Polish Bread

[rdywenur]

All this talk of Polish food made me stop at the Polish Deli up the street. I went to buy some rye bread (made in Canada) and got some Polish ham and a piece of some type of cheescake. The ham was delicious and so was the cheesecake (it had little pieces of citron in it) and on the dry side not like NY Style Cheesecake which is very creamy. The bread was very disappointing. It was to me what is an American version of good bread or should I say Canadian in this case. I think the only place to get real good rye bread is in good ole Poland where they know how to do it right.

[piwo]

I think the only place to get real good rye bread is in good ole Poland where they know how to do it right.

I'm thinking it's the ingredients, not the bakers. All the breads I enjoyed in the Czech Republic and Poland were delicious and the knowledge to bake good bread is known everywhere. I had a friend at work who lived on Long Island, NY his entire life. His neighbor owned a Pizzeria and was quite successful and well known. When he retired, he moved to Florida, and opened a small pizzeria there, just for something to do. Though he had all his dry ingredients shipped in from the same supplier in NY, his oven was different, and of course, tap THE WATER was so bad with chemicals, and the bottled variety so void of anything, that his pizza never tasted the same.

I'm thinking that's why the breads are so good: combination of different grains then available here, and or course, the water. It's funny, for lunch one day while in Warszawa shopping, we stopped at a street side restaurant and my daughter had pizza. She said it was the best pizza she had eaten, because the crust was "wonderful".

[rdywenur]

Piwo, I can tell from the minute I see the texture. Not sure if water or ingredients will do that. I have heard of water affecting other things and it not coming out well. Pizza is a differnt story altogether. Do you like thin, crust, thick crust, crisp crust, oiled crust. And then depends what region. Sicilian pizza, Napalitan etc.

[justjohn]

There is a bakery in Waterbury, CT that bakes some of the best rye bread ever made. I believe it is called the Brooklyn Bakery.

The bread comes in 1 lb and 5 lb loaves.

Hussar and I have talked about this on our other forum.

If you travel thru New Britain, CT you can get the bread at most Polish markets there.

[gardenmoma]

You might have suspected I couldn't keep out of this one... ;D

I sincerely believe it is a combination of recipe, ingredients, and water...and of course the baker, oven and its temperature.

Some anecdotal evidence

My father, now deceased, use to always say I made the best coffee at my house Well, at that time we had spring-fed water coming into the house, and being a coffee snob I've always bought the best coffee I can afford.

He also would not, for years, eat my home-made bread He always said he remembered his mother, during the American depression of the 1930s, baking bread almost every day from any flour she could get her hands on...there were six "boys" and some wives all living in that same house. So, until into his old age, I always bought plain old grocery store white bread when he was visiting.

My mother was not a bread baker. My first attempts at making bread were miserable. Fortunately, my husband was willing to eat almost everything I produced...even the loaf that made exactly one long sandwich.

IMHO, store brand flour (IE inexpensive) no way compares with quality ground flour. Flour also varies from region to region in the way it is ground and sometimes blended. This depending upon what regional likes are.

This is not an advert...but for all my baking I use only flour bought from a VT cooperative (King Arthur flours) that also sells flours wholesale to professional bakers. I would venture to say these last are even milled and blended slightly differently. One of our small and local grocery chains is now selling certain of this co-ops flours, so I do not have to pay shipping or drive up to their store. I also use the bakers' grade yeast they sell and store it in the refrigerator.

So...yes breads in Poland are going to be different from those in France, German (forget the UK!) and the U.S. I suspect customs and agriculture would never let us through with bags of Polish flour

[zooba]

I've heard an anegdote of a Polish who went to Australia with all the ingredients to make sour cucumbers. After getting there he put them all in a jar filled with water, just as he had always done in Poland. After a few days it turned out that the cucumber went bad, were uneatable. Water? Magic? Southern hemisphere?

[suzanne]

piwo said:

I'm thinking it's the ingredients, not the bakers.

I agree, esp. with something like bread, that has relatively few ingredients. The fewer ingredients you have, the greater a difference any one ingredient makes, even water. I heard of a small bakery in Vermont that will only use water from a certain source, to make sure their products come out tasting the right way.