Read Online Stones for Bread by Christa Parrish - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Christa Parrish
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and purplish-blue, a color I’ve only seen artificially induced in a grape snow cone. Lovely. I snatch the lame from Xavier’s apron and give each unblemished round of dough four cuts across the top. I’m in no mood for dainty.
Xavier notices. “Remind me to stay out of your way.”
“I’m going to do the show.”
He wrinkles his forehead. “Glad I’m not a betting man.”
“There’s prize money. Ten thousand dollars.”
“Paris,” he says.
He sees through me like glass.
Xavier has been to France a dozen times. He’s charmed me with stories of bread, but more so of people. Of Jérôme , the Gaelic-music-promoter-turned-boulanger because he wanted to save a beloved building from demolition. He has one of the first LeFort ovens in his basement and only uses pre-1800 bread recipes. Or Marthe, who owns a small inn close to the northern border of France, who accepted Xavier’s gift of bread as if it were from the Magi.
“Tell me I’m a sell-out.”
“I’ll do no such thing. But I do have a favor to ask.”
“What’s up?”
“I’d like to take on an apprentice.”
“Zave, I can’t pay anyone else.”
“I know. You don’t have to worry about that.” He hesitates. “My grandson is living with me.”
“Since when?”
“Since yesterday. He showed up on my front porch. It was either my place or the street, I imagine. Things haven’t been good with Jude for a while. He’s always struggled in school, failed his junior year. Says he’s not going back. No interest in anything. His parents told him to get a job or get out, so he hitchhiked over to good old Vermont. I spoke to his father last night. Bill, my middle boy. I guess there are . . . many things Jude’s dealing with now.”
I wait for Xavier to elaborate but he stays silent. I suck my lips together and a puckering sound escapes. “Can he bake?”
“Not a lick,” he says. “But, Liesl, he has the hands. I just know it.”
Bread plays favorites.
From the earliest times, it acts as a social marker, sifting the poor from the wealthy, the cereal from the chaff.
The exceptional from the mediocre.
Wheat becomes more acceptable than rye; farmers talk of losing their rye teeth as their economic status improves. Barley is for the most destitute, the coarse grain grinding down molars until the nerves are exposed. Breads with the added richness of eggs and milk and butter become the luxuries of princes. Only paupers eat dark bread adulterated with peas and left to sour, or purchase horse-bread instead of man-bread, often baked with the floor sweepings, because it costs a third less than the cheapest whole-meal loaves. When brown bread makes it to the tables of the prosperous, it is as trenchers—plates—stacked high with fish and meat and vegetables and soaked with gravy. The trenchers are then thrown outside, where the dogs and beggars fight over them. Crusts are chipped off the rolls of the rich, both to make it easier to chew and to aid in digestion. Peasants must work all the more to eat, even in the act of eating itself, jaws exhausted from biting through thick crusts and heavy crumb. There is no lightness for them. No whiteness at all.
And it is the whiteness every man wants. Pure, white flour. Only white bread blooms when baked, opening to the heat like a rose. Only a king should be allowed such beauty, because he has been blessed by his God. So wouldn’t he be surprised—no, filled with horror—to find white bread the food of all men today, and even more so the food of the common people. It is the least expensive on the shelf at the supermarket, ninety-nine cents a loaf for the storebrand. It is smeared with sweetened fruit and devoured by schoolchildren, used for tea sandwiches by the affluent, donated to soup kitchens for the needy, and shunned by the artisan. Yes, the irony of all ironies; the hearty,dark bread once considered fit only for thieves and livestock is now some of the most prized of all.
He picks up
Xavier notices. “Remind me to stay out of your way.”
“I’m going to do the show.”
He wrinkles his forehead. “Glad I’m not a betting man.”
“There’s prize money. Ten thousand dollars.”
“Paris,” he says.
He sees through me like glass.
Xavier has been to France a dozen times. He’s charmed me with stories of bread, but more so of people. Of Jérôme , the Gaelic-music-promoter-turned-boulanger because he wanted to save a beloved building from demolition. He has one of the first LeFort ovens in his basement and only uses pre-1800 bread recipes. Or Marthe, who owns a small inn close to the northern border of France, who accepted Xavier’s gift of bread as if it were from the Magi.
“Tell me I’m a sell-out.”
“I’ll do no such thing. But I do have a favor to ask.”
“What’s up?”
“I’d like to take on an apprentice.”
“Zave, I can’t pay anyone else.”
“I know. You don’t have to worry about that.” He hesitates. “My grandson is living with me.”
“Since when?”
“Since yesterday. He showed up on my front porch. It was either my place or the street, I imagine. Things haven’t been good with Jude for a while. He’s always struggled in school, failed his junior year. Says he’s not going back. No interest in anything. His parents told him to get a job or get out, so he hitchhiked over to good old Vermont. I spoke to his father last night. Bill, my middle boy. I guess there are . . . many things Jude’s dealing with now.”
I wait for Xavier to elaborate but he stays silent. I suck my lips together and a puckering sound escapes. “Can he bake?”
“Not a lick,” he says. “But, Liesl, he has the hands. I just know it.”
Bread plays favorites.
From the earliest times, it acts as a social marker, sifting the poor from the wealthy, the cereal from the chaff.
The exceptional from the mediocre.
Wheat becomes more acceptable than rye; farmers talk of losing their rye teeth as their economic status improves. Barley is for the most destitute, the coarse grain grinding down molars until the nerves are exposed. Breads with the added richness of eggs and milk and butter become the luxuries of princes. Only paupers eat dark bread adulterated with peas and left to sour, or purchase horse-bread instead of man-bread, often baked with the floor sweepings, because it costs a third less than the cheapest whole-meal loaves. When brown bread makes it to the tables of the prosperous, it is as trenchers—plates—stacked high with fish and meat and vegetables and soaked with gravy. The trenchers are then thrown outside, where the dogs and beggars fight over them. Crusts are chipped off the rolls of the rich, both to make it easier to chew and to aid in digestion. Peasants must work all the more to eat, even in the act of eating itself, jaws exhausted from biting through thick crusts and heavy crumb. There is no lightness for them. No whiteness at all.
And it is the whiteness every man wants. Pure, white flour. Only white bread blooms when baked, opening to the heat like a rose. Only a king should be allowed such beauty, because he has been blessed by his God. So wouldn’t he be surprised—no, filled with horror—to find white bread the food of all men today, and even more so the food of the common people. It is the least expensive on the shelf at the supermarket, ninety-nine cents a loaf for the storebrand. It is smeared with sweetened fruit and devoured by schoolchildren, used for tea sandwiches by the affluent, donated to soup kitchens for the needy, and shunned by the artisan. Yes, the irony of all ironies; the hearty,dark bread once considered fit only for thieves and livestock is now some of the most prized of all.
He picks up
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