Z is for Bread.

Silly me! In my post of last week “A is for Bread”, in which I mentioned my burgeoning alphabetical list of bread recipes, I said that the letter ‘Z’ was a problem. It is not. There is Zwieback, of course – and I have even discussed it in a previous post. I can only blame the fact that I am working with limited resources on a temporary computer until the hard drive on my fancy new notebook is fixed and I can face the laborious job of restoring all my files.

Today I offer you some more ideas about the other bookend to my alphabetical list. Zweiback is simply ‘twice-cooked’bread, or bread toasted and dried out in an oven. It was considered to be ‘healthy’(I hate that word in relation to food. Unhealthy is no food) in the past, and perhaps still is amongst those sad folk who sneer at hot fresh bread lathered with lots of butter ……

From an early twentieth century vegetarian cook book - Food and Cookery by H.S. Anderson, (California 1917) - I give you two ways to dry out your bread, and a recipe for using it in a nutty alternative to meat loaf.


Cut Zwieback.
Cut bread in slices about three-fourths of an inch thick, put in shallow baking-pan in single layers, and put in a very slow oven or a warming oven for three hours or more, until thoroughly dried. Then put into a moderate oven, and allow it to brown to a golden colour through entire thickness. Baker’s bread makes very good zwieback.


Pulled Zwieback.
Take fresh bread, break carefully, pulling it into pieces instead of using pressure. The pieces should be about the size of a medium apple. Proceed to dry and bake same as for cut zwieback.

Walnut Roast.
¼ cup chopped walnuts.
1 cup zwieback crumbs.
1 cup milk.
2 teaspoons grated onion.
1 egg.
Pinch of sage.
Salt to taste.
Beat the egg, add the milk, and pour over the crumbs, let soak twenty minutes. Mix all ingredients, put in oiled brick-tin and bake until brown and cooked through. Egg may be left out if desired.

Quotation for the Day.

The odds of going into a store for a loaf of bread and coming out with ONLY a loaf of bread are three billion to one.
Erma Bombeck.