Ashcake, any kind of bread cooked in the ashes of a fire, particularly an American CORN BREAD.

Biscuit. Historically this word was applied to soft enriched breads baked in Guernsey and NE Scotland.

Bloomer, English name for a long loaf with rounded ends, slashed diagonally in evenly spaced deepish cuts just before baking. The shape is common to most European countries (it is known in France as bâtard). Now made from an ordinary white bread dough, bloomer loaves were formerly made from a high-grade flour, enriched with milk, butter, or lard. The origin of the name is obscure. One possible explanation is that the loaf ‘blooms’ or rises in the oven, rather than being confined in a mould; another that the shape resembles a thick bar or ‘bloom’ of iron as made in medieval iron foundries or ‘bloomeries’.

Boston brown bread, a traditional American bread made from mixed grains, usually a blend of rye and wheat flour with cornmeal, buttermilk, and molasses. Raised with bicarbonate of soda, the mixture is placed in a tall cylindrical mould and steamed, not dry baked in the normal way. The Puritan community in New England served this bread on the Sabbath with Boston baked beans.

Brown bread, a general term still used in England, denoting anything from a loaf made from wholemeal flour to one made from white flour with a little fibre and possibly some caramel colouring added.

Ciabatta. This Italian word means ‘old slipper/shoe’, an apt description for the baggy, rough oval shape of these loaves. They are characterized by large holes in the crumb, and a distinctive, slightly sour flavour. The irregular shape comes from the use of a very wet dough, which in turn allows large bubbles to form in the loaf. The flavour is derived partly from olive oil and malt, and hints at the use of a sourdough starter.

Coburg/cob, a popular English crusty loaf, made from plain white dough. Round in shape, the crust may be cut in a number of ways. A cross gives the loaf four distinct corners, which, on a pan-baked loaf, rise into a spectacular top or ‘cauliflower’. With one spreading cut, it is called ‘Danish’ by some bakers, and with a chequerboard pattern of little cuts, exposing more surface to brown, it becomes a crusty loaf, a porcupine, or, according to Eliza Acton, a college loaf. Or it may be ‘docked’, punctured with small holes by a special utensil consisting of formidable spikes set in a rounded piece of wood.

The docked loaf, and a round loaf with a plain, uncut crust, may be known as a cob, which is not an abbreviation of Coburg, but an old word for head. Cob loaves were formerly small, round, and baked from coarse flour. The name ‘Coburg’ only came into use in the 19th century, possibly introduced by German bakers who settled in London.

Cornish splits, small round cakes made of plain white dough, split and eaten hot with butter, or cream and jam or treacle.

Cottage loaf. This is actually two round loaves of ordinary bread dough baked one on top of the other, the top one always being smaller than the bottom one. Assembling the two to give the correct shape requires practice and fine judgement of the texture of the dough. It is now rare, although it was formerly very common in England. The shape is also known in France, where the BRIOCHE is a richer and more elegant version of the same idea; and pain chapeau of Finisterre looks like an English cottage loaf. Elizabeth David (1977) suggests that the shape may have evolved from joining two loaves together to economize on floor space in old-fashioned brick ovens.

Crispbread, flat, unleavened bread from Scandinavia, commonly made from rye flour and distinctly crisp after it has been dried out. It can be stored for a long time. In the Scandinavian countries it bears names such as knäckerbröd.

Damper, Australian term for unleavened bread which is cooked in ashes or a Dutch oven.

Farmhouse, an English loaf shape, a short, thick, rounded oblong, often with the word ‘farmhouse’ impressed on the sides. Now made of ordinary white dough, it meant a loaf baked from brown wheatmeal (wholewheat) dough in the 19th century. The name is a conscious appeal to the supposed ‘goodness’ of the rustic loaf as baked in the country.

Flatbreads, any bread made into a thin cake before baking, or, more usually, cooking on a GRIDDLE. Different grains are responsible for the wide variety. Many are unleavened, such as Scandinavian crisp bread, Mexican TORTILLA, Jewish MATZO, and British OATCAKE; others, such as Indian NAN, are raised with yeast. The world of flatbreads has been thoroughly explored by the intrepid authors Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (1995).

Granary, a British type of bread, which takes its name from a specific type of flour composed of mixed brown wheat and rye with malted, cracked wheat grains. The resulting loaves, usually in a round or oval shape, have a soft, sweetish, slightly sticky crumb.

Grissini, Italian crisp bread sticks made from plain dough, placed on the table as a ‘nibble’ in restaurants. German Salzstange (see below) are a more elaborate version of the same idea.

Graham bread, originally the very coarse wholemeal bread advocated by the early 19th-century American food reformer and self-styled physician the Revd Sylvester Graham. Now widely applied to any wholemeal product.

Harvest loaf, a special loaf made for harvest thanksgiving, in which the dough has been modelled into a wheatsheaf shape. Ordinary white bread dough can be used if the loaf is intended to be eaten. If it is purely decorative, recipes call for large amounts of salt which control the amount by which the bread rises, giving a sharper sculpture and acting as a preservative.

Hovis, loaves baked from a proprietary flour to which concentrated wheatgerm has been added.

Manchet, a soft, fine white bread, often enriched, made for the noble and wealthy people in England during the medieval period and beyond (see Elizabeth David, 1977, for interesting historical details).

Maslin bread, of historic interest, was made from maslin, a mixture of rye and wheat, from medieval times until (in some places) the 18th century. The rye made it fairly dense, but it had a good flavour.

Milk bread. As the name suggests, the dough for this is mixed with milk instead of water (a little butter can be added too). It makes a loaf with a closer texture and softer crust than water.

Plaits. Bread is often made more special by dividing up the dough, making each piece into a rope, and plaiting the pieces together. This is the standard shape for some loaves, notably the CHALLAH. Intricately plaited loaves of up to eight strands (in German, Zopf) or plaits shaped into hearts, stars, clover leaves, and butterflies are made for special occasions, especially in C. Europe.

Potato bread. Mashed potato was sometimes used to replace some flour when grain was scarce, or as an economy measure in poor households. Carefully handled, in a proportion of about four parts flour to one of potato, it can give a very good result, which keeps and toasts well and is now liked for its own sake. Mashed potato, added to leaven, encourages fermentation.

Pulled bread, the crumb of a white loaf, ‘pulled’ apart into chunks and dried in the oven.

Salt stick (German: Salzstange), thin, crisp, usually leavened bread stick covered in salt, used as a snack. They are made in several countries, especially in C. Europe, where they are often sold with beer in beer halls, since they stimulate thirst.

Stotty cake, not a cake but a flat round loaf which is a speciality of NE England (e.g. Durham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne).

Vienna, British term for a glazed, bright golden, crusty white loaf cooked with the aid of steam in the oven to give a very light texture. It is usually baked in a pointed oval shape, which is slashed the entire length. A similar method is used for making FRENCH BREAD such as baguettes. See also VIENNOISERIE.

Wholemeal (French: pain intégrale or pain complet; German: Schrotbrot), bread made from flour which has been ground from the entire grain, including all the bran and germ, with no additives. The dough does not rise as high as white bread dough, because the bran particles in the flour cut the gluten strands. Wholemeal bread has become increasingly fashionable in many western countries since the 1960s. Claims for the health-giving properties of wheatgerm and bran have had a lot to do with this.

Bread chemistry

This section seeks to explain how ‘bread represents the culinary domestication of grain, an achievement that made it possible to extract pleasure as well as nourishment from the hard, bland seeds’ (McGee, 1984).

Any cereal flour consists mainly of STARCH and PROTEINS. WHEAT flour contains five groups of proteins, classed as albumin, globulin, proteoses, glutenin, and gliadin. When flour is wetted, the first three, being soluble, disperse, leaving glutenin and gliadin. It is these, which wheat has in greater quantity than any other cereal, which form GLUTEN. Kneading the dough draws out the glutenin, whose long, thin, chainlike molecules form strands, while the shorter molecules of gliadin create bridges between them. As the network of strands develops, it absorbs water, resulting in that familiar change in the texture of dough from a shaggy mass of short chains and imperfectly absorbed liquid, through a certain stickiness, to a smooth, plastic, and elastic substance. RYE flour, which contains little gluten and some natural gums, remains sticky and makes a denser loaf. BARLEY has very little gluten indeed.

The amount of gluten-forming protein in wheat varies according to breed and circumstances of growth. The greatest, contributing to the lightest breads with the greatest volume, is found in wheats grown in a single short summer season, particularly from the prairies of N. America. They are known as ‘hard’ wheats and may contain 13–14% protein. Before there was large-scale export of N. American grain, hard wheats were obtained especially from Hungary and the plains of C. Europe. Other European wheats tended to be ‘softer’, running from 7 to 11% protein, and best suited for ‘shorter’ products such as cake and pastry, though they lent character, even greater flavour, to traditional breads. As Europe has tended to greater agricultural self-sufficiency, so has there been much effort directed towards increasing the protein content of indigenous, winter-sown wheats.

The performance of gluten is affected by the age of flour: maturity causes beneficial chemical changes to the glutenin. The effect of time can be replicated by oxidants introduced after milling, though some have been banned from commercial use. Vitamin C or ascorbic acid, one of the permitted ADDITIVES, has the same effect.

Other substances have important consequences on the performance of gluten in a bread dough. SALT may inhibit yeast activity, just as it makes gluten less extensible, but it also reduces the action of protein-digesting ENZYMES in flour which, if left unchecked, could damage the gluten far more than a little salt. This is why an orthodox bread dough, if unsalted, is often denser than a properly seasoned mixture.

FATS, for instance butter, lard, oil, or liquids such as milk, also have a contradictory effect. Too much, the gluten will be broken up and will not form the long strands necessary for maximum expansion; just enough, approximately 3% of the total weight of a dough, and they appear to reinforce the contribution of natural lipids in wheat to make gluten more stretchy. Fats also have a tenderizing effect. In part this is due to their assault on long strands of gluten—the longer and more elastic they are, the ‘tougher’ will be the bread; and by coating the starch granules, fats delay the release of moisture, keeping bread apparently fresher. Finally, when much butter or lard is added to enriched doughs, by coating the flour particles, it protects them from the action of the yeast. This is a reason many recipes call for a delay in adding fats until fermentation has begun.

The major component of flour, more than 70% of total weight, is STARCH, from the endosperm of the wheat grain. This affords the bulk of the loaf which is structured and supported by the framework of gluten. Starch also provides yeast with the SUGARS necessary for life and fast breeding. These come from granules damaged in the milling process which are vulnerable to the enzyme amylase, which is present in the flour and will eventually break down the starch into its constituent sugars. (The amylase is usually sufficient to invigorate modern yeasts, although in the past extra help was often needed; this was one reason for sugar or honey being a usual part of domestic bread recipes.) The sugars in starch, having fed the yeast, also contribute to the final texture and appearance of a loaf. Their caramelization (see CARAMEL) gives colour to the crust.

The grain of wheat also consists of BRAN and germ. For white bread these are largely excluded from the flour, by sifting if it is stoneground, or by the very process itself if roller ground. The wheatgerm is high in natural fats and nutrients, as well as imparting flavour. When it is left in flours, for instance wholemeals, they tend to keep less well as the fats run the risk of going rancid. Hovis bread, a British brand, adds the wheatgerm back into the flour after its first exclusion in the milling process.

Bran also has its own flavour, and is enjoyed for its mechanical effect on the human body, which has some parallels with its performance in a bread dough. Bran particles are sharp and rough, though fine milling may reduce their effect—hence the greatest volume in a wholemeal loaf will usually be obtained from a fine flour. These cutting edges, which irritate the bowel, tend also to disturb the cell structure that builds up in a maturing dough as the carbon dioxide expands. The bran interrupts and punctures the thin cell walls.

Not all leavened breads use brewer’s or distiller’s YEAST and the consequent alcoholic fermentation to obtain volume. Some depend on LEAVEN, which is a lactic fermentation provoked by bacteria joined with a mild alcoholic fermentation from less vigorous strains of wild yeasts, though both methods have a single end: to introduce carbon dioxide into a dough which is capable of expansion yet resilient thanks to the gluten, and bulk and nutrition thanks to the starch. Other leavenings, for instance soda activated by soured milk, BAKING POWDER, or the simple introduction of carbonic gas (as once practised by the Aerated Bread Company), are often used for short doughs that do not develop gluten to the same extent.

Yeasts, but not baking powder, contribute flavour as well as the impetus to rise. This flavour is developed by the amount of fermentation rather than the absolute amount of yeast added at the beginning. Hence, a dough which is made over a number of hours, or even days, will start with a very small quantity of yeast, but will develop a stronger flavour than a short-time dough made with an initially large amount of yeast. In the case of a lactic fermentation that taste is more or less sour; hence the term SOURDOUGH. Dried yeast contains a higher level of waste products, which give it stronger flavour.

Yeasts need nutrients in order to multiply up to a number sufficient to do the work of fermentation. These are contained within the flour itself, though modern bakery techniques accelerate development by adding various improvers, often malt based. Fermentation occurs when the sucrose and maltose in the flour are acted upon by enzymes in the yeast to produce glucose and fructose, which are then converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Yeast activity is also influenced by temperature. It cannot function at all over 56 °C (130 °F), when the cells die. It is perceptibly slowed if the figure drops below 21 °C (70 °F). It is moribund when frozen. Cold fermentations are feasible, even advantageous, for instance with Vienna bread (see BREAD VARIETIES above). Dough can be developed in the refrigerator, but warmth is sensible for even and convenient fermentation. The optimum is between 24 °C (75 °F) and 27 °C (80 °F). The fermentation of natural leaven bread is more temperature sensitive than that raised with brewer’s yeast. If it is too cold, the lactic fermentation will develop too much sourness, will be swamped by cold-tolerant bacteria that taste ‘off’, and the wild yeasts will not perform well.

It is not merely the ambient temperature that is important, for the baker is more interested in the heat of the dough itself. This is why he will adjust the temperature of the water or liquor at the outset of making a dough with a view to accelerating fermentation, slowing it down, or in reaction to the air temperature depending on the season of the year. His ideal is consistency, which is why draughts are to be avoided: so that one part of the dough (out of the draught) does not ferment more quickly than the part being chilled.

The first mixing of the dough is important to later stages because the baker must ensure even distribution of ingredients and even wetting of the flour. Hence yeast is often mixed in the water, and the first mixing is a comparatively rapid process. Pockets of flour that are not properly wetted will prove very difficult to eradicate at the later stage of kneading. Before the advent of mechanical mixers, the creation of a dough was nearly always in two stages. First a wet sponge was made with most of the liquor, the yeast and a portion of the flour. This was allowed to ferment, then the rest of the flour would be added. This alleviated the work of mixing great weights of flour at once, as well as economizing on yeast (by allowing it more time) and developing more flavour. In France this method is called sur poolish; it was also much favoured in Scotland.

After mixing, the dough is kneaded in order to develop the gluten to its maximum. The harder the wheat the more kneading is required. The dough is then left to rise until approximately doubled in size. It is covered so that a skin will not form where it comes into contact with the air. The rising further conditions the gluten as well as allowing the yeast to ferment. This stage has been accelerated in modern commercial baking by high-speed mechanical mixing: the Chorleywood Process. The gluten is conditioned by the mixer and large quantities of high-active yeast are used to obtain rapid fermentation.

Once risen, the dough is knocked back to its original size, thus evening out the distribution of yeast and gas bubbles, then moulded into loaves. The ensuing second rise or ‘proof’, also under cover or in humidified and heated proving cabinets, doubles the bulk once more. It is never the intention that the loaves should rise to their maximum during proof. A final expansion is reserved for the oven. If they do rise as far as they can before exposure to heat, they will probably collapse in the oven.

Baking is the final process in making bread. It needs a very hot oven to give it an initial fierce heat, after which the temperature can be allowed to fall gradually. This was the principle of a wood-fired brick or stone oven heated with a fire which was raked out just before the bread was put in. The intention of all bread-baking is to strike heat into the centre of the bread as quickly as possible, from as many angles as possible. A brick oven, which radiates from the floor, sides, and roof (and which retains heat far better than the thin metal walls of modern domestic ovens), is ideal. The heat needs rapid conveyance so that the yeast can be killed before it causes too much expansion and so that the outside of the loaf can be set so as to avoid any semblance of collapse or sagging. A 1 kg (2 lb) loaf will need 20 minutes at 500 °F (260 °C) before its centre reaches 130 °F (54 °C). Chinese steamed rolls, which are cooked on a quite different principle, gain their heat shock from the great latent heat in steam, many times that of boiling water, which is released when it condenses on a cold surface like dough.

When the raw bread is first exposed to the heat, the yeast is goaded into a last furious burst of activity. When the water in the dough boils (at a temperature slightly above normal boiling point, because of the presence of salts, sugars, and other dissolved materials in the dough), steam continues to expand the loaf. The direction of the ‘spring’ is usually influenced by the baker slashing the top of the loaf in a particular way before he sets it in the oven.

Expansion is stopped by the formation of a rigid crust. This can be delayed by making steam in the oven, keeping the outside soft for longer. Traditional bread ovens are hermetically sealed, thus allowing recirculation of steam during the baking process, and ovens developed by Viennese bakers in the 18th century, later adopted by the French, were designed to optimize the benefits of steam to loaf expansion and crispness of the crust. Most commercial ovens now have means of introducing steam, which helps to gelatinize the surface starch and give a high-gloss finish. Domestic bakers can either put a tray of water in the bottom of the oven, or spray their loaves with water during the first minutes of baking.

From the outside in, first the crust then the crumb solidifies. From 140 °F (60 °C) the starch partly sets to a gel and the proteins coagulate at 160 °F (71 °C). When all expansion has stopped, the loaf continues to cook at a lower temperature. Coagulation becomes complete and water evaporates from inside the loaf (a cooked loaf will weigh 12% less than raw). The crust loses most water and turns brown as a result of reactions between proteins and sugars. The colour of the crust is important in determining the final taste of the loaf. Crust coatings such as egg wash or milk give good colour, but cause softness.

As soon as bread is cooked and has cooled (paradoxically, an important part of the cooking process), it begins to stale. This is caused by a breakdown in the gel structure called ‘retrogradation’, in which the network of starch molecules subsides and shrivels. It is not so much a simple loss of water, but ‘a change in the location and distribution of the water molecules’ (McGee, 1984). Much of the water migrates to the crust, which gets leathery. Slight retrogradation is desirable: it improves the cutting texture of the loaf, especially in rye breads. Staling is accelerated by refrigeration, stopped by freezing, and slowed by keeping at room temperature. It can be temporarily reversed by reheating. Emulsifiers are added by commercial bakers to delay staling.

Bread in cooking

This is an extensive subject that E. S. Dallas (1877) thought the English well equipped to address: ‘the best bread for cooking purposes is known in the French kitchen as pain Anglais—it is the English pan loaf.’

Bread may be used as crumbs, dried or soft; entire, as either a loaf or a slice; or as small pieces cut off a larger slice.

When breadcrumbs are dried, they may consist of the raspings of a crust. When bread was baked in ovens with only approximate temperature controls, or was cooked over very long periods of time, it often had crusts that were too hard, or too thick and tough. A bread rasp, therefore, to thin or remove the crust, was essential kitchen equipment. ‘French’ breads in English 18th-century recipes were invariably rasped. More refined dried crumbs are made with crustless slices dried out in the oven before pounding. Hard crumbs obtained in these ways could be used to coat foods for frying, as in ‘egged and crumbed’, or spread on a dish before browning under a grill or in a hot oven. The GRATIN crust benefits from absorption of the juices from below and fats such as butter or cheese placed on top by the cook.

Soft breadcrumbs are the crumb of the bread, slightly staled, then grated or processed into small particles. They may also be used to coat foods before frying (lighter and less fat-absorbing than dried crumbs) or to form a crust to gratins, but most important has been their function as thickening agent to many sauces and soups, and to give bulk to a PANADA or a STUFFING. Bread, either cut into small pieces or made into crumbs, was the most common thickening agent in medieval European cookery, ground almonds running second, as a flour-based ROUX is a comparatively complex development. Bread sauce is a modern descendant in Britain, but there are more survivors in countries like Spain where medieval cookery has been less overlaid by classical French inventions; hence the dish of liver called chainfaïna which is finished with a handful of crumbs to bind the juice, and many other examples. There is a group of Mediterranean cold sauces—sauce ROUILLE, some versions of AIÖLI, SKORTHALIA, and the Genoese sauce for Cappon magro—where the bread helps the emulsification of the oil, while the Levantine TARATOR is a combination of nuts and breadcrumbs moistened with lemon juice or broth, and TARAMOSALATA gains softness and lightness from crumbs.

Crumbs are also used to thicken soups—both red and white GAZPACHOS in Spain, for example, or the simple bread soups of the Italian countryside, with the Panada di Milano, an egg- and Parmesan-enriched soup like stracciatella, at the pinnacle of elaboration. Panzanella is a Tuscan salad of bread soaked in water, tomato and salad vegetables, basil, and olive oil. The likely derivation of the name, from pan (bread) and zanella (little soup tureen), seems to imply that it, too, began life as a bread-thickened soup. An alternative method of combination is to place slices in a bowl and pour the soup onto them. Equally, the bread may be floated on top of the soup, laden with cheese, and browned under a grill, as in French onion soup.

In German lands, particularly Bavaria where bakers even sell Knödel-loaves, bread is used to make DUMPLINGS (Knödel). Stale crusty breakfast rolls are sliced and soaked in milk, mixed with eggs and flavourings, moulded without kneading, then poached. Dumplings can be sliced and fried afterwards, and may themselves be served with fried breadcrumbs as a garnish.

Crumbs are added to recipes to give them body. Hence the whole family of meat and poultry stuffings, and the incorporation of crumbs into many steamed pudding mixtures. Crumbs are also added to SAUSAGE, HAMBURGER, and MEAT LOAF mixtures, often to extend the meat content, but also to absorb fat and lighten the whole.

Slices of bread may be cut into smaller shapes and fried or toasted to produce CROUTONS (‘little crusts’). Cubes of bread thus treated are added to soups at the table; larger shapes are served with stews or sauced meats. In England they were called sippets. Croutons are added to salads to give body, taste, and texture. Caesar SALAD is one instance, but in the Middle East, fattoush is also a mixed salad with toasted PITTA BREAD broken into it.

If bread is hollowed out, it can be used as a container as well as absorbing the juices from whatever is placed within, be it oysters or some more elaborate stew, but a more common method is to use a whole slice of bread, or a pair of them, for supper dishes, often involving cheese, like CROQUE-MONSIEUR, Mozzarella in carossa, or WELSH RABBIT. The oldest was a popular titbit called PAIN PERDU (lost bread) in the Middle Ages, where a slice of bread was soaked in cream and eggs, honey and spices, then fried. Elaborations of the theme are practised in Italy on toasts called BRUSCHETTA, and the Catalan Pa amb tomaquèt is toast rubbed with ripe tomato and drizzled with olive oil, so popular that a book, Teoria i práctica del pa am tomaquèt, was written on the subject.

breadfruit

the large, starchy fruit of a tall tree, Artocarpus altilis, native to the Pacific islands. When Europeans began to explore the Pacific the breadfruit was already being grown throughout the region, though still a newcomer in some islands. It belongs to the same genus, in the mulberry family Moraceae, as the JACKFRUIT.

The fruit is round and grows up to the size of a man’s head. It is a composite fruit with a structure like that of the PINEAPPLE, and its skin is similarly marked with a hexagonal pattern of fissures. The fruits are divided into two broad categories: seedless and seeded. Most of the numerous cultivated varieties (there are over 200 named cultivars) are seedless; the others have large, edible seeds. The name ‘breadnut’ is sometimes, unsuitably, used for the latter kind.

French and British explorers who encountered the fruit included Captain William Dampier, at Guam, in 1686, and Captain Cook when he was voyaging in the 1770s. Such explorers were so enthusiastic in their praise of the fruit that thought was given to the potential benefits of introducing it to the W. Indies. The French seem to have effected small-scale introductions in the 1770s and 1780s; but it was left to the British government, responding to appeals from their W. Indian colonies, where it was expected that this large and abundant fruit would be useful as a cheap food for the slaves, to consider a more ambitious scheme. As Popenoe (1932) tells the tale:

The outcome was that notorious voyage under William Bligh, in the Bounty, which forms certainly the most dramatic incident in the history of plant introduction. The expedition sailed from England in 1787, and reached Tahiti, after a cruise of ten months, in 1788. A thousand breadfruit plants were obtained and placed on board ship in pots and tubs which had been provided for the purpose. Before the ship was out of the South Seas the crew, who had become enchanted with Tahitian life, mutinied and took charge of the ship, putting their commander and the eighteen men who remained loyal to him in a launch and setting them adrift. The mutinous crew sailed back to Tahiti, whence some of the members, accompanied by a number of Tahitians, migrated to Pitcairn’s Island and established there an Utopian colony.

Bligh and his companions managed to reach the E. Indies, more than 3,000 miles away, in their open boat, and Bligh later returned to Tahiti to collect, this time, over 2,100 plants which he landed in Jamaica in 1793. Their fruits were not a great success with the slaves, but the seedless breadfruit flourished so well in the island that Jamaica became and remains the principal producer of that kind. In some other parts of the Caribbean and C. America the seeded kind is preferred or grows better. Usage also follows an irregular pattern. In some areas the fruits are used to feed livestock, whereas in others (e.g. Trinidad, with its large Asian population) they are highly esteemed as human food.

The breadfruit is also grown in tropical Africa, Mauritius, and Réunion (where Valentin, 1982, lists ten ways of eating it).

Breadfruit is nearly always picked before it is fully ripe. It is seldom eaten raw, but boiled, roasted, or fried, or cooked in an underground pit with hot stones. The naturalist Alfred Wallace encountered breadfruit in Ambon (the Moluccas), and expressed his enthusiasm as follows:

It is baked entire in the hot embers, and the inside scooped out with a spoon. I compared it to Yorkshire pudding; Charles Allen [Wallace’s collecting assistant] said it was like mashed potatoes and milk. It is generally about the size of a melon, a little fibrous towards the centre, but everywhere else quite smooth and puddingy, something in consistence between yeast-dumplings and batter-pudding. It may be eaten sweet or savoury. With meat and gravy it is a vegetable superior to any I know, either in temperate or tropical countries. With sugar, milk, butter or treacle, it is a delicious pudding, having a very slight and delicate but characteristic flavour, which, like that of good bread and potatoes, one never gets tired of.

Other ways of using the fruit include drying slices and grinding them into flour for bread. Or the fruit may be buried in a pit and allowed to ferment into a strong-smelling green pulp which is made into cakes. Local names for this product include ‘MADRAI’, ‘mahe’, and ‘mandraiuta’. In Hawaii breadfruit is sometimes allowed to ripen until it is beginning to soften and turn brown, then baked. It is also used as a substitute for TARO in making a starchy porridge, POI.

The seeds in the seeded varieties are numerous, large, chestnut-like, and rich in protein. These are eaten fried or boiled. The surrounding flesh is edible but inferior, and is usually discarded.

In her excellent description of the breadfruit and its uses, Elizabeth Schneider (1986) remarks that the fully ripe flesh ‘may be as soft and creamy as an avocado, or runny as ripe Camembert, or tender as rising yeast batter, with an aroma that matches’. She adds that in the countries where it is cultivated, breadfruit is given much the same culinary treatment as potatoes and sweet potatoes.

The breadfruit is not entirely suitable for use as a staple food. It contains a lot of starch, but is low in protein, fat, and e.g. vitamin A. But in the islands where it is used as a staple these deficiencies are balanced by plentiful seafood and other resources.

bread puddings

an important category. Many desserts include bread whether in the form of breadcrumbs or pieces or slices of bread. There is also a whole class of desserts; see, to take only a few examples, QUEEN’S PUDDING, POOR KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR, or SUMMER PUDDING and certain types of CHARLOTTE and the like, where the role of bread is simply to line the recipient.

It is safe to assume that from the very distant past cooks have sometimes turned stale bread into a sweet pudding, if only by soaking it in milk, sweetening it by one means or another, and baking the result. The addition of some fat, preferably in the form of butter, and something like currants is all that is needed to move this frugal dish into the category of treats, and this is what has ensured its survival in the repertoire, even of cooks who never have stale bread on their hands.

This enhanced product is known as bread and butter pudding and this same dish can also be made with something more exotic than plain bread, for example, BRIOCHE, PANETTONE, slices of plain cake, etc., and can be enlivened by judicious spicing or by reinforcing the currants with plumper sultanas and mixed peel. But such elaborations must be kept under strict control, so that what is essentially a simple pudding does not lose its character under the weight of sophisticated additions.

The likely history of the pudding can be illuminated by looking back at medieval ‘sops’ and at the medieval practice of using a hollowed-out loaf as the container for a sweet dish. More immediately recognizable antecedents began to emerge in traditional regional British cookery of more recent times. One such, Wet Nellie, is described by Helen Pollard (1991) as follows:

Wet Nellie, a Liverpudlian dish, was originally a cheap way of using stale bread and crusts. These were crumbled and mixed with suet, sugar or syrup and a little spice before baking and cutting into pieces. The bottom piece of a pile was considered the best value for money as, hopefully, the syrup would have soaked through the other layers. ‘Wet’ probably refers to the sticky syrup, ‘Nellie’ being derived from Nelson. A similar dish is known as Nelson’s cake or Nelson’s slice in Plymouth, and in Norfolk where Nelson was born.

Helen Pollard comments that all these variants of bread pudding could be eaten hot as a pudding or cold as a cake.

Bread jelly, made from soaked bread in the same way as FLUMMERY from oatmeal, then flavoured with cinnamon and lemon, was popular in the 19th century.

Eliza ACTON’s several recipes are, as usual, elegantly worded and completely precise. The range she offers illustrates clearly how the transition from a ‘common’ version to a ‘rich’ version can be effected without compromising the essential simplicity of the dish. It is in her recipe for the common version that she introduces the charming word ‘lemon-grate’, this being an alternative flavouring to nutmeg.

This is the place to mention an Egyptian dessert which bears a marked similarity to bread and butter pudding, and which was originally a simple dish of rural areas, although it has recently become popular in Cairo, where it can take more sophisticated forms. It is called Om Ali (mother of Ali), and is made with bread (but in Cairo, the bread is often replaced by FILO pastry), milk or cream, raisins, and almonds. Claudia Roden (1985) mentions the intriguing theory that Om Ali was introduced to Egypt ‘by a Miss O’Malley, an Irish mistress of the Khedive Ismail’.

Another Middle Eastern bread sweet, Eish es seray (palace bread), is made by drying large round slices cut horizontally through a big loaf to make enormous rusks, which are then simmered in a sugar and honey syrup flavoured with rosewater and coloured with caramel.

Travelling further east, an Indian dessert in the Moghul style, Shahi tukra, is made with bread fried in ghee, dipped in a syrup flavoured with saffron and rosewater, and covered with a creamy sauce in which decorative slices of almond are embedded.

These are but a few examples of bread and butter puddings which occur outside the context of western cookery. Other examples could be furnished from Turkey, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia.

breakfast

the first meal of the day; literally the meal with which one breaks one’s fast. Opinions have varied over the years and around the world as to what foods are suitable for this. Individual tastes play a part, and are perhaps at their strongest early in the day: chacun à son goût, as Major L. (author of Breakfasts, Luncheons and Ball Suppers, 1887) said when noting a baronet’s alleged preference for apple tart and home-brewed ale first thing in the morning. The type and quantity of food depends on the daily schedule; those who labour hard may break their fast with a drink and a little bread, followed by a larger second breakfast two or three hours later (see SPAIN for a fine example of this practice), and guests at a ‘wedding breakfast’ will almost certainly have eaten an ordinary breakfast earlier in the day. At the same time, the double breakfast is a concept dear to Germans’ and Austrians’ hearts, with the zweite Früstück being their ELEVENSES. None the less, the western view of the meal being (relatively) insubstantial may be countered by other cultures where it bulks larger. In KOREA it is indeed the principal repast; in Turkey and other parts of the Middle East, a favourite meal of sheep’s HEAD and trotters is hardly a snack.

The most flexible versions of breakfast are probably the C. and N. European buffets of breads, pastries, cheeses, and cold meats, or their Middle Eastern equivalents of bread, yoghurt, fruit, and preserves. Really substantial breakfasts—and the truly exceptional such as LeVaillant’s baked ELEPHANT’s foot with the Hottentots, or Leichhardt’s favourite Australian snack of a kilo of EMU meat might be excluded from this summary—include the modern British fry-up, and the N. American subspecies of this, with numerous variations on the theme of eggs, plus options of WAFFLES with MAPLE SYRUP. India provided Victorian British cooks with inspiration for kedgeree (see ANGLO-INDIAN COOKERY); traditional Indian breakfasts include DAL, rice, breads, SAMOSAS, and fruit. Comforting bowls of hot cereal mixtures are popular, from Scottish oatmeal PORRIDGE to the rice porridges eaten across much of Asia, of which CONGEE is the best known (but see also HALEEM; TAPÉ; UMEBOSHI). Minimal approaches to breakfast include CROISSANTS and café au lait in France, chocolate and churros (see FRITTER) in Spain, and many variations on the bowl of MUESLI theme for those who think that cereal, nuts, and dried fruit are a key to good health.

The British feel that breakfast is one area in which they are experts. In fact, few British people eat a traditional English (or Scottish, Irish, or Welsh) cooked breakfast at home; but they do expect a ‘full English breakfast’ of fried bacon, eggs, sausages, and tomatoes, plus toast, butter, marmalade, and tea or coffee, to be available in any hotel or café (and, since the 1970s, this may be offered as an ‘all-day’ breakfast). Fried bread, potatoes, mushrooms, fancy jams, and regional frills such as porridge, black pudding (see BLOOD SAUSAGES), laverbread (see NORI), or GAMMON are provided at the discretion of the proprietor. A KIPPER is often an alternative to the fried breakfast. This sort of breakfast is commonly believed to reflect some golden era of the more leisured past—usually, the world of the late 19th-century country house. However, an apposite quotation from Dr Johnson (q.v. under SCOTLAND) may be a hint of its true origins: ‘wherever he had supped, he would breakfast in Scotland’. On the other hand, for brunch, see LUNCH.

breakfast cereals

which need no cooking or preparation but can be used straight from the packet, were among the earliest convenience foods. Their history is enmeshed with that of the American vegetarian, health food, and water cure movement, and also that of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which enjoined a meatless diet.

In the early days of the 19th century the Revd Sylvester Graham, a man of strong views on diet despite his lack of medical qualifications, had advocated the use of wholemeal flour. Graham bread, CRACKERS, and flour were already in common use in 1858 when Dr James C. Jackson took over an unsuccessful water-cure resort in Dansville, New York, and renamed it ‘Our Home Hygienic Institute’. Patients were subjected to a rigorous routine of baths and less pleasant treatments, and fed a very restricted diet including various grain products. The stodgy monotony of the fare palled with all but the most enthusiastic. Graham experimented with new ways of presenting the same ingredients, and in 1863 perfected a product which he called Granula. It was made from Graham flour and water baked in a very slow oven until it dried into a brittle mass, which was roughly broken up, baked for some time longer, and ground into smaller pieces. The result was rather like the cereal Grape Nuts, with a pleasantly ‘toasted’ flavour. However, it had to be soaked overnight in milk before the stone-hard crumbs softened enough to eat. Jackson not only served his patients Granula but put it on the market, together with Somo, a ‘health coffee’ also made from grain. Granula was a modest success but highly profitable, for it was sold at ten times the cost of its ingredients.

In 1866, a group of Seventh Day Adventists at their central colony in Battle Creek, Michigan, set up their own water-cure establishment, the Western Health Reform Institute. There were the same problems with monotonous diet. One Adventist, John Harvey (J. H.) Kellogg, was sent as a young man to New York to study medicine. Here, living in a boarding house where cooking was impossible, and restricted to the vegetarian diet required by his religion, he realized the need for a ready cooked cereal that needed no preparation. In 1875 he graduated, and next year returned to Battle Creek, where he reorganized the Institute into the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Here, he experimented with his idea for a cereal, and achieved success with a mixture of wheat, oat, and maize meal, formed into biscuits, baked, and ground. He put it on the market, also under the name ‘Granula’ (an obvious choice, being Latin for ‘little grain’), but was forced by legal action by the makers of the original Granula to change the name. So it became Granola. It enjoyed considerable commercial success, along with a whole range of vegetarian products and coffee substitutes manufactured by Kellogg’s Sanitarium (later Sanitas) Health Food Company. As with Granula, ingredients were cheap and the ‘mark-up’ high. Mrs Kellogg did much of the development work for new lines while her husband administered the sanitarium and the business.

Then, in 1893, a Denver lawyer, H. D. Perky, who suffered from indigestion and had become converted to health foods, invented a completely different product: Shredded Wheat. The grain was steamed until thoroughly softened, then rolled between one grooved and one plain roller to form strands which were chopped into biscuits. The early versions were soft and moist, and kept poorly, so sales were limited. But Perky had patented all the important parts of the process.

In 1894 Kellogg, who had heard of Perky’s product from a patient, went to visit him in Denver. Perky was discouraged and thinking of giving up. Kellogg at first offered Perky $100,000 for his patents, and the deal was nearly concluded. However, Kellogg, seized by timidity when it came to actually parting with money, withdrew the offer. He was later to regret this, particularly since in his conversation with Perky he had described the way in which Kellogg products were dried by slow heating, so that they kept in perfect condition for a long time. Perky began to dry Shredded Wheat and sales took off. He built a huge factory, the ‘Conservatory of Food’, at Niagara Falls.

The envious Kellogg and his wife experimented furiously to create a rival. Batch after batch failed; but finally they developed a process in which whole wheat was cooked, allowed to stand for several hours and passed through plain rollers, which flattened each grain into a flake. The flakes were then dried. J. H. Kellogg wanted to break the flakes up into granules, but W. K. Kellogg, who helped him to scale the process up for mass production, dissuaded him. In 1895 the new flakes went on sale under the name ‘Granose’, and were an instant success. There were soon many imitations: it was easy to circumvent Kellogg’s patents by varying the process slightly. Most of the new firms set up their factories at Battle Creek itself to capitalize on the now famous name. One early rival which has survived, Force, was based elsewhere in Buffalo.

During the 1890s the Kelloggs had experimented with maize as a grain for making flakes: in fact corn flakes. The early types all went rancid. It was not until 1902 that they managed to make a corn flake of reasonable quality, and even then it did not sell well.

Charles W. Post had been a patient at the sanitarium in 1891. He was an inventive man: his creations included a fireless cooker; a water-powered electric generator; and the Post Currency Check, a kind of postal order. In 1892 he set up his own medical boarding house, La Vita Inn, at Battle Creek. Here he invented and marketed Postum, a most successful (commercially speaking) cereal coffee substitute. In 1898 he made another financial killing with his granular wheat cereal Grape Nuts, which he ingeniously sold in very small packets, ‘because it was concentrated’. However, it was of quite orthodox composition. It got its name because Post erroneously supposed the maltose sugar in the product to be ‘grape sugar’ (an old name for dextrose; see SUGAR), and because it had a nutty flavour as a result of toasting. By 1903 Post was making over a million dollars a year: no mean sum in those years.

In 1906 Post launched a new product, a corn flake considerably better than Kellogg’s 1902 version. The flakes were thick with an attractively bubbly texture. The ‘health and godliness’ image of Battle Creek was still strong and Post had the unfortunate idea of calling his product ‘Elijah’s Manna’. There was widespread protest, and he had to withdraw it. In the same year the Kelloggs struck back with their own Toasted Corn Flakes. However, it was not old J. H. Kellogg who was selling it: it was his younger brother, W. K., whose signature still appears on the packet and has been turned into the Kellogg trade mark. J. H. had had a characteristic attack of cold feet over the investment required to launch a new product—in fairness, he himself had considerable trouble with corn flakes. The brothers quarrelled and W. K. founded his own Kellogg Toasted Corn Flake Company, independent of J. H.’s firm.

In 1908, Post relaunched his product as Post Toasties. Both the Kellogg and the Post products were enormously successful: there was plenty of room for them and others in an expanding breakfast cereal market. By 1911, 108 different brands were being manufactured in Battle Creek alone. W. K. Kellogg in particular became enormously rich and contributed large sums to charity, setting up the Kellogg Foundation in 1930. But J. H.’s sanitarium went bankrupt in 1933. Both brothers lived to the age of 91.

The name ‘corn flake’ was freed for use by rival firms through legal action by the Quaker Oats Company, who were seeking to diversify into cold cereals—they had been making their rolled porridge since the early days of the grain food boom.

Most modern cereals are no more than mere modifications of the original types with added sugar or flavourings, or in new shapes. All Bran was invented in the 1920s by W. K.’s son John L. Kellogg; it was a convenient way of using up bran left over from other products, and its laxative properties, discreetly promoted by euphemistic advertising, were in a way a return to the original health food image. The only really different cereals are the puffed wheat and rice types. These are made by heating the grain inside a sealed cylinder in which pressure builds up considerably. After an hour at 285 °C (550 °F) the grain is softened and all the water inside has turned to steam, superheated by the pressure. Then the cylinder is suddenly unsealed. The high steam pressure inside each grain causes it to expand enormously. The puffed grains are then dried off before they can collapse.

Despite their origins in the health food movement, cereals have no special nutritional value. A cereal made of any grain, whole or husked, has only the food value of that grain, with slight losses of proteins and carbohydrates destroyed during cooking, and substantial losses of the rather frail B vitamins. In fact, in most countries, cereals are artificially ‘fortified’ with extra vitamins, as revealed in the small print on the packet. Cereals are usually eaten with milk, which provides nutrients which they lack (and with sugar, which provides nothing but calories).

Bruce and Crawford have provided an entertaining and detailed chronicle of the whole process of Cerealizing America (1995), the homeland of breakfast cereals, with much on advertising the various products.

Brie

one of the most famous soft cheeses in the world, has been made in much its present form since early medieval times; or, if the account of the Emperor Charlemagne sampling and praising a wonderful local cheese near Meaux is reliable, since the 8th century or even earlier. Because of its renown it has been much imitated; and its name, unfortunately, is not protected. Genuine Brie, from around the city of Meaux (to the east of Paris), is rich, mild, and creamy. It is a mould-ripened cheese, made from whole milk. When fully ripe it is runny, and a slice will not hold its shape. It is to be eaten entire, rind and all, as Charlemagne was reputedly taught to do.

During the first half of the 19th century connoisseurs of cheese esteemed very highly the Brie de Meaux en pot, although this seems originally to have been a way of selling cheeses which were not suitable, because ‘too far gone’ towards the liquid state, for normal presentation. In the course of time what had been an expedient developed into a new field for displaying expertise, and the Brie en pot continued to be a delicacy in strong demand from its devotees until late in the 19th century.

The Brie de Meaux is accorded the title of Roi des Fromages et Fromage des Rois (King of Cheeses and Cheese of Kings) by Androuet and Chabot (1985), partly because of this cheese’s long association with the French royal court. It is of interest that this Brie was originally consumed fresh, not ripened, as an 18th-century painting in the Musée des Beaux Arts at Chartres demonstrates.

There are other notable varieties, e.g. Brie de Melun, which in its traditional form underwent a long ripening to give a darker colour and stronger flavour. The Brie of Montereau and that of Nangis are both renowned.

The continuing replacement of the traditional breeds of cow in the region by the Frisonne-Holstein breed is thought to have caused some deterioration in flavour of most Brie cheeses. And the large quantities of industrially produced Brie are not nearly as good as the traditional product.

The milk from which Brie is made is never heated above lukewarm. After it is curdled, the curd is ladled into circular hoops standing on straw mats, through which it drains gently without pressing.

The cheese is salted, dried, and ripened in a complicated process involving several stages. A white MOULD, Penicillium camemberti or P. candidum (two strains of what is essentially the same organism), is either endemic in the first drying room or deliberately innoculated, and soon covers the surface. In later stages it is joined by YEASTS and bacteria, and the surface becomes streaked with reddish brown. During this time the cheese is kept in a fairly damp, cool cellar. Enzymes produced by the organisms break down proteins in the cheese, softening it and developing the flavour. The unripe cheese has a chalky centre which gradually disappears as the enzymes spread from the outside inwards. Time, temperature, and humidity are all critical. Refrigeration, which would disrupt the desired sequence, is to be avoided.

Brie is made in three sizes, from 18 cm (7″) to 40 cm (16″) in diameter. It is seldom more than 3 cm (1″) thick. The smallest size or Petit Brie, sometimes known as Coulommiers (although what is properly called a Coulommiers cheese is a vexed and vexing question), is ripened for a shorter time than the others and is milder, with a pure white crust.

Brillat-Savarin

Jean Anthelme (1755–1826) the best known of three pioneering writers on gastronomy at the beginning of the 19th century (the other two being his fellow Frenchman GRIMOD DE LA REYNIÈRE and the German RUMOHR). McGee (1990) notes succinctly that he became a lawyer, fled the French Revolution, spent two years in New York teaching languages and playing the violin in a theatre orchestra, returned to France, and eventually became a judge on the Court of Appeals in Paris. He had a lifelong fascination with science and medicine, which accounts for much of the content of his gastronomic work. He published this privately and anonymously in 1826 under the title La Physiologie du goût: ou, méditations sur la gastronomie transcendante. The book has since gone through many editions in many languages, of which the English translation with commentary by M. F. K. FISHER (1972) is an outstanding example.

McGee points out that Brillat-Savarin and his book are remembered today mainly for a handful of epigrams which appear in the first two pages of the book, and that the physiological content is now mostly forgotten and was largely ignored

even by the many writers who imitated its title and eclectic mixture of aphorism, anecdote, and exposition. Balzac, who wrote an admiring biographical essay on Brillat-Savarin, published the Physiology of Marriage in 1829, and less notable scholars dilated in succeeding decades on the physiology of the opera, the cafe, the umbrella, billiards, and ‘the ridiculous,’ among other things. In this short-lived genre, physiology was reduced to a synonym for character or portrait. These books aspired only to the form and fame, not the substance, of The Physiology of Taste.

Brillat-Savarin may have been responsible for a temporary change in the word’s meaning, but he himself used physiology literally, to mean a scientific analysis of the workings of living beings. Roughly a third of his book is devoted to the chemistry and physiology of food and eating. Delightful as the aphorisms and anecdotes are, The Physiology of Taste would be a lesser book without its attention to science. Like the astringent tannins in a red wine, this element lends the whole a certain solidity and dimension, and has helped it age well.

Pointing out that Brillat-Savarin had been delighted, on one academic occasion, to be mistaken for ‘a distinguished foreign professor’, and that he presented his book as the work of an anonymous ‘Professor, member of many learned societies’, McGee notes that:

He gives a medical cast to much of his material; his anecdotes are often case histories, his recipes prescriptions. The Professor delivers a formal lecture to his cook on the theory of frying, since ‘the phenomena which take place in your laboratory are nothing other than the execution of eternal laws of nature.’

McGee also observes that Brillat-Savarin’s closest friend Anthelme Richerand, another native of the town of Belley but a good deal younger than Brillat-Savarin, had published a book whose title translates as New Elements of Physiology and that:

It was at Richerand’s country house that Brillat-Savarin began writing his book and that the anecdote of the huge turbot is set; in the dialogue that follows the opening aphorisms, it is Richerand who convinces him to publish.

This connection and knowledge of some other authors and books whose influence on Brillat-Savarin can be traced helps modern readers to understand the nature and original purpose of La Physiologie du goût. Some such readers may value it by these criteria, but it has to be admitted that the book is more honoured by the quotation of the aphorisms and the perusal of the most entertaining anecdotes than by the serious study which Brillat-Savarin and his friend Richerand would have thought appropriate. The whole episode provides a good example of how a book, once it leaves its launching pad, may rocket away on an unexpected path.

It is noteworthy that serious appreciation of Brillat-Savarin was particularly noticeable, towards the end of the 20th century, in Australia.

brioche

a light but rich French bread/cake, made with flour, butter, and eggs, and raised with yeast.

The word, which has been in use since at least the 15th century, is derived from the verb broyer, meaning to break up, and refers to the prolonged kneading of the dough.

The brioche may have originated in Normandy. In support of this theory is the fact that the quality of the butter is what determines the quality of a brioche and that Normandy has been famed for its butter since the Middle Ages. Whatever the truth, the brioche arrived in Paris in the 17th century. Cotgrave translated the term, in his Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (1611) as ‘a rowle or bunne, of spiced bread’. The earliest surviving recipe is in Suite des dons de Comus (1742) and prescribes brewer’s yeast (whereas baker’s yeast is now used) and a relatively small amount of butter. In modern times, brioches can be made with little or much butter, the standard having become 500–750 g (1–1.5 lb) butter to 1 kg (2 lb) flour. Lacam (1890) gave an amusing table of five grades, all the way up from 125 g butter/500 g flour (brioche très commune) to 625 g butter/500 g flour (brioche princière).

Since some time in the 19th century it has been customary to bake a brioche in a deep, round, fluted tin, narrow at the base and flaring widely at the top. The traditional Paris brioche is made by placing a small ball of dough on top of a larger one, thus producing the shape known as brioche à tête (brioche with a head). In this form brioches range from individual size to large ones which yield a dozen servings. The brioche of Nanterre (close to Paris, on the west) is made by placing several small balls of dough around the sides of a rectangular mould. These balls coalesce and the resulting shape is officially known as parallelepipedic. Both these forms of brioche are given a shiny glaze of egg.

Brioche dough takes some time to prepare, as it usually has three, rather than two, rising periods. In France brioches are mostly bought from specialist shops, e.g. viennoiseries, rather than being made at home.

The dough also lends itself to the addition of ingredients such as cheese or raisins, for variations of flavour. A plainer brioche dough, with fewer eggs and less butter, may be used for a savoury brioche, for example one which encases sausage. A filled sweet brioche may contain fruit, confectioner’s custard, whipped cream, etc.

The brioche Vendéenne, whose fame and consumption has now spread from the woodlands of the Vendée throughout France, is a plaited brioche usually flavoured with brandy/rum/orange flower water; it used to have a special association with Easter but is now generally popular for any festive occasions.

One form of brioche is a highly localized speciality of the Savoie village of Saint-Pierre-d’Albigny. It is called Main de Saint-Agathe because it is made in the form of a hand, with allusion to the severed hand (severed when she unsuccessfully tried to save her breasts from being cut off) of that saint, the patron saint of young mothers and wet-nurses, who is venerated in this village. The dough is flavoured with saffron or anise.

Brioche is usually eaten at breakfast or teatime, with coffee or hot chocolate; and in its modern form it constitutes a delicacy, slightly closer in British eyes to cake than to bread. However, ‘Qu’ils mangent de la brioche’ (usually translated into English as ‘let them eat cake’), the statement attributed to Marie Antoinette on being told that the people of Paris were rioting because they had no bread, has achieved more notoriety than it deserves. Eighteenth-century brioche was only lightly enriched (by modest quantities of butter and eggs) and not very far removed from a good white loaf of bread.

Interesting comparisons may be made between brioche and BABA, SAVARIN, and KUGELHOPF (all based on similar ingredients, but mixed in a different order, and with different results).

broad bean

Vicia faba (or Faba vulgaris), the original bean of Europe, W. Asia, and N. Africa, has been an important staple food for millennia (long before the HARICOT BEAN was imported from America), and is also known as fava bean (from the Latin name). Remains of broad beans have been found in many of the earliest inhabited sites investigated by archaeologists throughout this region.

After 3000 BC their cultivation spread to China, where in some southern provinces they now rank second to SOYA BEANS in importance. They are also cultivated in the temperate regions of N. America; in some dry, mountainous parts of S. America where the native haricot bean does not grow well; and in the Sudan and Uganda.

The primitive type of broad bean was small and not unlike the horse bean which is now grown as a fodder crop. Improved garden varieties fall into two main classes: Windsor beans with short pods containing four large beans, and longpod beans, which have about eight smaller ones. There are at least three dozen popular cultivars available, and their beans vary considerably in size and colour; they may be white, pale green, green, buff, brown, chestnut, etc. The useful notes given by Facciola (1990) include the information that Green Windsor was formerly used for Brown Windsor soup (see SOUP), and that Red Epicure beans are like chestnuts in flavour as well as in colour.

‘Field beans’, grown mainly for animal fodder, are similar to garden broad beans, but are allowed to grow larger before they are picked.

When the beans within the pods are only fingernail size and still green they are often eaten raw, especially in Italy. As they mature, most varieties become grey tinged with pink, although some of the better kinds remain green. Up to medium size, they are eaten boiled, sometimes with an added flavouring such as SAVORY (in France and Germany). When large and old the beans develop tough skins which have to be removed. At this stage they are best dried. The dried Ful medames which are the Egyptian national dish are a local, brown variety of broad bean.

There is a mysterious shadow over the history of broad beans, and an actual problem which may be linked with it. From the beginnings of recorded history, these beans have aroused superstitious dread. The ancient Egyptians, although they cultivated them, regarded them as unclean, and the Greek writer Herodotus claims that their priests would not even look at one, let alone eat it. In Greece in the 6th century BC, the followers of Pythagoras were forbidden to eat beans, but no satisfactory reason was given. There seems to have been a general belief that the souls of the dead might migrate into beans. This was later rationalized by the Roman writer Diogenes Laertius: ‘Beans are the substance which contains the largest portion of that animated matter of which our souls are particles.’ One crude origin of the idea could have been the tendency of beans to cause wind. The Greek word anemos means both ‘wind’ and ‘soul’. Whatever the cause, beans were associated with the dead and were eaten at funeral feasts. This was not only a Roman practice. The word ‘beano’ was originally applied by the ancient Celts to a funeral ‘beanfeast’.

The actual and enduring problem is that of favism, a form of poisoning which afflicts certain susceptible people when they eat broad beans, and sometimes even when they breathe the pollen of bean flowers. The result is severe anaemia and jaundice. Only a tiny proportion of the population suffers from this trouble, which is hereditary and seems to affect peoples native to the European and Mediterranean lands where the bean originated. It has been suggested that Pythagoras himself was a sufferer and that this was the reason for his ban. However, such an explanation would have to be stretched considerably to account for all the other derogatory and mystical beliefs about the bean which were entertained in the past.

broccoli

Brassica oleracea, Cymosa group, is one of the most puzzling members of the cabbage family. The trouble is that, although shopkeepers and shoppers can usually distinguish it easily from the CAULIFLOWER, botanists cannot.

Like the cauliflower, broccoli is a sort of cabbage in which flowers have begun to form but have stopped growing while still in bud. In the cauliflower the buds are clustered tightly together to form the familiar white head. In broccoli, or at least what is called ‘sprouting broccoli’, they are in separate groups, each group on its own thick, fleshy stalk. Besides sprouting broccoli (which is ready for consumption in the spring, after overwintering, and may have purple, green, or white flower heads), the main category of this vegetable is calabrese, an annual broccoli which is harvested in summer; it is green or purple. A third category, romanesco, matures later in the year, displaying yellowish-green multiple heads, grouped together. However, the development of numerous cultivars has resulted in a highly complex situation.

One plausible theory about its origin is that broccoli developed before the cauliflower. Vilmorin (1883), drawing on his great experience as the premier seedsman of France, thought that when gardeners first tried growing cabbages for their shoots (as opposed to compact heads) they began to develop prototypes of broccoli, and that it was from these that cauliflowers, which were regarded as superior because of their white and compact form, evolved.

The first clear description of broccoli occurs in the 1724 edition of Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary, where it was described as a stranger in England ‘until within these five years’ and was called ‘sprout colli-flower’ or ‘Italian asparagus’. It seems to be generally accepted that the broccoli thus introduced to England, and no doubt to other European countries at about the same time, came from Italy. Broccoli is an Italian word meaning ‘little arms’ or ‘little shoots’. The Italian connection is maintained in the name calabrese, which refers to the Italian province of Calabria.

Broccoli reached N. America later in the 18th century, but did not become popular there until the 20th century. In the latter part of the century its consumption has increased dramatically. About 90% of the crop in the USA comes from California.

Broccoli is less demanding than cauliflower in respect of climate, and thrives in many parts of the world. For what is often called Chinese broccoli, the sort preferred in China, see CHINESE KALE.

Broccoli is rich in nutrients, best preserved by cooking briefly, with little water, or stir-frying. A dressing of lemon butter or HOLLANDAISE sauce suits it.

browning

of foods is a familiar occurrence in the kitchen, and often a welcome one. People prefer loaves to be brown outside, and like a slice of bread to be browned when toasted. Grilled or roasted meat should have a brown exterior. On the other hand, no one likes to see cut fruits or vegetables turning brown, as many will if remedial action is not taken.

Some compounds formed during browning have distinctive flavours, often ones which are liked, such as that of CARAMEL, but sometimes stale and even repulsive. An understanding of the different ways in which browning occurs will help to illuminate these contrasts.

There are four main causes of browning, which may act separately or in combination at various temperatures.

The simplest is caramelization, which happens only at high temperatures. It is caused by the breakdown of SUGARS or, indirectly, of starches which first decompose into sugars.

Another kind of browning directly affects STARCH when it is heated in dry conditions; this is known as dextrinization.

A very common cause of browning is a more complicated reaction known as sugar-amine browning. Sugars and AMINO ACIDS (or proteins, which are composed of amino acids) react together, usually at cooking temperatures but sometimes at room temperature or below.

ENZYME browning is also widespread. It occurs at low or moderate temperatures only, since the enzymes which cause it are quickly destroyed by heat.

Caramelization

Sugar molecules begin to disintegrate at temperatures above 170 °C (340 °F). They break up in various ways, and the number of different compounds which can thus be yielded is over a hundred. Some of them are brown in colour and bitter in taste, producing the characteristic colour and flavour of caramelization. If heating is continued, caramelized sugars break down further into pure black carbon.

The various types of sugar differ noticeably in the extent to which they caramelize. Fructose and sucrose caramelize readily, but dextrose (glucose) hardly does so at all. The pentose sugars, whose molecules contain only five carbon atoms instead of six, caramelize very well. Since small amounts of these are present in wheat bran and in rye, wholemeal and rye breads tend to colour quickly when toasted.

Caramelization can take place both in air and away from it, as at the bottom of a saucepan. The sticky black coating on the bottom of an overheated pan is mostly caramel and carbon.

Caramelized sugar can be used as a brown colouring and is the basis of ‘gravy browning’, which is made from glucose. Such products are popular in Britain and northern countries, though little seen elsewhere.

An example of pure caramelization is the well-known dessert CRÈME CARAMEL. Sugar and water are boiled until the sugar is caramelized, and this is then used to line a small mould. A vanilla-flavoured custard is poured in, and the mould is placed in a bain-marie in the oven. See also CRÈME BRÛLÈE.

Curiously, the sweets called ‘caramels’ have not undergone caramelization. They acquire their flavour and pale brown colour largely from sugar-amine reactions caused by heating the milk with which they are made.

Dextrinization

Dextrins are the remains of starch molecules which have been broken down by heating, or by enzymes in the course of digestion. When starch is heated in dry conditions these products include pyrodextrins, which are brown in colour and have a characteristic flavour recognizable in bread crust and toast.

Again, excessive heating can yield black carbon.

Sugar-amine browning

This occurs in a wide variety of foods which contain both sugars and proteins. It is also called the ‘Maillard effect’, after the Frenchman who first identified it. It is strange that there is no more common term for it, since such reactions are a fundamental part of cooking. The products are not only coloured but also have flavours which give much of the taste of roasted and grilled foods.

The chemistry is complex and many different compounds are formed at various stages. The reactions can take place both in air and without it. The coloured end products are known as melanoidins. Proteins, whether whole or in the form of isolated amino acids, are not all equally prone to engage in these reactions. Sugars, too, vary in their behaviour. Ordinary sugar (sucrose) does not react at all. But in most foods there are other sugars which do; and some sucrose will anyway be split into simple sugars during cooking, or by the action of yeast in bread dough.

Sugar-amine reactions are usually desirable, as in cooked meat, roasted coffee beans, dried prunes, and maple syrup; but they may also be unwelcome, as in fruit juices. It is therefore useful to know both how to encourage and how to inhibit them.

Among the encouraging factors are a high temperature and alkalinity. Thus, in making maple syrup, the desired colour and flavour are deliberately developed by concentrating the syrup at a high temperature and taking advantage of its slight natural alkalinity. BICARBONATE OF SODA, the mild alkali which is added to some cakes and biscuits and peanut BRITTLE, promotes browning. Certain organic acids, such as fruit acids, also help, as do phosphates, iron, and copper. The provision of additional sugar and protein, as when milk is brushed on to bread to help the crust turn brown, is an obvious technique.

Inhibiting factors are fewer. Moderate, but not extreme, drying of a product slows down browning. Sulphur dioxide blocks it effectively, in a manner not yet fully understood. This chemical is therefore added to various food products some of which, including fruit squashes, would otherwise discolour quickly even at room temperature.

Enzyme browning

This typically occurs in fruits and vegetables that have been cut or bruised, breaking open their cells and allowing the natural enzymes in them to decompose other substances into compounds with a dark colour and, often, an ‘off’ flavour. This is seldom desirable; an exception is the preparation of ‘black’ tea, where the leaves are deliberately bruised to allow enzymes to work.

We normally try to frustrate the enzymes responsible for this kind of browning. The simplest way is to cook the food, which destroys the enzymes. Freezing, on the other hand, does not, so vegetables to be frozen must be thoroughly blanched beforehand to prevent them from slowly browning after they are frozen. Salt blocks the action of the enzymes, but such large quantities are needed that it is not generally used for the purpose, although sliced apples may be left in brine for a short time before they are used. Acids have the same effect and are more practical. Lemon juice, vinegar, and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) are all used. Sulphur dioxide (which forms sulphurous acid in water) is used for commercial dried fruit. Finally, enzyme browning can be prevented by the exclusion of air, since, unlike the other kinds of browning, it needs oxygen to work. Putting foods in water is not effective by itself, because of the air dissolved in the water. Syrups afford better protection. Vacuum packing, although the vacuum is never total, is quite effective. The use of an inert gas, as when apples are stored in nitrogen, is best of all.

Complex brownings

The browning of bread crust and of toast involves the first three mechanisms acting simultaneously. Sugars released into the dough by the action of yeast, or painted onto the loaf, undergo caramelization. On the dry outside of the loaf starch breaks down into pyrodextrins. In the moister conditions just below the surface, sugar-amine browning also takes place. The same three, and especially the last two, occur when breadcrumbs are sprinkled on top of a dish and heated to produce a brown crust over it.

There is an element of caramelization in the browning of foods which are deep fried; but this is subordinate to the more important sugar-amine browning.

bubble and squeak

cooked potatoes and cabbage fried together, was originally slices of meat (generally beef) and cabbage. The name, known by the late 18th century, may refer to the noise made during frying. William Kitchiner (1818) quoted lines from Peter Pindar: ‘When midst the frying Pan, in accents savage, The Beef, so surly, quarrels with the Cabbage’ and a little tune. Kitchiner’s ‘Bubble and Squeak, or fried Beef or Mutton and Cabbage’ used sliced underdone meat lightly browned in butter, served around chopped, fried boiled cabbage, served with a vinegar, mustard, and pickle concoction he called Wow Wow sauce.

Bubble and squeak was not elegant, but recipes appear in many 19th-century cookery books. Cabbage and beef, with minor variations in seasoning, preparation, and presentation, remain the most common elements until the 20th century. Potatoes start to appear in mid-19th-century recipes. Anne Cobbett’s English Housekeeper (1851) noted several variations, including an equal portion of chopped cold potatoes fried with the cabbage, spinach as an alternative to cabbage, and veal to beef. In 1901, Cassell’s New Universal Cookery Book suggested adding a little mashed potato, shredded onion, or chives to the cabbage, suggesting that the mixture could be made into little flat cakes, rolled in crumbs and fried brown.

Potatoes probably reflect influence from Irish dishes such as COLCANNON (potatoes and boiled cabbage, mashed) and CHAMP (potatoes mashed with chopped scallions or nettles). Colcannon was known and admired in 18th-century England, and Jane Grigson (1978) comments wittily on Kitchiner’s bubble and squeak recipe, making a connection with colcannon, which she evidently and rightly prefers to its later English rival. Although combinations of potato and cabbage recur in Scottish and Iberian cookery, notably as the Portuguese soup caldo verde, the habit of frying the two together seems to be uniquely English.

buckwheat

Fagopyrum esculentum, a herbaceous plant of the same family as rhubarb, sorrel, and dock, is grown for its seeds; these resemble those of cereals. Being hardy, growing quickly even in unfavourable conditions, and capable of producing two or even three crops a year, it is most used in regions with cold climates or poor soils where true cereals do not grow well. For many centuries it was a vital food source for the inhabitants of mountainous regions of Japan where the climate is too cold, the soil too poor, and the land too limited for growing rice. Countries of the former Soviet Union now account for 90% of world production.

The plant bears small clusters of seeds of a curious shape, triangular in cross-section with pointed ends. They are named from a supposed resemblance to beech nuts, which are also roughly triangular but much larger. (The name is derived from the Dutch bockweit, and its literal translation, ‘beechwheat’, has been used in English.)

There are several species of buckwheat, all native to temperate E. Asia. The wild ancestor of the cultivated type is thought to be perennial buckwheat, Fagopyrum dibotrys, which grows in the Himalayas and China. From this came the main cultivated species, brank buckwheat, F. esculentum, which may have originated from Yunnan province, in S. China. Tartary buckwheat and, to a lesser extent, notch-seeded buckwheat are cultivated in mountainous and northern regions, where they resist the harsh climate better.

Although buckwheat has certainly been gathered from the wild for a long time in its native region, deliberate cultivation may not be very ancient. The first written records of the plant are in Chinese documents of the 5th and 6th centuries AD. It appears to have reached Japan from Korea in antiquity and an official chronicle (Shoku-Nihongi), completed in 722, contains the earliest known mention of buckwheat in Japanese literature. Archaeological finds in Japan certainly reflect its use, if not its domestication, in the 5th century BC.

Buckwheat reached E. Europe from Russia in the Middle Ages, entering Germany in the 14th and 15th centuries (although, again, archaeology throws up evidence of buckwheat seeds in the Balkans very much earlier than this). Later it came to France and Italy where it was known as ‘Saracen corn’, a name which survives in both languages; and Spain, where a name derived from Arabic was used. For several centuries it was grown as a crop of minor importance in most of Europe, including Britain, but it has now lost popularity in W. Europe. Buckwheat was grown by early European settlers in N. America, and figures in traditional dishes there such as the French or Acadian ployes, which are buckwheat pancakes and still available in Maine. Some is also grown in parts of Africa and Brazil.

Buckwheat is similar to a typical cereal in nutritional value. It contains a substance, rutin, which is supposed to be beneficial in cases of high blood pressure.

The uses of buckwheat both in the form of husked whole grains and as flour are manifold. The flour, however, is not suitable for making ordinary bread, except when mixed with other cereal flour. It has an unusual flavour which is not universally liked.

The most renowned of all buckwheat dishes is KASHA, a speciality of Russia and E. Europe. Whole buckwheat grain may be cooked in the same way as rice, and is also made into sweet, baked puddings. Buckwheat flour is most often made into pancakes, notably the Russian BLINI, and it is used for pierogi in Poland, Slovenia, and Serbia. Lesley Chamberlain (1989) says that ‘Buckwheat flour is widely used in traditional bread and cakes in Slovenia.’ In the German-speaking countries of C. Europe Schmarren, thick pancakes which are torn up when partly cooked and the shreds browned, are sometimes made from buckwheat, although stale bread is a more usual base (see PANCAKE). Buckwheat pancakes are a traditional N. American breakfast dish. They also appear in the cuisine of N. China. The most famous French pancakes, galettes or crêpes from Brittany, are also made with a proportion of buckwheat, while a porridge from the grain was a standby of the Breton and Norman peasantry—an elaboration of which, in Brittany, was combined with dried fruits before cooking in a pudding bag. Nowadays, a far breton is a fruit flan.

Buckwheat noodles have been made in China and Russia, but are a particular speciality of Japan. There they are called SOBA, which is also the name for buckwheat in its original state. It was only from the 17th century that the Japanese began to use buckwheat for noodles. Previously, it was commonly eaten in other, simpler, forms, such as GRUELS, PORRIDGES, PANCAKES, and DUMPLINGS. The simplest way of eating it had been Sobagaki, something like Italian POLENTA. Boiling water was poured over the flour, the whole stirred vigorously, and the result eaten at once with SOY SAUCE (or, in earlier times, DASHI). Sobagaki is still made, always with buckwheat; and some Japanese prefer it to noodles as being the purest way of eating buckwheat.

The leaves of species grown for grain are customarily used for animal fodder, but those of wild perennial buckwheat are cooked as a vegetable in the Himalayas and N. China. In Tibet, and probably elsewhere, they are eaten as a salad green, resembling coarse sorrel.

Buckwheat flowers yield an interesting, strongly flavoured, dark HONEY.

Buddhism and food

a topic of interest in connection with the cuisines of countries where Buddhism is the or a main religion: Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Japan. Although Buddhism began in India, in the 6th century BC, and was at one time the state religion of India, its importance there has greatly diminished.

In common with Hindus, Buddhists believe in reincarnation and that the soul of the human being may have inhabited, or may inhabit in the future, an animal. In principle, therefore, Buddhists abstain from killing or injuring any living creatures, from which it would logically follow that they should all be vegetarians. In practice, abstention from eating meat is strictly observed by monks and devout laymen, but many Buddhists do eat meat.

Buddhist monks in many Buddhist countries, but not generally in China, Japan, or Korea, go out in procession each morning so that people in the neighbourhood can offer them food; and they may not eat any solid food after midday. The goal of Buddhists is the state of perfection called nirvana, and lay people win merit and aid their own progress towards nirvana by feeding the monks. This helps to offset any negative marks acquired from eating flesh. In any case, Buddhists believe that the real wrong consists in killing an animal, not in eating it, so that many Buddhists will eat with a clear conscience meat from an animal which has had a fatal accident, or just died, or been killed by a non-Buddhist. According to Fieldhouse (1986), Buddhists in Thailand—and no doubt elsewhere—see no problem in fishing and eating their catch since the fish are not perceived as being killed, but merely removed from the water. In Tibet, however, eating fish (and fowl) is regarded as not conducive to good thinking.

Apart from the general prohibition on killing or injuring other animals (which means some strict Buddhists do not hold with dairy foods), Buddhists do not have absolute food taboos in the manner of some other religions, viewing food and eating as a means to an end (nirvana). The properties of certain foods may inhibit the achievement of that end, which is why Buddhists in China and Vietnam, for instance, eschew the allium family as promoting anger and sexual desire.

See also TIBET for further evidence of the flexible and practical ways in which Buddhists interpret for food purposes the requirements of their religion.

bulbs

of plants are used for food, the obvious example being those of the ONION family. Plants of related families also often have bulbs (or corms: a distinction unimportant to cooks) which are or used to be eaten, especially by N. American Indians and in Asia.

The common lily (Lilium spp) exists in many wild forms and cultivated varieties, nearly all of which have edible bulbs, though not all are palatable. Apart from the American Indians, the Japanese make some use of lily bulbs in traditional dishes. They are known as yurine. Yamayuri and oniyuri are cultivated for the purpose. But there are more important edible plants in the lily family. These include CAMAS, formerly a staple food of the north-west of the USA. Emerson (1908) records that the Tatars of C. Asia took advantage of a mouse, Mus socialis, which had the habit of collecting lily and other bulbs in a cache for its own use. The Tatars would rob the cache.

Asphodel bulbs (Asphodelus spp) were eaten in the classical era by Greeks and Romans. They were mainly a food of the poor, but Pliny mentions that when the bulbs were roasted and pounded with oil, salt, and figs they were considered a delicacy. The Bedu still eat these bulbs. Dalby (2003) describes a Greek appetizer with an interesting history, ‘the bulbs of the grape hyacinth (Muscari comosum) … are known in modern Greek as volvi, in Italian as lampascioni. These have been eaten in Greece ever since classical times …. They require long baking, traditionally under hot ashes, and generous seasoning, an expenditure of effort possibly redeemed by their lasting fame as aphrodisiacs.’

Tulip bulbs, of Tulipa spp, have been widely eaten by nomadic tribes in C. Asia, where these plants are native. They are also sometimes used in Italy. During the Second World War the Dutch ate the bulbs of their flowering varieties; see Salzman (1983) and Holthuis (1984) for reports on their palatability. The film star Audrey Hepburn, then a teenager in Utrecht, has recorded how turnips and tulip bulbs helped her to survive in 1945. In this connection it is interesting that Dutch settlers in S. Africa had earlier made a practice of eating various ‘bulbs’ (mainly corms, as explained below, which they knew by names such as sanduintjies and geeluintjies). Leipoldt (1976) comments that all the edible uintjies are cherry sized, almond white inside, and easily removed from their fibrous husk. ‘They taste somewhat like chestnuts and, when boiled have the same crisp consistency, can be mashed easily and blend perfectly with many flavourings.’

A special type, the edible tulip (Amana edulis, syn Tulipa edulis), is grown in Japan to make starch. Erythronium japonicum, a plant of the lily family found in Hokkaido and Honshu and known as katakuri, is similarly used; a starch known as katakuri-ko is extracted from the bulb. It is of high quality and used for confectionery. Since it is expensive and only a small amount is produced, cheaper and inferior potato flour is used as a substitute and often goes by the same name.

The iris family includes a number of species with edible ‘bulbs’ (actually, corms). Those of the tiger iris, Tigridia pavonia, of C. and S. America have an agreeable chestnut flavour, and are eaten by Indians.

A crocus, Crocus sativus, is most notable as the source of SAFFRON, but its corms are often eaten in the poorer parts of Greece and the Levant, where they grow wild; again, they have a nutty flavour.

The corms of many aroids (the arum lily family) are important tropical root crops: see TARO, SURAM, and for tannia, MALANGA.

Bulgaria

which might claim to be the heartland of the Balkans, has a capital city, Sofia, which is approximately equidistant from the Adriatic and Black seas, and Istanbul, Athens, and Tirana. At an altitude of 550 m (1,800′) and surrounded by mountains, it is the second highest capital in Europe after Madrid. Three-quarters of the land of Bulgaria lies below 600 m (2,000′) and much of it is arable, the remainder consisting of high mountains. Most of the highlands are forested, and above the forests are summer pastures with a large number of sheep.

The Danubian plain, north of the Balkan range, is devoted to the cultivation of cereals, mainly wheat and maize, the rearing of cattle, pigs, and, to a lesser extent, water-buffaloes. Temperate fruits such as apples, pears, cherries, and quinces flourish in most parts of the country, with a predominance of apricots on the banks of the Danube. Along the Black Sea coast and in the lowlands there are almonds, walnuts, chestnuts, figs, and peanuts, whereas cultivation of rice and lentils is confined to the warmest regions of the south. There are no olives or citrus fruits, so they have to be imported. Except for them and some spices, very few foodstuffs are brought into the country, mainly because of the Bulgarian preference for home produce as against imported less-known items, which are often alien to the national taste.

A peculiarity in the general eating pattern is that, historically, Bulgarian consumption of FISH has been one of the lowest in Europe, despite the fact that the country has an outlet on the Black Sea and has rivers and streams which are rich in fish (some of which are luxuries in other parts of Europe). Consumption towards the end of the 20th century increased, but is still low by European standards. Many Bulgarians eat fish, riba, only in the months with an ‘r’ in them, and most are biased against eating fish with milk or yoghurt at the same meal.

Whatever the reason for fish’s relatively low priority in the diet, there is no doubt about the Bulgarian enthusiasm for YOGHURT. Two-thirds of the milk output, mostly cow’s milk, is sold as plain yoghurt though there are also other sorts. Thick sheep’s yoghurt, which can claim a very ancient ancestry, is preferred to any other. Whether or not the ancient Thracians made yoghurt is open to question; but it is certainly true that in the 7th century AD—that is, seven centuries before the incursion of the Ottoman Turks into the Balkan peninsula—a form of yoghurt was already being prepared by the Bulgar-Turks, who used as a starter culture either spontaneously fermented sheep’s milk, or sheep’s cheese which was creamed with water and mixed with the warm milk. This form of yoghurt, called katuk, is still made in highland dairies and many rural areas towards the end of the ewes’ lactation period. When ready, the yoghurt is stored for the winter sealed with a protective layer of sheep’s butter.

It is interesting that the Bulgar-Turks’ cultured milk has survived in an almost unchanged form to the present day. Even more interesting is the fact that although its contemporary Bulgarian name is obviously derived from the Turkish katik, meaning ‘anything eaten with bread, as a relish’, the same term, applied to the same or similar product, was used in the Bashkir, Uzbek, and Tatar republics of the former USSR—a fact which suggests an all-Turkic origin somewhere in the steppes of C. Asia.

A main characteristic of present-day Bulgarian cooking is the widespread use of SUNFLOWER oil rather than animal fats. Sunflower oil has also almost entirely replaced the walnut and sesame cooking oils of the past, as well as the imported olive oil. Lard or butter are sometimes used in stews and pastries, but beef fat is avoided to such an extent that in many households minced beef is first thoroughly defatted and then cooked with sunflower oil.

Another national feature is the delight in red-coloured food and drinks—a trait probably inherited from the so-called Proto-Bulgars (4th century onwards) who used crushed red rock or red clay mixed with red wine as a curative. Red foodstuffs are considered healthy and invigorating; red apples are preferred to green or yellow, and there are many folksongs which eulogize red wine—but never white. When peppers were introduced in the 16th century (the hot chilli type) and the cottage production of ground chilli pepper began, stews took on a crimson glow. A Bulgarian stew, yahniya (from Turkish yahni), can be meatless, or with meat and vegetables, but it is always red, and always cooked with lots of onion. Long, slow cooking allows the onion to melt and thicken the meat or vegetable juices, giving the stew its quite distinct taste and flavour. Meat stews are often cooked with fruits such as quince. See also GYUVECH.

Minimum frying is an attribute of the old Bulgarian cuisine. The frying technique was almost unknown in the villages before the Turkish conquest, probably because the traditional clay baking dishes could not withstand the high temperature necessary for frying, and copper pans were few and quite expensive. The use of zapruzhka, a small stew-enrichment sauce based on fried onion and flour, is a late occurrence of the last hundred years or so. Nearly all fried dishes of modern Bulgarian cookery are adoptions from GREECE, TURKEY, and C. Europe.

As for bread, the pitka is noteworthy; this is a large roll or bap-shaped loaf sometimes offered with a saucer of choubritsa or sharena sol. Choubritsa is a powdered mixture of dried winter SAVORY (Satureja montana), cumin, fenugreek, salt, pepper, and occasionally chilli powder. One tears off a piece of pitka and dunks the torn surface into the choubritsa before eating it. This goes well with fish dishes and also with the shopska salata, a salad incorporating mild red peppers, which one should have first.

Turning to another aspect of Bulgarian cooking, it is noticeable that food preparation runs in close harmony with the seasonal cycle which determines the ingredients that enter the pot. Meat of older animals or poultry is cooked with pulses, cabbage, SAUERKRAUT, potatoes, or almost any winter fruit: prunes, dried apricots, and chestnuts. Young animal flesh is combined with spring onion and green garlic, spinach, young broad-bean pods, or tiny peas. The cooking together, for example, of lamb with haricot beans or dried okra is considered an inadmissible culinary blunder.

Traditionally, the lamb-cooking season started in April, on St George’s Day. The young chickens of the season were roasted for the first time on St Peter’s Day in June. Baked carp stuffed with walnuts was served in December on St Nicholas’s Day, roast pork at Christmas, and goose or cock on the first day of January. The practice was based on the ancient Bulgarian solar calendar in which the new year started after day zero (22 December, day one being the shortest day of the year).

Summer is the time for vegetables served in their own right, and also for salads and for uncooked tomato or yoghurt soups. Ice-cold yoghurt drinks, unsweetened compotes, and fresh fruit are then welcome. Cherries, strawberries, grapes, and peaches are brought home from the market in their wooden crates; melons and watermelons, by the cartload, are piled up in the cellar, later to be joined by a couple of barrels of sauerkraut—one of whole cabbages for salad and to provide leaves for stuffing, the other with shredded cabbage for cooking.

Bulgaria is famed for its attar of roses, the liquid gold (see ROSES), as is ROMANIA. For other neighbours see YUGOSLAVIA; MACEDONIA; GREECE; TURKEY.

bun

a term which has a more restricted meaning in Britain than in the USA, where it simply means a bread roll of some kind, sweet or savoury. British buns are sweeter and richer than plain breads, or than MUFFINS or CRUMPETS. The term has been used in English since the 15th century. It is derived from the old French bugne, ‘swelling’, referring to the bulging shape. The word survives in French for a puffy FRITTER.

The following are a few of the many sorts of bun.

Bath bun. In the 18th century, the original Bath buns were made from a rich, BRIOCHE-like dough, strewn with caraway COMFITS. A similar bun is still made in the Bath area, from a rich yeast dough containing flour, butter, sugar, and eggs shaped into rounds with a lump of sugar under each. After baking, they are sprinkled with crushed lump sugar. Some recipes require candied peel, currants, or sultanas. Eighteenth-century ‘Bath cakes’ may have been the ancestors of both these and SALLY LUNNS. The popularity of such confections led to Bath buns being much copied, not always with the original delicacy.

Black bun is not a bun; see separate entry.

Chelsea bun, a square bun made from a spiral of yeast dough containing eggs and flavoured with grated lemon peel, ground cinnamon or sweet mixed spice. When the dough has risen for the first time, it is rolled out into a rectangle and a mixture of equal quantities of currants, brown sugar, and butter is spread over it. Folding, rolling, and re-rolling follow and the buns are glazed after being baked. These buns originated in the Bun House of Chelsea, which was built around the beginning of the 18th century. It enjoyed the patronage of the Hanoverian royal family and flourished until its demolition in 1839.

Colston buns, a speciality of Bristol in England, still made in that city, take their name from Sir Edward Colston (1636–1721), a Merchant Venturer. They are based on a lightly enriched yeast dough, flavoured with sweet spices, and contain a little dried fruit and candied peel. The ‘dinner-plate size’ is marked out into eight wedges; in the ‘ha’penny starver’ size they are small individual buns.

Hot cross bun, a round bun made from a rich yeast dough containing flour, milk, sugar, butter, eggs, currants, and spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves. In England, hot cross buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday; they are marked on top with a cross, either cut in the dough or composed of strips of pastry. The mark is of ancient origin, connected with religious offerings of bread, which replaced earlier, less civilized offerings of blood. The Egyptians offered small round cakes, marked with a representation of the horns of an ox, to the goddess of the moon. The Greeks and Romans had similar practices and the Saxons ate buns marked with a cross in honour of the goddess of light, Eostre, whose name was transferred to Easter. According to superstition, hot cross buns and loaves baked on Good Friday never went mouldy, and were sometimes kept as charms from one year to the next. Like Chelsea buns, hot cross buns were sold in great quantities by the Chelsea Bun House; in the 18th century large numbers of people flocked to Chelsea during the Easter period expressly to visit this establishment.

London bun, a finger-shaped bun made from a rich yeast dough which may include currants, and sometimes caraway seeds. The bun is topped with white sugar icing after baking. The way in which the icing spreads out prompted an alternative name, ‘candlegrease buns’.

Saffron bun, made from the same dough as is used to make the bread called ‘saffron cake’. Saffron was also an ingredient in Devonshire revel buns, an old variety served on special occasions such as revels. They were made from a rich yeast dough, contained currants, were additionally flavoured with cinnamon or nutmeg, and were sprinkled with powdered sugar after baking. Florence White (1932) explains that a revel was ‘an anniversary feast to celebrate the dedication of a church’, and says that the buns were traditionally baked on sycamore leaves.

buran

the nickname of the wife of a 9th-century caliph of Baghdad, has evolved from a special dish served at her wedding into a whole family of dishes which have found their way to many parts of the world. Thus the memory of the Princess, who died in 884, is honoured every day on many thousands of tables. Her name and the vegetable here called eggplant (but described under AUBERGINE) have become inextricably linked.

The story is of exceptional interest. First, her wedding celebrations were of fabulous magnificence. Secondly, the dish named for her and its descendants are a virtually unique case of a dish whose history can be traced from the date of its introduction over a period of 1,000 years. We can watch with unusual clarity the evolutionary processes that affect a dish over the centuries as it spreads thousands of miles into new physical and social settings.

To return to the wedding, the Caliph al-Mamun (son of Harun al-Rashid) was the bridegroom, and he had a remarkable surprise when he arrived at the wedding palace which had been specially erected for the occasion. He was led to a tray of woven gold, and as he stood on it, all unsuspecting, a thousand pearls were poured over his head. And this was merely for the sake of a literary reference: the court poet had once compared the bubbly surface of a glass of white wine to ‘pearls scattered like pebbles on a field of gold’. That set the tone and scale of the celebrations. The party began during RAMADAN, the month when Muslims fast during the daylight hours and celebrate with all-night feasts, and lasted the better part of a month.

The wedding food must have been supremely lavish but no record of it survives. However, by the middle of the 10th century the poet Kushajam refers to a dish named for Buran, badhinjan buran. This means ‘Buran’s eggplant’, and The Book of Dishes, written in the 10th century by a friend of the poet, gives two recipes for it. The recipes look rather pedestrian to us: eggplant slices salted and then fried with flavourings. However, it is reasonable to suppose that the dishes had been served at the wedding feast or were otherwise intimately associated with the Princess. At that point in history, eggplants were exotic newcomers from India, known under a name of Indian origin, badhinjan, that was to give rise to the name of the vegetable in most European languages: Spanish berenjena, Italian melanzane, French aubergine. In the 10th century its place in the kitchen and on the table was still precarious. Indeed, in some quarters it met scorn and hostility. In one 11th-century anecdote a Bedouin was asked, ‘What do you say of eggplant cooked by Buran?’ He replied, ‘Even if Mary the mother of Jesus split it and Sarah the wife of Abraham cooked it and Fatimah the daughter of the Prophet served it, I would have no taste for it.’ Perhaps the bitter taste accounted for this in part. The plain-looking 10th-century recipes contain an innovation after all—the salting, which leaches out some of the eggplant’s bitterness. Whatever the reason, this eggplant dish spread to all the medieval Islamic lands and Buran’s name has been applied to a vast range of dishes descended from it, in Spain and the Balkans as well as the Islamic heartland that extends from Morocco to India.

By the 13th century, the dish had become Buraniyyah (‘Buran stew’), in conformity with the usual way of naming dishes and perhaps because meat had now been added. Arabic cookery manuscripts from Spain show several variations on the theme of fried eggplant with stewed meat. This theme is still familiar in Morocco and Algeria, where braniya remains a popular dish; and it was alive in Syria as recently as the 15th century. However, as early as the 13th century, buranniyah had begun the process of differentiation that commonly happens to popular dishes; it had started to become a category of dishes.

The first recorded example of this differentiation is a recipe, probably from Iraq, for ‘buranniyah of gourd’ (in a compilation whose title translates as The Book of Familiar Foods, 17th century). The other elements of the dish had already changed. Now the ‘lead ingredient’ itself was removed; eggplant was changed to gourd. The door was open for the invention of new buraniyyahs made with other vegetables. The result can be seen in modern Egypt and Syria, where a dish called burani is made with zucchini, spinach, mallow, or other vegetables (but not with eggplant, which had meanwhile become the main ingredient in a whole array of new recipes which caused the old eggplant burani to be forgotten).

Differentiation proceeded elsewhere, on radical lines, and in a manner reminiscent of the adaptive radiation by which one species of bird (such as Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos) may spread into and adapt itself to new environments, being transformed after a score of generations into birds so different that they are classified as new species. Buraniyyah, as it spread, met and reacted to various cultures and different religious needs, including the preoccupation in Christian areas with meatless dishes for fast days. It is tempting to suppose that Christianity brought about the vegetarian boronía of Spain and the vegetarian but otherwise entirely different buranija/borani of the Balkans.

Be that as it may, we can reconstruct the family tree of this dish as follows. A fried eggplant dish is introduced to the Islamic world and is soon enriched with meat. A meatless form survives in Spain; the version with meat survives unchanged in N. Africa and as a category of meat and vegetable dishes (but not using eggplant) in Egypt and Syria. The Balkans follow a recipe probably developed in Turkey from eggplantless dishes of the Syrian type by the addition of wheat or rice, which can be replaced in Bulgaria and (former) Yugoslavia by green beans.

This ‘tree’ has to be completed by a description of what is perhaps the most distinctive new ‘species’ in the family, an Iranian dish with yoghurt. We find it mentioned in the writings of a 14th-century Persian food poet named Abu Ishaq of Shiraz: a dish of fried eggplant dressed with sour milk products. This is the ubiquitous Borani-ye-bademjan of Iran, also found in Iraq, Georgia, Armenia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Against the background described above, it will be no surprise to hear that this in turn has differentiated into a broad category of (usually cold) vegetable dishes dressed with yoghurt. These may be made with chard, squash, spinach, beets, lentils, cardoon, or beans, and occur in Iran, Armenia, and Turkey.

burdock

Arctium lappa, a plant of the daisy family, Compositae, which, with its smaller relation A. minus, is common all over the northern temperate zone, and which furnishes edible roots. These are long (up to 120 cm/4′ in length) and usually slender (around 4 cm/1.5″ in width).

A. lappa is the popular vegetable gobo of Japan, the only country where it is eaten on a large scale, although it enjoys some popularity in Hawaii, where the Japanese introduced it, and in Taiwan (China grows a lot of it, for export to Japan). It is also popular in Korea, where it is eaten boiled or as deep-fried chips. In Japan, a distinction is made between two forms, one with green and one with purplish stalks. The varieties most esteemed are Ouragobo, from Oura near Tokyo, and Horikawagobo, an old favourite from Horikawa near Kyoto. The root of the former is unusual in being thick, short, and hollow inside.

The Japanese do not often cook gobo as a vegetable in its own right, preferring to combine it with other vegetables. However, Kinpira is a well-known dish in which slices of burdock and carrot are lightly fried, then cooked with sugar and soy sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds: a New Year dish and a popular item for lunch boxes. It has gained popularity with the increasing concern with dietary fibre. In the 1990s it was estimated that each Japanese consumed 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) per annum.

Not only the root but also the inside part of the young shoot is edible. Gerard’s Herbal (1633), referring to the plant as ‘clot-burre’, said of the young shoot: ‘The rind peelld off, [it] being eaten with salt and pepper, or boyled in the broth of fat meate, is pleasant to be eaten.’ The instruction to peel off the rind is important, since it is bitter. Burdock is still used on a small scale in Britain: the root is used to flavour ‘dandelion and burdock’, a soft drink akin to the better-known American ROOT BEER. American Indians also ate burdock roots and shoots. Wild burdock root resembles salsify but is slightly bitter, so has to be boiled in two changes of water. The shoot is not unlike asparagus, and can be successfully candied.

The seed heads of the burdock (the burrs indeed) can claim to have inspired the Swiss inventor Georges de Mestral to develop Velcro, which utilizes the same hook-and-loop system as do they.

Burma

a name which is still more familiar outside the country than the official Myanmar, achieved independence in 1948 with the end of British rule, includes many different ethnic and cultural groups, in particular the Burmans, the Shans, the Chins, and the Mons. It has five terrestrial neighbours (INDIA, BANGLADESH, CHINA, LAOS, THAILAND) as well as a long sea coast. Important food crops include RICE and SUGAR CANE.

The similarity between the cuisines of Burma and Thailand is noticeable. However, it is Burma’s two big neighbours, India and China, which have probably exerted the greatest influence on Burmese cooking. This dual effect is symbolized by the choice which Burmese cooks frequently exercise between ‘Indian curry power’ (garam masala) and ‘Chinese curry powder’. Indeed, the Indian influence is perhaps most apparent in the form of aromatic seasonings and CURRY dishes. From China have come many rice and NOODLE dishes, SOY SAUCE, and dried mushrooms; pungent fermented fish seasonings, described below, may well derive from the Vietnamese tradition of FISH SAUCE, although fish sauces are omnipresent in the region and probably had no single point of origin.

Rice is the staple food of the Burmese and is served piping hot at every meal even though the other dishes such as curries may be served at room temperature. The rice is preferred cooked moist, fluffy, and just sticky enough to hold together when eating as the traditional method of eating is with the fingers. A Burmese dish called Htamin lethoke literally means rice mixed with the fingers. And rice noodles are one of the fundamental ingredients in the national dish, MOHINGA.

Other ways of cooking rice again illustrate the dual influences of India and China. Danbauk or PILAF rice cooked with GHEE, instead of the peanut (see GROUNDNUT or SESAME oil which are Burmese staples (peanut for frying, sesame for other purposes)), is of Indian and Muslim origin; while fried rice, as a one-dish meal, more or less as found throughout SE Asia, is of Chinese origin.

Other noodles are also popular and are available dried or fresh and are generally used as a base for curries. A festive Burmese dish called Oh-no kauk-swe is made with chicken and noodles and richly flavoured with coconut milk curry.

LEMON GRASS is one of the most popular flavourings, and GINGER is another. There are also a number of prepared condiments, of which several are essential to the Burmese table. Ngapi is the basic fish paste of the country and comes in forms which vary according to the fish (or other seafood) used and the techniques of fermentation. Ngan-pya-ye is a fermented liquid FISH SAUCE, and is a staple ingredient. So is balachaung, a powerful home-made condiment with an intense flavour; this is a paste of very finely shredded dried SHRIMP, garlic, ginger, turmeric, a little added shrimp paste, onion, and sesame oil (see BLACANG).

Although these staple condiments are firmly based on seafood, the general Burmese attitude to sea FISH is surprisingly unenthusiastic. Freshwater fish are greatly preferred. When marine fish are eaten, their smell of the sea is masked by the use of turmeric and ginger.

Davidson (1977), after discussing the matter with senior fishery officials in Rangoon, offered the following analysis of the Burmese mistrust of seafood:

Sea fish, some believe, have a soporific effect on people who eat them; a belief which I have not met elsewhere, but which is entitled to sympathetic examination by any research worker who can devise methods of testing the hypothesis. A more widespread belief is that eating sea fish upsets people, making them nervous and agitated. For that reason invalids and pregnant women are expected to eat freshwater fish only.

Among the interesting dishes which the Burmese make with freshwater fish is one described by Mi Mi Khaing (1978) for stuffed fish from Inle Lake. The author explains that this lake is

one of Burma’s scenic attractions. Across its wide expanse are semi-aquatic villages where floating island gardens are built by towing bits of vegetative land and staking them in place. The rowing of people here is renowned. Men, women, and children use a leg to row with when their arms get tired. They stand straight at the prow, wrap one leg around the oar, and row. They catch delicious carp called ngapein for this recipe.

The stuffing for the fish includes the roe and typical Burmese spices and condiments, plus marigold leaves—an unusual touch. Another recipe for carp, or in this instance catfish, is for what the author translates as ‘Kneaded Fish Rice’.

A one-dish meal, this is sold at five-day bazaar meets in the Shan uplands. A strong-fingered man sits cross-legged: around him basins of cooked fish, rice, and flavoring ingredients. He debones, kneads hard, mixes rapidly, dresses, and serves each portion on a counter at which the queue sits on haunches. As in all Shan areas, hot tea and chillies are on the house, with buffalo skin crisps and garlicky shoots as extras.

In the realm of sweet dishes the Burmese have much to offer. Mi Mi Khaing explains that the categorization to which western cooks are accustomed is different from the Burmese one. There, a super-category of tongue-twisting complexity exists; in English it comes out as ‘Confections-Desserts-Salivators-Tongue Titillators’. The point is that it groups along with desserts and confectionery those other items which the Burmese call thayesa, ‘foods for salivary juices’, nibbles which are eaten at any time, to relieve hunger or boredom.

Although the dish of pickled tea leaf, lepet (or lephet), is often called a salad it is really a dessert and is always eaten after a meal. It is very important in the Burmese cultural structure. Aung Aung Taik (1993) describes how lepet is made:

by lightly steaming young tea leaves and then pressing them tightly into clay vessels or large bamboo stems and storing the containers in the ground, preferably close to a river bed to ensure a steady temperature.

Lepet is usually served with tea, from a special lacquer box. Inside the box are different compartments filled with lepet, fried garlic, toasted sesame seeds, fried broad beans, and salt. Very beautiful lepet salvers were formerly made for court use. At the other end of the scale, an ordinary tin plate may be used for the lepet served at village meetings, for which it acts as a stimulant as well as a mark of occasion. For those who have had a rich meal and take lepet afterwards, it serves to clear the palate into sweetness and, again, to stimulate.

The Burmese resemble other Asians in being enthusiastic snackers, with ample provision of snack stalls. There are also plenty of tea houses; the Burmese like their tea strong, sweet, and served with milk.

bushmeat

is that of wild animals, generally understood to refer to those species hunted for their meat in the forests of sub-Saharan Africa. Bush tucker is not quite the same, being a term specific to AUSTRALIA. While the African dimension is that which preoccupies the majority of observers, other countries are by no means immune to the depredations of a similar trade. The orang-utan, for example, has been hunted to near extinction in Indonesia, at least in part for human consumption. The trade in meat may also run parallel to that for the purposes of traditional or fetish medicine. Anything may be the target of the hunter’s weapon or snare: RATS, lizards, snakes, a wide variety of ANTELOPES, ELEPHANT and hippopotamus, leopards, MONKEYS, and, most affecting of all, the great apes (gorilla, bonobo, and chimpanzee). Bushmeat by no means relates only to protected species. The reasons for it having attained such epic proportions are to do with the increase in human population in sub-Saharan Africa, the availability of efficient weapons, the opening up of forest regions by logging companies and growing urbanization. External causes are also cited. An instance is the decline in fish landings in Ghana due to EU fishing off the W. African coast. When fish is dear, consumption of bushmeat increases. Formerly there was a semblance of balance between human and animal: that has now disappeared, particularly for those species (the great apes above all others) slow to reproduce. There are a variety of taboos (especially among Muslims; see MUSLIMS AND FOOD) that inhibit consumption of some meats and a multiplicity of local and tribal preferences that bring gastronomic influences to bear (see Peterson, 2004). While such meats are often cheaper than, as well as preferable to, butchers’ meat, particularly in the country, the price relationship may alter sharply when they are brought into towns and cities where they are often consumed in fond memory of the eater’s background and rural origins, even though by now more expensive. This price ratio is infinitely extended when the meats are exported to African migrants to Europe. It is estimated that up to 10 tonnes of bushmeat is illicitly landed in London every day. Apart from the damage to the natural environment, the bushmeat trade is hazardous to human health. Primates harbour many dangerous viruses and are liable to the same infections as humans. HIV, it is suggested, stems from a similar complaint in chimpanzees, and the ebola virus is also carried by the great apes.

butter

is made from cream which is further concentrated so that the final product is more than 80% fat. In this form it keeps for longer than fresh milk or cream, and has therefore been used since antiquity (although not everywhere—the ancient Greeks, whose usual cooking medium was olive oil, seem not to have used butter except as an ointment).

Butter is made not only from cow’s milk but from WATER-BUFFALO’s milk in India, and sheep’s milk in various parts of Asia. It is only exceptionally made from CAMEL’s milk. Milk from the dri (female YAK) is rich in butterfat; and that from a dzomo (yak/cow hybrid) can also be used. Goat’s milk butter, made on a small scale in France, is delicious.

Structurally, butter is a water-in-oil EMULSION. It is made from CREAM, which is an oil-in-water emulsion containing, in the richest grades, over 40% fat (the words ‘fat’ and ‘oil’ are interchangeable in this context). When cream is churned, by some kind of revolving paddle, this disturbs the emulsion, forcing the fat globules together until they join up into a continuous mass with water droplets trapped in it. Much of the water, with milk sugar dissolved and proteins dispersed in it, is forced out in the form of BUTTERMILK.

Most butter is made from cream which has ‘ripened’ by the action of lactic acid-producing BACTERIA, which are present naturally in unpasteurized milk and cream. Since one can never be certain that the right bacteria are there in adequate strength, it is usual to add starter cultures of bacteria chosen to produce substances which give desirable flavours. Streptococcus spp, in addition to fermenting the lactose (milk sugar) to lactic acid, convert the citrates in milk to diacetyl and acetyl methyl carbinol, of which the first is a major and the second a minor contributor to butter flavour. Leuconostoc spp also produce acid and other flavouring substances such as alcohols and esters. Some of the latter, the delta lactones, are the chief factors in the flavour of foods cooked in butter. Butter made from unripened cream is called ‘sweet cream butter’ and has less flavour.

Naturally, butter from different species of animal differs in flavour, but another effect comes from the diet of the animal, in particular from aromatic herbs. This is why butter from certain areas, for example Normandy, has such a high reputation.

After churning, the butter is further worked, and also washed in plain water, to remove as much of the buttermilk as possible and improve the texture and flavour. (Most of the lactic acid is in the buttermilk and if it were all retained the butter would taste too sour.) This also improves keeping quality, as does the addition of salt, which discourages the growth of bacteria.

Butter, whether salted or not, is not a fully preserved food; indeed, it begins to deteriorate (albeit slowly) at once. The fat is broken down by oxidation (the effect of the oxygen in the air) and hydrolysis (the effect of the water) so that it becomes rancid. One way of making butter keep longer is to clarify it: that is, to remove all the water. This is done by heating it gently so that the emulsion breaks down and the fat rises to the top of the water. The fat may then be left to solidify and be lifted off the water, or, more usually, the water evaporated by continued heating. The latter method is the one used to make GHEE. The prolonged heating develops a slightly burnt taste, caused by reactions between the small amounts of proteins and sugar remaining in butter from the original milk; but the taste is quite pleasant. The heat also completely eliminates bacteria, further improving keeping quality.

Butter is a fine cooking medium; the excellent flavour which it imparts to food is matched by no oil or other fat. This is due partly to lactones, as mentioned, and partly to protein-sugar reactions brought about by heating. These reactions also give an attractive brown colour to food cooked in butter. However, butter stands up to heat less well than oils; if it is overheated, protein breakdown goes too far, resulting in a strong burnt taste and too dark a colour. (This problem is lessened by mixing butter half and half with oil, or by using ghee.)

Butter has a lower melting point than hard white fats such as lard and hardened vegetable cooking fat. It is therefore more difficult to make good PASTRY with butter than with these fats. Moreover, the latter also have larger fat crystals, better able to hold the flour grains well apart and prevent them from coalescing into a dense mass. Despite this, butter’s superior flavour balances its disadvantages in other ways and it is often used for rich shortcrust, and almost always for the flaky and puff varieties.

Byzantine cookery

Constantine I, the first Christian emperor of Rome (306–37), established his new eastern capital at a site that was unrivalled for its beauty and unmatched as a centre for administration and commerce. The Greek colony of Byzantion had prospered on its exports of tuna, mackerel, and other Black Sea produce. Now renamed Constantinopolis, it was destined to rule the later Roman (‘Byzantine’) Empire for 1,100 years. After the Turkish conquest in 1453 Constantinople (Istanbul) would be the Ottoman capital for nearly 500 years more.

The civilization of Constantinople is now sometimes seen as a poor imitation of that of CLASSICAL GREECE, and of CLASSICAL ROME. Its life and culture, like those of most other societies, did indeed arise from a synthesis of what had gone before: a synthesis that continued to develop and did not cease to innovate.

This is certainly true of Byzantine cuisine. Dried meat, a forerunner of the pastirma of modern Turkey, became a delicacy. Among favoured game were gazelles of inland Anatolia, ‘dorkádes commonly called gazélia’; wild asses, of which herds were maintained in imperial parks; and sparrows. Turning to seafood, the Byzantines appreciated salt roe, oiotárikhon (literally ‘egg pickle’; hence the modern term botargo, see BOUTARGUE); by the 12th century they had tasted CAVIAR, kabiári, the new fish delicacy of the Black Sea. Still later they imported kippered herrings, réngai, from distant Britain. Fruits unknown to the classical menu included the aubergine and the orange.

New dishes multiplied; old recipes were adapted to new tastes. Where ancient cooks had wrapped food in pickled fig leaves, thrîa, it was in Byzantine times that stuffed vine leaves were used in these recipes, which thus become the parents of modern dolmádhes (see DOLMA). Vinegar flavoured with squill (also known as ‘sea onion’, Urginea maritima) was a favourite condiment. It was probably the Byzantines who first tried ROSEMARY as a flavouring for roast lamb, and who first used SAFFRON in cookery: both these aromatics, well known in the ancient world, had not previously been thought of as food ingredients. NUTMEG was sprinkled on the PEASE PUDDING that was a fast-day staple.

Cheeses included mízithra (produced by the pastoralist Vlachs of Thessaly and Macedonia) and prósphatos (FETA, the marketing of which in Crete in late Byzantine times is described by an Italian pilgrim, Pietro Casola). As for bread, the bakers of Constantinople were in the most favoured of trades, according to a 9th-century code: ‘bakers are never liable to be called for any public service, neither themselves nor their animals, to prevent any interruption of the baking of bread.’

It is among sweets and sweet drinks that we can best sense the distinctive flavour of Byzantine cookery. There are dishes that we would recognize as puddings; groûta, a sort of FRUMENTY, sweetened with honey and studded with CAROB seeds or raisins; rice pudding served with honey. QUINCE marmalade had already entered the repertoire, but other jams or conserves now made their appearance, including pear and citron or lemon. The increasing availability of SUGAR (sákhar) assisted the confectioner’s inventiveness. Rose sugar, a popular medieval confection, may well have originated in Byzantium.

Flavoured soft drinks (required on fast days) and flavoured wines became popular: the ones flavoured with mastic, aniseed, rose, and absinthe were especially well known, alongside the spiced wine known by its Latin name konditon. They are distant ancestors of the mastikha, vermouth, absinthe, and pastis of the modern Mediterranean. A remarkable range of aromatics, unknown to earlier inhabitants of the region except as perfumes or in medicines, belonged to the liquid diet of Byzantium: spikenard, gentian, tejpat, gum benzoin, camomile, and violet were among the ingredients in these concoctions.

Two influences combined to produce the great range of powerful flavours that we can sense at the heart of Byzantine cuisine. One was the Church calendar, with its numerous fast days (see FASTING) on which both meat and fish were ruled out: the rich (including rich abbots and ecclesiastics) gave their cooks full rein to produce fast-day dishes as piquant and varied as could be conceived. The second influence was that of dietitians. By contrast with earlier dietary manuals, the Byzantine ones were written for non-specialists. The effect of each ingredient on the FOUR HUMOURS had been codified; the desired balance must be maintained by a correct choice of dish and by a correct adjustment of ingredients, varying for the seasons, the weather, the time of day, and each individual’s constitution and state of health. Dietitians sometimes recommended vegetarian meals, eaten with vinegar or other dressing. Spices and seasonings became ubiquitous, used both during the cooking process and at table to amend the qualities of each dish. Fresh figs, if eaten in July, must be taken with salt. A daily glass of konditon, strong in spikenard, was recommended in March: anise wine was appropriate for April. The dietary manuals are important sources of culinary history: botargo is first mentioned in the 11th century by Simeon Seth, who said that it ‘should be avoided totally’!

Annual fairs were a focus for the food trade: important fairs were held at Thessalonica and Constantinople around St Demetrius’ Day. Constantinople was a place for specialized food markets. Sheep and cattle were driven to market here from pastures far away in the Balkans, and eastern spices followed long-established trade routes through Trebizond, Mosul, and Alexandria. The populist emperor Manuel (1143–80) liked to sample the hot street food of the capital, paying the proper price and waiting for the change like any other citizen.

Medieval travellers to Byzantium did not always like the strange flavours they encountered. Gáros, the venerable FISH SAUCE, was still much used and was an acquired taste. Most foreigners and even some Byzantines disapproved of retsina: ‘undrinkable’, said Liutprand of Cremona, snootily, in the 10th century. If we had had to rely solely on this supercilious commentator, we would never have known of the range of Byzantine meat and fish dishes—roast pork basted with honey wine, skate spiced with caraway, wild duck with its sauce of wine, gáros, mustard, and cumin-salt; and we would never have heard of calavance (certain kinds of PULSE) cooked in honey vinegar. But even strangers were seduced by the confectionery, the candied fruits, and the sweet wines. William of Rubruck, a 13th-century diplomatic traveller, looking for worthwhile presents to take from Constantinople to wild Khazaria, chose fruit, muscat wine, and fine biscuits.

The food of the poor of Constantinople was no doubt limited, though a poetic catalogue of a poor family’s larder (Prodromic Poems 2. 38–45) includes numerous vegetables and locally grown fruits along with a considerable list of flavourings: vinegar, honey, pepper, cinnamon, cumin, caraway, salt, and others. Cheese, olives, and onions made up for any scarcity of meat. Timarion, another satirical poem of the 12th century, offers a salt pork and cabbage stew as a typical poor man’s meal, eaten from the bowl with the fingers just as in contemporary W. Europe. The basic food of the Byzantine army was cereal, whether as loaves, biscuits, or porridge. The future emperor Justin II (518–27) had nothing but army biscuits to keep him alive on his long walk from Illyria to Constantinople in 470. This barley biscuit, paximádion—still known in the Greek countryside today under that name (see PAXIMADIA and Aglaia Kremezi, 1997)—has many descendants: it is Arabic bashmat, baqsimat, Turkish beksemad, Serbo-Croat peksimet, Romanian pesmet, and Venetian pasimata.

Inns and wine shops generally provided only basic fare: though it is in a 6th-century Byzantine source, the Life of St Theodore of Syceon, that we hear for the first time anywhere in the world of an inn that attracted customers by the quality of its food.

The cuisine of the Byzantine Empire had a unique character of its own, though it is difficult now to reconstruct. It forms a bridge between the ancient world and the food of modern Greece and Turkey.