Loaf Bread VS Flatbread

 I haven’t posted in over a year; mainly because I had nothing more to say! People who know me well might find that very comical. But a recent conversation has spurred this Post.

I have several friends who are part of a co-op from a store called Breadbecker’s. They are Atlanta-based but ship all over. They sell grains, beans, and other baking supplies. But their grains are unique in that they package the whole wheat berry in Mylar bags with the air removed and, then, in 42-lb. bucket. Before packaging, the wheat berries are treated for pests. The unique packaging, devoid of air and light, and sealed in a bucket away from bugs or rodents, and the whole berries as opposed to just the ground flour, makes these products shelf-stable for many, many years. Add in a hand-operated grinder and you have the basis for bread-making in your Stores.

The advantage to the co-op is that you’re grouping orders together to discount the shipping and in order to apply volume discounts. Numerous times now, I’ve purchased through one of my friends who’s in the co-op. I finally broke down and decided to just join it myself. Ordering is done 3 times a year and the ordering window is open for the first 8 days of the appropriate month. Delivery is the next month.

Last week, I began to, once again, assess how much wheat I had stored and how long that would sustain my family. I called my friend to get the benefit of her experience regarding how much wheat she uses per bread batch. While talking, she told me that she isn’t storing up hard wheat, the kind necessary for loaf bread. In response to my confusion, she said, “If we ever have a catastrophic emergency and need to live off our Stores, I won’t be baking bread. We’ll be eating flat bread that I can pan fry.” 

What? No bread?! I went straight to my husband.

“What do YOU think?” I asked him. I just couldn’t shake the image of a thick slice of fresh, home-baked bread slathered with honey. When my mother was growing up on a farm, during harvest season, they ate 5 meals a day: breakfast right at dawn, lunch around 10, dinner around 1, lunch around 4, and supper around 7, just before falling into bed, exhausted. Those lunches often consisted of ice cold milk (they were farmers, after all), a thick slice of bread with butter, and a piece of cheese or fruit - carbs, protein, and fat to fuel their bodies for the hard work. If we have a catastrophic emergency some day, we’ll have to work VERY hard from sun-up to sun-down just to survive. 

“I think she’s right, Hon,” he said. “Flatbreads that can be fried quickly will be the go-to.” Then he reminded me of our son’s 3 months living in Kenya. Chapati (Kenyan flatbread, most likely adopted from India) was consumed at breakfast, maybe with honey, peanut butter, or jelly, and eaten with the noonday and evening meal. My son loved it so much, I tried my best to make it for him, but ingredients in the U.S. are not quite the same as those abroad, and I never could get it quite right. He appreciated the effort but missed “Mama Katharine’s (the woman of the house where he was a long-term guest of a retired Anglican Bishop and his family) Chapati. In fact, he terribly misses ALL her food.

Next, I went to my older son to discuss the issue. He voiced a concern that keeping a solar stove a constant temperature long enough to bake bread might not be possible. I hadn’t even thought about that. He also pointed out that most Third World countries eat some type of flatbread daily. He’s right! I did the research. Flatbread consists of 4 different types: focaccia bread (Italy), Naan or Chapati (India and Africa), Tortillas (South America and Spain), and Pita (Middle East).

Flatbread requires a different type of wheat than yeasted loaf bread. For flatbreads, you need soft wheat. I suppose, if I had a sufficient quantity of soft wheat, I could add a little hard wheat to it without significantly changing the quality. But I haven’t really stored up much soft wheat. Darn! An area I had overlooked. In addition to the wheat, oil is essential, as is sugar and salt for most types of flatbread. It’s the perfect time for me to join the co-op so I can begin to lay in soft wheat.

But what about those necessary oils? Oil goes rancid rather quickly. Olive oil and coconut oil last the longest, but 5 years would be a push and, as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like to have to rotate my Stores.

A couple of solutions surfaced. When my father was young, living in the back woods of northeastern Alberta, Canada, they rendered bear fat to use for their cooking, because it didn’t go bad. My daughter recommended her brothers learn to hunt bear! Not something you usually see hunted in Georgia. Dove, deer, wild turkey, even boar sometimes, but not bear! Somehow, I don’t think bear fat will work for us. But ghee, because it doesn’t have the milk solids, can be stored at room temperature for a long period of time. It’s pricey, but I invested in a large tub from Amazon. I’ll put the plastic jar of ghee in an air proof bag, then in a Mylar one, which will hopefully extend its shelf life. Another possible solution is Crisco. I grew up in a house where my mother always had Crisco on-hand. It was her cooking grease of choice. In the posts I read, people were bewailing that Crisco no longer uses sturdy cans lined with foil. The new packaging is cardboard and the product deteriorates far faster. I had a crazy thought; we’ll see how it pans out. A few years ago, I started noticing Crisco sticks in the baking aisles of grocery stores. They’re much easier to measure out (they have markings like a stick of butter), and you don’t have to purchase a whole can of Crisco to make a batch of peanut butter cookies. They even have them in butter flavor. I ordered 4 packs of 3 sticks each - 2 butter-flavored and 2 traditional. Each stick is going into a bag from my seal-a-meal machine that has been run through the cycle that pumps all the air out. Then, the air-free bag will go into a small, sealed Mylar bag. Several Mylar bags will go into a larger Mylar bag. I’m hoping the the air proof bag as well as the light-proof Mylar will extend the life of my Crisco sticks indefinitely. Unfortunately, it’s a gamble, and I won’t know if I have succeeded until it’s too late to do anything different.

The last option I considered is bacon grease. Good, old southern kitchens have had grease cans in them for hundreds of years (not the SAME can for that long, I hope). Two of my sisters collect and strain their bacon grease and use that for frying. I started collecting my bacon grease about 2 years ago. It really does keep for a very long time, even in a hot kitchen. The grease gets so hot that I wonder if I could actually “can” it, so to speak, by collecting it in a glass jar, lidding it, and allowing it to cool. The cooling process may seal the jar from the air. It’s certainly worth a try. I’ve considered buying professionally-canned bacon for my stores. You can find it on many vendor’s websites. If I invested in a few cans of raw bacon (they come in a sealed tin can), I would not only have another meat in my Stores, but a way to generate bacon grease, as well.

For now, I’m working with the Crisco sticks and ghee, but it certainly gives me much more to ponder. Probably not taking up bear hunting, though.