Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Making Bread

I had kept asking the women in my host to show me how to make bread. Bread is a way of life here in Morocco. If’s bread were a religion, Moroccan’s would follow it. I eat bread at last 5 times daily and this point. Breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, and dinner. Often times bread it your eating utensil. I don’t know how I haven’t gained 20 pounds. The bread tastes good, but I know it can’t be good for me.
The day finally came where I would get to help Aisha make bread. Aisha is my “step-grandmother” so to speak. She married my widowed grandfather a year ago, so I guess that’s what it would make her. She and my grandfather are 42 years apart. I’m not in the position to ask questions with my limited vocabulary and inability to complete a thought. Anyways Aisha is a really sweet woman and was excited to teach me this skill. We started off making the dough by simply mixing water and white flour. This flour was white as snow. So much for the whole grain bread I assumed I would be eating her. Nope nothing but bleached flour full of carbs -carbs-carbs! She was teaching me how to properly knead this dough and I surely wasn’t as fast or as good as her. We kneaded for good 15 minutes, at this point I let go of the thought that I would be making bread for myself in the future. We let the dough rise for a while then formed it into single flat loaves. I don’t think Aisha knew it but it sounded like she was making music the way she was slapping and patting the dough. We sprinkled what I think was a little wheat germ on the top of the bread and let it sit again.
We put in it the oven and let it bake for about 20 minutes. We had some for lunch and I was asking. "Xubz meyzen?" Meaning "bread good?" Any my family kept reassuring me that "xubz Layla mumtaz". Layla's bread is excellent.