Short Stack

Bread and her-story

In my world of Americana a short stack refers to a small pile of pancakes, fluffy American style of course, as opposed to the gargantuan stacks normally served without a blink by a waitress (invariably a woman so I use that old fashioned term knowingly and with nostalgic fondness) with muscled arms that could floor a trucker if necessary.  Instead of such violence she carries stacks of pancakes on heavy plates, slathered in maple syrup, with crispy bacon and bouncing blueberries (aerosol cream optional).

Anyway, today short stack means this Substack (see what I did there?) post will be a short one.  And it’s not about pancakes, although they will come another day.  It’s about bread.  I was making some this morning and as I was kneading the dough I looked at my hands and had one of those wow moments, as though thrown into a perspective tunnel, all spiralling 60s style. 

All the hands over all the millennia, maybe even as far back as thirty thousand years, doing exactly what I was doing right then, right there in my kitchen in West Wales.  Mixing flour, water, yeast and salt; from me back to my mother, the resemblance between our hands a blink between our generations.  And before her both our foremother’s hands were pushing and stretching the dough, making it yield, shaping it, letting it rise, baking it, and then sharing it.  It is what we do, what we have always done.

There is no where you can look right now without being made aware of the wars happening in this world, our modern, smart, current world.  My husband teaches history online (after his day job as NHS super man) and he has covered many subjects, starting with American history as a response to ‘how the hell could a rotting tangerine ever have been elected as president?’.  While not everything he has taught and discussed with his participants has been about war there has always been been war in the mix because, essentially, that is history. He is doing Irish history right now - I rest my case.

History (his-story) is stories from the patriarchy, men recording certain situations and facts as they remember them or which side of the ‘story’ they are on. The why’s of violence being a necessary evil, all about protecting the women and children (for which read ‘property’) from the marauding hoards (for which read other men wanting what the first lot have got and justifying it by claiming it’s rightly fully theirs anyway because god) cherry picking bits of their ‘good books’, being in charge, waving their swords (real and euphemistic), and all that stupidity and testosterone being reason for doing things the way they have always been done, whether right or wrong, it’s tradition so suck it up, here’s your sword my son, get back in the kitchen daughter.

So what if we chose to look at ‘her story’, what would we see?  And what would we learn from what we would see? The history (and no, I will not be calling herstory) of the world from women’s perspective.  All the different eras, different places that weren’t even countries before men started slicing up plots of land, different cultures.  How did we get to here?

Obviously it wouldn’t change where we are now, and also looking at the women currently with power of any kind I am not sure as a sex we are any better than men once the power drug is in the veins.  But wouldn’t it be interesting?  And could we, perhaps, learn some lessons from the matriarchy who have kept the world going, fed their families, strangers, even armies with their bread? And then perhaps run the world properly, from a bakery? Answers on a postcard please.

I found this website after posting - not hugely comprehensive but an interesting start to what I feel will become a bit of thing for me…

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Bread Rolls

Makes about 10 rolls

500g good bread flour (in this instance white)

1 ½ tsp dried yeast

1 ½ tsp salt

300ml warm water

• Mix all ingredients with your hands into a loose dough.

• Put the dough onto a floured surface and pull and stretch and knead and roll (excellent physical therapy) until it has a more or less smooth appearance, roll into a ball and return to the bowl and cover with a clean t-towel.

• Leave in warmish place until the dough has doubled in in size.

• Knock it back (a good bash to get the air out) and once more put it on to a floured surface and knead away merrily until the dough is silky and smooth.

• Cut the dough in equal sizes, make your roll shapes by taking each piece and tucking the edges under all around until you have a lovely smooth dome.

• Put them into a greased and floured baking tray with room to breathe and expand. You can flatten them a bit now with your knuckles if you like them a more flying saucer than baseball shaped.

• You can glaze them with a bit of milk if you like.

• Bake for about 20-30 mins in a hot oven until a lovely golden colour.

• Tap base and if it sounds hollow they are done.  If you’re not sure flip them over and bake for another 10 mins to colour the underside.  That should definitely do it.

You could also simply make this into a loaf (bake longer) - I am making rolls because my husband likes them and I am going away for a few days, so he gets rolls as compensation for my absence.  Good trade I reckon.

If you’d like a more precise and less slap dash version of this recipe, plus an even easier way to make bread at home (no kneading at all!) let me know and I will put it on my list for a future post.

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If you are interested in joining the History Group it runs on Thursday evenings 7-9pm - message me for more info.

And apologies for misleading advertising - this post isn’t as short as I thought it would be.