Dear Vlaamsche Broodhuys,
You are a blessing. In this country of mostly mediocre bread (though much better than the soggy white rolls in the Dominican Republic, or the weird, collapsing baguettes in France), you are a culinary highlight.
You make what my mother once called "honest bread" – a description that has stuck with me. I know what this bread is. It gets hard, not moldy. It was not meant to be sliced ahead of time. It has air bubbles and hard, dark crust, and when you tear it, it is fascinating to watch each little segment part from another.
When you toast your product, it doesn’t acquire the texture of cardboard (made worse when it is put on a plate to sweat in its own steam), and when you press it, it springs back to life, rather then squishing into sad form.
After three years of mediocre bread, three years of bringing better, crustier bread back from vacations to brighter bread cities… it is heaven to have you waiting just down the street.
I just wish you put a bit – just a bit! – more salt in it.
Yours in bread and butter,
Grace
4 comments:
Yours in bread and butter. Love it. Might just steal it.
You're lucky, that's a beautiful loaf. You should hand-deliver a printout to them.
Haha, I remember your fascination with pulling bread apart, one time at grandmere and grandperes you spent a while examining it and I thought you were weird. I completely understand it now though! Its a very cool texture. And yeah, those DR rolls are not missed. Eugh.
Haha! Emma, I forgot how much I used to do that, but you're right!
The other thing I used to do (when I was a kid, like 9 or so) was take a crusty edge of bread, fold it in half with the crust together, so the white part stuck out, and wedge it between my teeth like it was some dentists instrument.
Then Grandpere and Grandmere caught me doing that at a restaurant in France, gave me a quiet scolding, and I never did it again.
In public, anyway...
And Therese, that is a very good idea - ironically, I never considered actually sending this letter, but I think I might!
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