction, we come to today’s topic: foods for the survival kitchen. Three foods, eaten together as a meal, will keep you healthy and full. All three or their ingredients can be part of your survival kitchen pantry, and I recommend them because they provide a good amount of calories, proteins and vitamins. They are:

Bread can be steam cooked in coffee cans

Boston brown bread, also known as steamed brown bread
Canned coleslaw
Baked beans (with or without meat).

I'm writing about the steamed bread today and saving the canned coleslaw for another post. The third recipe I wrote about some months ago but didn't comment on it possibly being a canned item. I’ll tell you how to do that at a later date.

Yes, (some) brown bread comes in a can
Boston-brown bread is a type of dark, somewhat sweet bread that was (and, in some areas, still is) popular in New England and other parts of the East. Traditionally, it is cooked by steam in a can - or any cylindrical pan - and contains a mixture of flours: cornmeal, whole wheat, and rye, and molasses or maple syrup. Most often it’s a quick bread leavened with baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). Raisins or other dried fruits may be added. The resulting bread is slightly moist like muffins or banana bread. It’s also known as 'hobo bread”, since it can be baked in a coffee can in a few hours over the coals of a fire.

While some people may be turned off by this rather usual looking and cake-like bread, my childhood memories elevate it to the status of comfort food. My Mom, rest her soul, lived through the Great Depression and WW II when fresh bread supplies and fuel often were hard to find. Given that shortages were common, many people kept a few cans of brown bread on the shelf. It was a commercial product that was found at almost any of the larger grocery stores.

Growing up in the late forties and early fifties, I remember that Mom would occasionally buy the canned brown bread and put it in our pantry. At that time, we didn’t have a car, and the nearest grocery store was some five blocks away. While Dad worked, Mom walked with my sister and me the five blocks and pulled a little red wagon to carry the food back home. Sometimes, my sister towed the wagon for a bit, but in general, it was Mom who had to keep the two of us in line while she piloted the red wagon back home with one or two bags of groceries. Needless to say, Mom couldn’t venture a trip to the store when it was raining hard or snowing. Thus, she knew to keep a certain amount of canned foods on hand. Those foods included, among many other things, Boston brown bread.

Now, as I remember, when we ate the canned bread with a meal, it accompanied a plate of corn beef hash or spam and a bowl of soup beans or baked beans. But, sometimes we just opened the can for a snack and ate it with cream cheese or jelly. My sister and I were delighted by the novelty of eating little round pieces of bread. It was usually eaten straight from the can but also could be pan warmed or toasted.

While, today, eating bread from a can may not be so common, the product itself (B&M canned bread) still can be found or ordered on line. It’s a product made up of only natural ingredients, and it’s certainly more wholesome than regular store-bought bread that contains several different chemicals additives. On the other hand, given its sweetness, you probably won’t want to use this kind of bread for sandwiches.

So, now you know that you can buy canned bread as a commercial product with just a little searching. But, maybe, you would like to make it yourself as I learned to do. It’s a fun and easy recipe to make, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. It can even be home-canned and stored for up to a year on your shelves as one of your survival kitchen staples.

Recipe for steamed brown bread
Ingredients
2 cups buttermilk or sour milk
3/4 cup molasses or corn syrup - None of the high-fructose stuff, please.
1 cup white flour
1 cup whole-wheat or rye flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons of butter or shortening - Not hydrogenated, please.
Raisins, other dried fruit or nuts (optional)

Preparation
Take out 3 or 4 clean, empty cans. The cans can be coffee tins or large veggie or juice cans. Grease the cans heavily, so the baked bread will slide out.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the milk and molasses. Stir in the flours, cornmeal, baking soda and salt. Mix it well by hand for about a minute. Stir in the dried fruit and nuts, if desired. Pour the dough into the cans, leaving space at the top - the dough rises considerably.

Place the filled cans on a rack in a large canning pot, filled with boiling water up to the rack. Cover the pot with a lid and keep the water boiling. Add water as necessary and steam the bread for 2 to 3 hours. It’s done when a knife stuck deep into the bread comes out clean.

When the bread is done, lift the cans out of the pot and let the bread cool. Then invert the cans and strike the bottom sharply with your hand. The loaves should fall out easily. Slice and serve the bread warm with butter or cream cheese. The fresh bread should be eaten the same day or the day after. It can also be kept for up to 10 days in the refrigerator. It makes a great gift for family and friends. Just tell them to keep it refrigerated and to eat it right away.

Storage
Freshly prepared, this kind of bread can safely be sealed in sterilized pint-sized jars and stored in a cool, dry place in the same way as other home canned foods. All home canned goods stored on pantry shelves should be checked every month or so to make sure the jar seals are unbroken. If you worry about the safety of your canned bread, the jars can be stored in the freezer.

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IRON SKILLET-BAKED BISCUITS

Being a thrifty sort of grandma, I take great pride in having useful things that last for a very long time. I also enjoy a challenge, and when I don’t have the necessary equipment to do something, I like to make do with what’s on hand. One of my dearest treasures is my cast iron skillet. It’s been one of my favorite things for years, and I’ve learned to cook and bake a lot of foods in it.


An iron skillet is a valuable tool in the kitchen

 Even though I don’t have any of the family hierloom cookware, my grandmothers, my mother and my aunts all had and used cast iron skillets that lasted them a lifetime. I remember that my Mom had two of them when we were growing up. One was about six inches in diameter, perfect for frying eggs. The other was an all-purpose 12-inch skillet. Dad claimed that the 6-inch pan was his very own and guarded it closely from any use other than egg frying. I learned to use it at a young age. I had to get a bit older to deal with the 12 inch skillet since it weighed so much.

The one I have now is 12 inches wide with a flat bottom. It’s the standard midnight black one and weighs what feels like 8 pounds. I can do a lot with my cast iron skillet: fry eggs, pancakes, fish or chicken, bake biscuits and cornbread, sautee vegetables and roast chiles. I don’t like to have around a bunch of different pots and pans, and using the same skillet works for me. While it may be heavy, it’s a wonder that heats evenly, is permanently nonstick, and works well on the stove top and in the oven. It sometimes even graces the table - on top an iron trivet, of course. It’s the one that I swear by and have carried around with me for many years. Still, I sometimes wish that I had Mom’s old skillet, the same size. I guess my sister has it.

Getting started with iron cookware
You can find new iron skillets at big box places and department stores. The dutch oven is a larger pot with its own iron lid that - with a bit of practice - can successfully bake almost anything, including cakes. Old iron pans can sometimes be found in attics and at garage sales and flea markets. Until just a few years ago, new iron cookware had to be seasoned before use. Luckily pre-seasoned pans are now available. 

If your iron pan hasn’t been seasoned, it’s a fairly easy process. First rinse with hot water and dry completely. Do not use soap. Coat the entire piece of cookware, inside and out, with vegetable oil or lard. Cook it in an oven at 450-500 degrees for about 15 minutes - until it quits smoking. Take it out, pour out any excess oil and turn it upside down in the oven at 250 degrees for two hours. Let cool. It's seasoned when it's smooth to the touch.

After it’s seasoned, don’t wash it with soap. To clean it, just stick it in water and scrub. If you need to do more because something has burned on it, rub salt around the bottom with paper towels. The rinse with water. To dry it, put it on a stove and heat it until all the water is burned off, otherwise the cookware will rust. If, after using it for a while, you see some rust, rub it with salt and paper towels, then add a teaspoon of oil to the bottom and heat up the pan for a few minutes. Then let the skillet cool. Rub off any excess oil with paper towels.

So, that’s the topic of this post - making good biscuits in a cast iron skillet. The stove top baked biscuits will be a bit denser than their oven cooked cousins but every bit as tasty. My recipe is pretty much a standard one. I enjoy biscuits made this way, and other people regularly praise them. I like to eat them hot out of the pan with butter and jam, and they're delicious with any kind of gravy.

Now, I suppose that you’re using a gas stove – that’s what I use - or an electric stove (may be more difficult but totally possible) to do the skillet, stove top baking. You can also cook this way over on a wood stove top, BBQ grill, or over a camp fire. But, for this last, be sure to put out the fire and do the baking only with the hot coals. Don’t use just bottom heat. Pile the coals around the pan all the way to the top, whenever possible.

Recipe for iron skillet biscuits
Ingredients
Two cups of whole wheat or unbleached white flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 stick of butter (8 tablespoons) or other shortening. (No hydrogenated oils, please. See "Cooking Oil" post below.)
3/4 cup of buttermilk, yogurt or whole evaporated milk

Method
Preheat your oven, if you're using one,  to 425 degrees F. Or try stove top baking in which case you heat up the skillet (or dutch oven) to a medium hot heat. Stove top baking uses just a fraction of the energy needed to heat up a large oven. Try it. It's an earth-friendly effort.

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Cut the stick of butter into pieces (or pour in the oil) and work it into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or your hands until the mixture has a lot of pea-sized crumbs. Add the liquid and mix everything together. It will be a bit loose and sticky. Pour dough out on a floured surface and knead it for about a minute. You can sprinkle some more flour on the surface if the dough is too sticky.

Roll the dough to about a ¾-inch thickness. Cut into small circles, using a round cutter or a small glass or cup. If you're doing oven baking, put the biscuits in the skillet - no grease necessary -  and bake them for about 15 minutes at 425 degrees. For a crispier, golden biscuit, spoon a bit of hot grease over the tops while they bake. Makes abut 10 small biscuits.


If you're doing stove top baking, take a circular aluminum baking tin of about the size of the skillet (or dutch oven). Just turn the tin upside down and grease the top surface lightly and set the biscuits on top. (Some cooks say to poke holes in the tin - holey side down, smoother biscuit side up - but I have never done that.) The biscuits should lie fairly close together so they rise up and not out. Carefully, using baking mits, put the tin and uncooked biscuits in the hot skillet. Cover the skillet with a good fitting lid. The biscuits should have room to rise and for heat to circulate around them. Cook the biscuits on one side for about 5 to 7 minutes. Then flip them over like pancakes and cover them again to cook for about another 5 minutes. Some people have really good luck (or talent) and can stove top bake their biscuits perfectly in the skillet without even turning them over. Experiment a bit with this and see what works for you.

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BREAD PUDDING, AN APPALACHIAN AND SOUTHERN DESSERT THAT YOU'RE SURE TO ENJOY.

Like nearly everyone else, my husband and I sometimes crave a dessert. Of course, we feel that we should refuse to go along with that urge – at least most of the time. As we all know, excess sugar in the diet brings on problems like: weight gain, skin and hair problems, and even more serious conditions such as diabetes and lowered resistance to infections. But, from time-to-time, something a little sweet is next to irresistible. And since almost no one wants to totally abstain from desserts, what I recommend is a healthy change toward the not-so-sweet side of things. That's where bread pudding comes in.

Bread pudding is a tasty use for stale bread that has been in style for centuries. Along with bread pudding, cooks also used dry bread to make stuffing, thickeners and edible serving containers. Today, bread pudding may not be as common as it once was, but it’s never gone out of style in Appalachian and Southern states and also continues to be popular in Mexico, Great Britain, Belgium and France. For a lot of us, it's still one of our favorite comfort foods, helping us remember a time in the past when dessert was usually made from common kitchen ingredients and wastefulness was considered a terrible wrong.

In our home, we eat a lot of fruit, flavored yogurt, nuts, and granola, and that usually satisfies our dessert cravings. But when a dessert is definitely called for, usually for a holiday celebration or a special dinner with family or friends, I like to make something that's a fitting following to a good meal. Often that "something" is bread pudding. So, if you're also looking for  a dessert that's not too sweet, bread pudding is great dish that sure to please. Besides that, it gives you a use for stale bread, a situation that often occurs near the end of the week. (I usually just chop it up into coarse crumbs and freeze it. Later I make bread pudding or add it to my "almost- meatless meat-loaf". See related post below.)

The sweet alternative for leftover bread is to make old-fashioned bread pudding - not too sugary and plump with raisins with a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg, served up cold or warm out of the oven. And it can be made from any type of bread (whole wheat, white, multigrain, etc.) Homemade bread usually goes fast, but if you have any leftover, it makes really great tasting bread pudding. And, your dessert will look particularly festive if you serve it up in glass custard cups with a bit of syrup or whipped cream and a sprinkling of cinnamon on top.

Whatever reason you have for making and serving bread pudding, you can be sure it's a truly satisfying and eco-friendly treat.

Old-fashion bread pudding recipe

Here's a version of old fashioned bread pudding that’s as close as I can get to what my mother used to make.

Ingredients

2 cups of heated milk
4 cups of dry bread, torn in pieces

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2-cup brown sugar or honey
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/3 cup seeded raisins or chopped dates
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg

Instructions

- Put bread and raisins in large bowl. Heat milk and 1/4 cup melted butter in a saucepan. Pour warm mixture over bread; let stand 10 minutes.

- Stir in all remaining pudding ingredients. Pour into a greased casserole pan.

- Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Notes

Added to the basic recipe, you can include any of the following: fresh fruit cut up, minced nuts, a sweet liquor added in place of all or part of the milk, or a topping of honey, maple syrup, or confectioners sugar. If you’re going to put something sugary on top of your bread pudding, cut back some on the brown sugar in pudding.

If your bread pudding tends to dry out in the oven,  place a bowl of water on another shelf while the pudding bakes. This keeps delicate foods, like this bread pudding, from burning, drying out, or curdling. Check the water level during the baking time and add more hot water as necessary.

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HOW CONSUMERISM (STILL) TRIES TO FOOL US

What is consumerism?

From Wikipedia, we have this definition: “Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts.” And that’s the same mass consumption lifestyle that the majority in the U.S. practices or, practiced in the second half of the 20th century.

The consumerist system offers us promises: Having more and "better" things will bring us happiness and others will regard us as successful - maybe even envy us. So, the gist of it is: If we buy things – even those things that we don’t mostly need - like designer clothes and furniture, shiny new cars, expensive beverages and foods, etc., we will  feel happy and fulfilled. It's a hard sell. And who was out there was telling us that the happiest people are those who buy more and better? It was our old “friends” - our own commercial, mercantile society aided by thousands of ads from local sources, the mass media, and sometimes even “preached” from the pulpits.

Experts report that the average U.S. person faces three thousands ads each day. Most of the ads come from the usual three to four hours of TV watching, but add to that, signs and billboards, the faces of our buildings, and even the sides of our city buses, all urging us to buy, buy, buy….

Unfortunately, we – you and I - once went along with some of those ideas and got into a lot of trouble doing so, including debts, staying in jobs we didn’t like, marriage break-ups, foreclosures, etc. We found that each time we reached out to grasp just a little more, what we wanted always receded just a bit further out of reach. And, if we began to doubt in these illusions, we could always befuddle ourselves into a kind of psychological conformity with a never-ending supply of addictions, including smoking, drinking, legal and illegal substances, overeating, video gaming, and other vices - these things converting us into another sort of "consumers" .

The powerful even created an ideology of consumerism to scare us into conformity. They told us that continued economic growth (including job creation, in its moment) would eventually benefit everyone, and that no constraints to growth would have to be considered, including our natural resources. With more opportunities and greater technology, we would be able to overcome any momentary limitations, and that corporate rights to profits (otherwise known as a pro-business climate) supersede human rights, labor rights, and environmental protections. Somehow, private enterprise would find ways to overcome all our technological and resource problems. (And, even if it didn't turn out that way, we could still be entertained by the super-rich in reality shows. Afterall, it was our grandchildren and other generations to come who could pay the consequences. Right?) Remember how G Bush told us that, in the face of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, his patriotic duty was to wage an international war and ours was to continue shopping – at all costs!

But what about our “real” needs?

Of course, all of us have real needs and they include agricultural products and some essential consumer goods and services. And throughout most of human history, the consuming rich were few and "regular" people fought hard to fulfill even their basic needs. But at the turn of the 20th century, what with growth of US and European industrialism, came the "conspicuous consumption" of a whole class of rich people along with the emergence of some other major-league consumers, called the middle class. After WWII the American (Consumers) Dream came to include almost everyone. There was even the “War On Poverty”, a plan for the entire population to have their essential needs met - that and even more. The backing for the economic system that would end poverty, once and for all, was based on ever more complex technology and consumerism. That seemed to be our overriding hope, and we held on to it until the past few years when globalization, challenges to the middle class, unemployment and increased poverty pointed to a new societal phase where many people would again have to confront long-term hardship and scarcity. Also, by that time, we had become sadly aware of man-created shortages of water, clean air, fertile land, timber, etc. and the need to deal with immense quantities of trash on land and in the oceans.

How can we do to reduce the effects of consumerism?

In the face of the political and corporate interests that exercise so much power, we ask ourselves: "What can I do?" Too many people tell us that the answer is a resigned: “Nothing at all”. But that can’t be so. Individuals and groups can always take steps to change their own behavior with the hope that others will follow, sooner or later. First of all, we have to consider are our attitudes toward consumerism. If we aren’t too sick or too confused by substance abuse and other addictions, we should be able to deal with our reality. In the face of every single potential purchase, we need to ask ourselves, "Do we really need this? What do we already have that would serve the same purpose?" We need to see our lives as complete without a lot of material add-ons. We don’t need to “have” the best, quickest, or the fanciest. When we stop seeing the the things in this world and each other as commodities, we can then start using our hearts and minds for more enlightened purposes.

- Change your spending habits

Live simply so that others – people, plants, and animals, and generations to come - may have a chance to live. That means acquiring fewer material things and consuming less energy. There are books, magazines, Internet sources, and classes that can help us discover better spending habits. Follow the three-R’s: Reuse, Repurpose and Recycle. Buy products with less processing, less packaging, and that don’t hurt the environment.  Share your careful spending efforts with your family and neighbors. Don't be fooled into buying a bunch of things that are supposed to be "green" - many of them are just a trendier sort of consumerism.

- Organize and protest

Boycott services and products that harm our environment, society and people. Use your mouth, your letters, and your feet to march, when necessary, to protest wrongdoing. Tell others that you’re not being fooled again by a consumerist system based on unlimited financial gain, oppressive corporate law, and damage to the earth. Get together with others and talk about ways to be supportive of each others' efforts to make change.  Join political and charitable organizations that work for social harmony, resource conservation and a sustainable future. Oftentimes, the best place to start is in your local community. One project would be to make and distribute a phone directory of local small businesses that use and sell products based on quality and sustainability.

- Walk, bicycle or take public transportation

Cut back on your dependence on the car and on gasoline. Make use of public transportation whenever you can. There are a lot of short trips that could be made walking or bicycling. Staying in buildings, cars, and buses keeps us from contact with the natural world. Lower your carbon footprint by getting more exercise and experiencing nature whenever time and weather permit.

- Bake bread and eat simple, nourishing meals

Bake your own bread, using wholegrain flour (organic is best), and cook nourishing vegetarian or mostly vegetarian meals. It's a way of slowing down and celebrating life. When you can’t home-bake, then buy bread at a local bakery. When you eat out, choose 100% locally owned restaurants - not national operatives - that specialize in good, nourishing food at a reasonable price.

- Work less

In recent decades, the working poor and even better off groups, spend more time on the job. Most working people are overworked and exhausted. We don't need more things!  And we don't need to pay down all that debt we got ourselves into so fast. (Employers say they're waiting for the economy "uptick" to hire. We can wait for it, too, and pay the rest of our debts whenever it comes.) We've also got to save some money the best way we can for worse times that may appear down the road. Beyond that, we need to spend more time for our families and to do things more in line with creating a sustainable future. And every day, we should take some time for spiritual tranquility, meditation and prayer. This can be our motto: Let's work less, spend less, and be more alive, aware, and caring.

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Preparing vegetarian meals.

YOU MIGHT LEARN TO LIKE SALT-RISING BREAD.

Why did (do) people make this stinky bread?
Salt-rising bread, or salt-risen bread, is an old-fashioned, crusty white bread that develops its unusual flavor from the fermentation of grain. No yeast or other type of leavening is necessary. A particular feature of this bread is that it rises with salt-tolerant bacteria. The starter (rising) is exposed to the air until bacteria fall into it, causing fermentation and letting off a stinky yoghurt or cheese-smelling gas. The bread is baked like other regular, yeast-raised bread, but the preparation time is much longer due to its fermentation process. The finished product has a finer texture than regular bread, and the s-r odor is just perceptable.

Thought to be European of origin, s-r bread was common in United States from the early 1800s. It was immensely popular in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylania, New York (and probably elsewhere). During both the 18th and 19th centuries, in those states, s-r bread was the most popular kind of breads along with (soda-leavened) cornbread and bisquets.

The most likely reason for its early popularity was that people lived in rather isolated communities and yeast was often in short supply and expensive. (Baking powder, a factory-made product that was not produced in the U.S. until 1850.) In the late 19th century, what with increasing industrialization and better transportation systems, s-r became only one choice among many great breads. Since the process was not easy and the odor strong,  in more recent years, almost all home-baked bread is made with yeast. S-r bread continues to be made in local, specialty bakeries, but today it's all but a lost art.

A family story about s-r bread
You may be thinking, if it stinks a lot and takes almost a full day to prepare, why would anyone want to continue with this tradition? Well, according to those who like it, it’s worth all the labor and even more. My Dad and my grandmother (we called her Mawmaw) swore that it was the most delicious of all breads. I remember that Dad considered it a real "find" when he ran into it, and, without any help, could eat half a loaf, served hot with butter. Even so, I don’t think that Mawmaw made it very often, and our usual source of s-r bread was a local bakery.

As far as my other childhood memories go, my Mom was not as thrilled as Dad to eat s-r bread and didn’t make it herself. On the other hand, I never noticed her refusing it. I liked it pretty well and joined in eating it, although sometimes I held my nose. I consulted with my sister on this subject and she remembered it being eaten in our home but not much else about it. She said she didn’t remember the taste at all and wondered if it ever got past her nose. (Children, of course, have a much better sense of sense of smell than their elders.)

By the way, back then, I was told, and am almost sure it’s true, that this bread should be eaten the same day it’s made because it tends to get rock-hard by the second day. (You can use hard bread to make bread cubes or crumbs.) On the other hand, I don’t ever remember a time when we didn’t eat it all, greedily, within a few hours of its appearance in our home.

If you’re willing to do some work, try making s-r bread
Here's your chance to carry on a long-standing tradition by learning to make s-r bread. To get you started, I’m passing on a recipe for this valuable piece of our heritage. So, this post is for all of you convinced, from-scratch cooks, like GrandmaS, who are eager to try out recipes for good food that don’t call for a lot of industrial products. I hope you’ll join me making s-r bread, and that its unique aroma and excellent taste will continue in the kitchens of future generations.

This kind of bread takes dedication and a lot of patience, taking from start to finish: eight or more hours overnight for the starter and from four to six hours (or more) for dough preparation the next day. I’m sorry to say I can’t duplicate Mawmaw's recipe for s-r bread. The fact is she never consulted recipes when she baked any kind of bread, at least I never saw her do it. If she left notes behind about her s-r bread, I never heard of any. So, I’ll tell you how I make sr-bread. It’s a combination of recipes from those that I found in several different cookbooks and cooking blogs.

Recipe for SALT RISING BREAD
To get the rising (starter) going, put 3 tablespoonfuls of sifted, corn meal in a large glass or crockery bowl. Pour a cup of boiling water over the cornmeal and stir it. Quickly add a cup of cold water so that the liquid is hot to the touch but not scalding. Then add ½ teaspoonful of salt, a pinch of soda, and a teaspoon of sugar. You may place a sliced white potato in the cornmeal water. Some cooks can get their rising to happen with only the potato and don’t need to use any soda at all. The potato, if used, is removed in the morning.

Set the mixture with a cloth on top on the back of the stove or in the oven with the pilot light lit, or anywhere else that will be warm all night – between 80 and 110 degrees. (I use my rice cooker – no lid - on the warm setting with a small plate under the bowl.) In the morning and after at least 8 hours, check to make sure the rising is frothy and has the unique s-r odor. (It should have no particular color. If blue or red strings appear, spoiling has occurred and the rising must be thrown out). Don't make more rising than you think you'll use the next day because, refrigerated or not, it doesn't keep.

In another big bowl, pour the rising and add enough lukewarm milk or water to make a full 2 cups. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/3 cup of shortening, and 7 cups of flour. Knead everything together. Keep the mixture in a warm place until it has again doubled. Push it down, divide the dough in half (2 loaves), and place each half in a rectangular baking tin. Allow the dough to rise in the tins until doubled. Then bake at 350 F for about 50 minutes or until cooked through with a golden crust. Serve hot with butter or margarine and jam.

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