You could say I grew up on slices of wonder. Factory-baked bread doled out and rolled in on dollies daily to city and country markets all over the land, unloaded from clean trucks by precise delivery drivers, each loaf packaged and twist-tied in plastic sleeves stacked in neat rows of fortification. Some printed with iconic red, yellow and blue circles, a brand-name symbol of nutrition for every growing body.
That famous ad campaign was actually inspired by a jam-packed international balloon race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway about 100 years ago. Wonder Bread was a wonder for its 12 essential vitamins and was the new way of doing business in the 20th century for families, particularly moms everywhere who were beginning to cherish any time-saving attribute when it came to domestic life.
Not much has changed since then. Families still eat bread. Time is still a commodity. And now, more than ever, feeding a family and managing time is of the utmost importance with so many having to manage in new ways their daily plates with kids still “going to school” and many parents still “going to work” while staying at home as we look forward to a coronavirus vaccine that has been in the works this year.
Today, you can still buy Wonder Bread. The famous design in bubbles of primary colors continues to tout the age-old promise to parents, assuring them that their children can grow big and strong and happy with every bite. Of course, now you’re required to wear a mask into the grocery store to pick up a loaf.
But I’m less focused on the restrictions of pandemics for the moment, and more interested in what this moment in time has to offer to us when it comes to exploring new ways to find the freedom needed to nurture a soul.
God knows that is up to you and only you. I’ve said as much to my kids and grandkids from day one. Three-year-old Scarlett said recently, “I can’t do it.” Of course, I told her what I’ve told all of my children: “You can do it.” And I want her to know I believe in her.
So when I conjure up my childhood peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, it begins by opening a mineral-enriched loaf, my little fingers bypassing the heel and gingerly choosing from the deck of freshness two slices to place on a plate. I want Scarlett to make her own even if it means it’s a little messy in the beginning. The butter knife pulled from a drawer, the peanut butter taken down from a cabinet and the grape jelly retrieved from the fridge. That bread, borne out of a mass-produced batch from a site unseen, moving ever closer to the ideals of modern living, ushered in one slice at a time over the last century and into this, is a plentiful autonomy for moms and kids alike.
I don’t recall my mother ever making bread — perhaps I was too young — but the dumplings she’d drop onto a bubbling stew were heavenly and the nearest thing to it. And many women, like my mom, were part of the growing workforce of women, moms specifically relieved to leave the labor-intensive endeavor to the many hands of the baking factories.
It wasn’t unusual for me to pedal the two miles into the center of town whenever my mom tasked me with the grown-up job of buying a loaf at the A&P to bring back home. This was the bread I knew and loved. And breaking bread with family and friends is essential to life.
When our kids were young, I tasted homemade bread for the first time. Steve’s Aunt Tina had baked it in her own oven with her own hands. It was yeasty and dense and had to be sliced with a serrated bread knife. My mouth waters just thinking about buttering a slice. The idea of baking bread at home was a mysterious industry to me. What went into the process? And was it something I could try?
Soon, I was in my own kitchen thumbing through my grandmother’s cookbook. There was this thing called yeast. You could buy it in packets or jars or even make it yourself from flour and water. The idea of making bread became a challenge and a call. A faraway family lore came to the fore as I remembered stories of my dad’s father, who was a baker of bread.
Tina’s recipe had awakened a memory. Up until then, bread was a necessary item slid off a grocer’s shelf, rung up at a register and loaded into the car to be stored in a bread box on a kitchen counter until needed. But the idea of making bread in one’s own home under the power of one’s own hands? It was … intriguing.
I watched as this small woman rolled the bread on a floured countertop. How she’d shape and cup the dough into a soft ball after kneading and folding it in upon itself, repeating the process, until placing it into a bowl under a cloth. She did so with care. With love. And 45 minutes later, the dough would rise, pushing the cloth beneath it upward, forming a lovely draped dome. Again, she’d push the dough down again, the second time shaping the dough into a ball, waiting 10 minutes for it to miraculously rise again. She’d cross to the oven and preheat to 375 degrees, returning with purpose to grease the bread pans and sprinkle them with a layer of flour to encourage easy release, the powdery residue tapped freely onto the counter for the next step.
Finally, Tina would divide the dough and roll it out one last time before folding and shaping the long loaves to fit snugly into their pans before they were placed into the ready oven. The aromas would fill the kitchen minutes later as the loaves turned golden-brown.
There was an artful timing to it all, as each bread-making step seemed to fit like a puzzle piece into the larger picture of her daily routines as a wife, a mother, a friend and a librarian.
For me it was a gee-whiz moment in life. How did this woman I came to admire and love manage to do so many good things and be so good at it? Perhaps the secret was in the process itself. It’s not so much the end result, it’s the journey along the way.
It’s cool and quick to take a jet from coast to coast, and sometimes you have to or even want to, but the experience is rich with texture when you drive across that same country and talk to the people and walk the land with your own two feet. It becomes a meaningful part of you, and you become a meaningful part of it.
I encourage Scarlett to punch the dough down and watch it rise again. We’ve been making a lot of homemade bread this year. It feels good to go through the process together. Even necessary. And it tastes better than ever. At least that’s the message I get when my grandkids nod their heads happily after taking their first buttery bite.
You might be thinking, it’s just bread, and you’d be right. And it’s bread you’ve made for someone, bread you’ve made together. And that is good bread indeed.
Bonnie J. Toomey teaches at Plymouth State University and writes about writing, learning and life in the 21st century. You can follow Parent Forward on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bonniejtoomey. Learn more at https://ift.tt/29SgW82 or visit bonniejtoomey.com.
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Some folks love making bread — and it’s no Wonder - Sentinel & Enterprise
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