A Blessing Of Bread: The many rich traditions of Jewish bread baking around the world

by Maggie Glezer

A Blessing of Bread grew out of an interview that author Maggie Glezer conducted with a rabbi's wife about the symbolism of challah, that bakery staple deeply rooted in Jewish traditions. Captivated by the myriad meanings in every twist of the bread's braid, she spent years doing research and recipe testing. The result is this landmark guide to the amazing variety of Jewish breads found in communities all over the world, from Guatemala to Russia and everywhere in between.

In it are more than 60 impeccably tested recipes both old and new, for challah and other Sabbath and holiday loaves and an exploration of the rich symbolism of their hisory, the rituals governing their baking and eating, and the sacred texts and commentaries from which these rituals derive.

There are best-ever recipes for babka and honey cake, bagels, matzot, crackers, and everyday breads such as Jewish-deli rye. It is also loaded with totally unexpected breads that thrill, such as anise, almond, and sesame-studded Moroccan Purim bread; the spiced and leaf-wrapped Ehtiopian bereketei (whole wheat Sabbath bread); and the pitalike nooni honegi of the Bukharan Jews. Oral histories, ancient legends, shtetl folktales, aphorisms, and proverbs delight and inspire, and stories of grandmothers and great-grandmothers that recall life as it once was complete this volume, the most in-depth and wide-ranging one ever published on the subject.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Jewish, Cooking, Judaism, Judaica

336 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 2004

Reviews

[Hana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This turned me--one a timorous baker--into a bread maker. The best thing is Glezer's very, very precise instructions. Once I had learned to weigh ingredients instead of using a measuring cup I was on my way.

I recommend this highly for anyone who thinks they can't make bread. That's exactly what I used to think and it's not true. It's only that these days most folks never get instruction in the art and never get a sense of all the things that can go wrong and right with living lump of bread dough! Glezer takes much of the potential for mistakes out of the process with meticulous guidance, helpful tips, and very detailed, incredibly precise recipes. I had this feeling that I was going back to my organic chemistry classes but that was just the sort of teaching I needed to build my skill and confidence. I also loved the stories.

All Glezer's recipes are kosher, which means that many of the bread recipes omit milk or other dairy products. Jewish law says meat and milk cannot be combined in a single meal. Since bread serves a sacramental function at festive meals and the rabbis worried about mix-ups, Jewish bread is routinely designed to be served with a meat meal and therefore is dairy-free. It's no impediment to great bread making and even if you are not Jewish or don't keep kosher you will learn much that can be applied to artisan breads that include dairy.

While I've always [sort of] known how to make standard Western European challah, I had no idea about the rich transcultural tradition surrounding breads from the lands that were once part of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires--and those farther afield on the ancient trade routes through Asia and the Far East. What Joy!!! Digging deep into history Glezer unearths a treasure trove of food history. From Greece to Syria, from Morocco to Ethiopia, and then on to points East--Persia, India and Uzbekistan.

My favorite from the Eastern sections are the variations on the seriously addictive spiced cracker-ring theme. In the classic Sephardi tradition roscas are made of a rich risen-batter flavored with cloves, sugar, cinnamon and nuts. It's great but I prefer the Syrian version called ka'ake that omits the sugar and adds anise seeds and sometimes mahlab (sour cherry) instead of the cloves and cinnamon. I like to add cumin seeds as well but that's not in her recipe.

My fellow Jewish friends may wonder why I'm reading this book only a few weeks before Passover when risen bread and variations on the theme are prohibited. What can I say? A certain anticipatory craving sets in. But more seriously I was curious about the various traditions for making matzot around the Jewish world. Some of my French/North African Jewish friends have family traditions for making their own matzot even during the eight days of Pesach and, sure enough, she has a recipe for whole wheat Iraqi matzot but not a discussion about chol ha moed baking traditions.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book, with excellent recipes and vignettes about Jewish bread-making all over the world. Plus, useful sayings and philosophy: "Di libeh iz zis, mit broit iz zi besser" (Love is sweet, but with bread it's better).

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the most wonderful history of bread, particularly that made for the Sabbath. How fascinating to learn how the braided challah came into being.

In the kitchen, bread baking tends to be one of the first arts to go because buying bread is so easy. For those of us interested in preserving and continuing traditional food-ways, there is a special urgency to record, learn, and pass on what still remains.
[...]
After a number of interviews, I noticed a pattern: Not a single visit went by without the mention of a family matriarch, invariably a grandmother. [...] Almost everyone I interviewed bakes by eye and by feel (having learned when very young to do this from other family members), and you will also—I hope—once you've familiarized yourself with the recipes. None of these recipes is meant to be a static monument, impervious to change. All have evolved with the bakers, from humble village loaves leavened with a starter and baked in wood-bred ovens to lighter breads leavened with instant yeast and baked in electric ovens.
[...]
I can't tell you how many times my interviewees were shocked when I wanted to weigh an ingredient, time a procedure, or take the measure of a strip of dough. They all thought I was being unnecessarily precise about the process. "Just add a little more," they would say to me, or, even better, "Do it as you like." [Introduction, p.11,12,13]

Mercifully, Maggie Glezer took the time to spell things out for those of us who don't have those knowledgeable family members from all over the world to guide us. She walks us through what equipment works best, explains various ingredients - particularly flour and yeast, mixing (by hand or machine), best oven temperatures, shaping techniques, placement of the breads in the oven, and serving, with the note that "Tearing the bread [...] by hand is very common, because of the desire not to let a knife, an instrument of war, touch bread, the bounty of peace".

Included with the detailed (but not too detailed) instructions are lovely and/or poignant vignettes about the people who have given her the recipes.

The other really wonderful thing about the recipes is that there are at least three versions for most of them: a commercially yeasted one to make one or two loaves, another calling for five pounds of flour because it is "the most variable measure [and] has been weighed for you (measuring flour accurately is one of the biggest problems for home bakers)", and a sourdough version - even with dough that has added sugar and oil!

(Surprisingly, it was "only in the mid to late 1800s in Poland was sugar added to the bread to make it sweet"! Before that, the bread was simply flour, water, salt, and possibly a leavener.)

Archaeologist Professor Shmuel Avitsur describes three types of breads found in Israel around the nineteenth century B.C.E.: a very round or oval bread, a flatbread with very thick edges, and a hollow bread. All three of these breads are still being made. [...] The bread with the thick edges is still commonly found in Central Asia, where it is called noon, in Persian. [The Genesis of Challah, p.21]
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Sweet sourdough breads are delicious and well worth the time (which is mainly waiting time) if you are a sourdough baker. The sourdough adds a subtle tang to my challah, and the crumb has a moister, creamier texture that keeps even longer than the yeasted version. While it's true that challah or, for that matter, all bread was at one time sourdough (the Hebrew word for leaven, chametz, means "sour"), challahs have definitely gotten sweeter and richer since the introduction of commercial yeast. To convert such recipes back to 100 percent sourdough, the sugar has to be cut back in order for the dough to rise in a reasonable length of time (sugar that is more than 12 percent of the flour weight inhibits fermentation), so this version will taste slightly less sweet than the yeasted one, a deficit completely overridden by the rich complexity of the sourdough. [Breads from the Ashkenazi Tradition | My Sourdough Challah, p.97]
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Looking like giant bialys, this is the daily bread of Uzbekistan and the Bukharan Jews. It is very similar to bread found throughout Central Asia: On the cusp between flat and raised bread, the loaf is fair thick at the edges but very thin and crisp in the center. [...] To make the breads, the baker stretches each proofed pita dough into a flattened circle, stamps the center with a bread stamp—a sort of wide pestle with blunt nails protruding from the base—places it on a peel with a pillow at its end, and mostens the underside with a sprinkling of water. The baker then presses the bread against the oven wall, where it sticks, thanks to the water, and bakes to a deep crunchy gold. [Nooni Honegi Bukharan Homestyle Bread from Yelizaveta Aminova', p. 253]

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(Please read about the Uzbek-style bread we made with help from Maggie Glezer's Nooni Honegi Homestyle Bread from Yelizaveta Aminova recipe, and challah braiding: blog from OUR kitchen | Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! (BBB February 2021) and six strand braiding

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection. I made challah every Friday for my children and continued that tradition for my catering company & restaurant for at least 20 years. I am now looking forward to more experimenting in my retirement.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of interesting cultural info and lots of good baking instructions.