This is Episode Six of Modernist BreadCrumbs: ‘Balls & Sticks,’ on shapes, scoring, and semiotics.
Balls & sticks. You’ll hear this idiom over and over in this episode, as if we’re talking in circles. The two shapes’ repetitive figures have been a constant in bread’s identity over time, but why?
Modernist BreadCrumbs is a special collaborative podcast series with Heritage Radio Network and Modernist Cuisine, that takes a fresh look at one of the oldest staples of the human diet—bread. Although it may seem simple, bread is much more complex than you think.
From the microbes that power fermentation to the economics of growing grain, there’s a story behind every loaf. Each episode will reveal those stories and more, beginning with bread’s surprising and often complicated past, from the perspective of people who are passionate about bread, and shaping its future.
In this episode, we're exploring the intersection of bread and art, and the idea of bread as art. From Renaissance paintings of The Last Supper (complete with pretzels) and still lifes from the Dutch Golden Age to scoring videos on Instagram—the aesthetics of bread, and all that it symbolizes, have long been on display.We'll look for bread in ...
It's a season of celebration, and no matter what you're celebrating, that usually means baking. Sweet or savory, traditional or cutting-edge, more people fire up their ovens during the holiday season than any other time of the year. In this episode, we're exploring holiday breads and the traditions that bring us back to them, year after ...
We're going down the rabbit hole of breads with holes! From the New York vs Montreal bagel debate—and the power of water and lye—to the twists and turns of pretzel history, focusing on the presence of negative space is a positive thing.We'll explore the power of lye with Harold McGee, check out NYC bagel culture with Dianna Daoheung of Black ...
We're hopping in our Winne-bread-go and hitting the road—to explore the state of regional breads in America! We'll travel to New Orleans for a Po'boy, New England for Anadama, and to Appalachia for Salt Rising Bread, all in search of an answer to the question, "Is there a regional bread culture in the United States?"Featured in this episode ...
Flatbreads and quick breads may seem like strange oven-fellows, but hear us out. In the venn diagram of bread baking, they both fall in the overlap of 'speed' and 'differently leavened.' So we're firing up the tonir, the tandoor, the griddle, the bastible, the wok, and even a rock, to travel around the world through bread.We'll chat ...
Bread has been paired with other fermentations for millennia—with beer in Russian literature, wine in religious texts, and cheese in sandwiches around the world every day. What is it about bread that makes it a natural ally to these fermented products? Well, bread itself is a fermented product. In this episode, we'll look at co-fermentations ...
Industrialization, and the semi-dwarf wheat developed during the Green Revolution, created a disconnect between farming and flour. But now, consumers are rejecting these commodities and rediscovering the foods, flavors, and farmers around us.This episode is about the growing movement to bring back heritage grains and strengthen local and ...
Welcome to Season Two of Modernist BreadCrumbs!It seems only natural—and appropriately poetic—to start this season talking about starters. They're the inception of the loaf, the first step. You don't need a starter to make bread, but the story of cultivating yeast from the environment around us—whether you call it "starter," "culture," ...
