How Green Is Your Culinary Style? – The Rise & Resurgence of Homemade Bread-Making in the USA!

After a century of industrial bread-making, homemade bread-making is returning to the forefront of the American cooking scene in a very big way whether it be baking bread in a wood-fired oven or registering in one of a number of professional bread-baking programs across the USA – from San Francisco’s Baking Institute to New York City’s International Culinary Center. Simultaneously with the huge growth of social networking sites such as ‘Twitter’ and ‘Facebook’, bread aficionados can now order gift boxes of specialty breads online and share notes on artisanal bread-makers of all sorts ranging from Klinger’s Bread Company in Vermont to Zingerman’s in Michigan, from Erick Schat’s Bakery in California to Monks’ Bread in New York and Dave’s Killer Bread in Oregon.

This is not the first time in America history that “healthy eating” has metamorphosed into a cultural way of life but in societal terms –homemade bread is “big” – and its effects have changed even the largest supermarket chains where whole wheat bread sales have now surpassed white bread sales ever since 2009.

Let’s see then, how well you know your Bread-baking trivia in the United States of America.

1-San Francisco is nationally known for its high-quality artisanal bread but which type of durable bread put San Francisco on many a miner’s map during the California Gold Rush from 1848-1855?

2- During the American Revolutionary War, on May 3, 1777, Christopher Ludwick, a German-American confectioner in Philadelphia was given the unique responsibility of overseeing all bread production for the Continental Army.  What was his official title?

3-What Oregon-born chef and food critic said “Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts”?

4- What was the name of the “root” bread given to the Lewis & Clark expedition by the Nez Perce Indians during their 1804-06 journey to the Pacific coast?

5- During the American Civil War, citizens, mostly women, began to protest the exorbitant price of bread.  What was the name given to the events of civil unrest that took place in the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia during April of 1863?

6- What bread-derived name was given to American soldiers during World War I whose origins harken back to the infantry forces during the Mexican-American of 1846-48?

7- Most American schoolchildren know Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492 – but do you know the name of the flatbread he and his men were greeted with by the Native Arawak Indians?

8- Invented in the 19^th century and developed in the compact kitchen of a sleeping railroad car, what is the name of the block-shaped bread named for the eponymous inventor of this train car?

9- Sometimes called the “Gopher State” and the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”, what U.S. state is also known as the “Bread and Butter State” because of its numerous flour mills and butter-making plants?

10- First made by Native American Indian tribes, now celebrated as a national festival in Tennessee each year in April and in Thanksgiving Day stuffings every November, what is the name of this traditional quick bread?

11- A popular phrase in the American lexicon is “the greatest thing since sliced bread”. However, do you know when the first automatic bread-slicing machine was commercially used in the USA? And what state did its inventor, Otto Frederick Rohwedder, a jeweler, hail from?

12- Founded in 1993, what is the name of the non-profit coalition of farmers, millers, suppliers, educators, students, home bakers, professional bakers, and baking owners and managers – that has dedicated itself to the advancement of the artisan baking profession in America?

Answers: (1) Sourdough Bread (2) Baker General (3) James Beard (4) Camas Bread (5) The Southern Bread Riots (6) Doughboy (7) Cassava Bread (8) Pullman Loaf  (9) Minnesota  (10) Cornbread (11) 1928/Iowa (12) The Bread Bakers Guild of America