A whimsical report by Bill Keisling
I enjoy a time-honored, old-fashioned pastime that once was called “baking bread.”
I don’t use a machine. I don’t use “quick bread” mixes. I do it the old-fashioned way: I buy flour and yeast, and kneed it by hand.
There’s nothing quick about my hobby. A nice batch of bread can often take me two days to produce.
I got started years ago by making soft pretzels. I soon graduated to baking full loaves of crusty, yeasty bread. I also like to make pizza dough, and blueberry muffins.
For the record, my favorite baking flour is called occident flour. I found my first bag of occident flour some years back in a small, non-electric Amish store in Airville, southern York County.
Occident flour, I learned, contains potassium bromate — baking powder. It gives the bread and baked goods a little extra “lift.” Unfortunately, the small Amish store in Airville closed, for lack of business. Before it closed, I managed to finagle an address for a Lancaster County flour mill from the Amish woman who ran the store.
The mill that grinds wheat into occident flour is located off Route 30, in Lancaster. Unfortunately, the mill makes you buy a 50-pound bag of flour, which isn’t too convenient. It’s also not too convenient for me to drive to the flour mill to buy Amish occident flour.
So I’ve had to lower my standards and buy flour from supermarkets.
A few weeks ago I found myself at Wegmans supermarket, shopping for a bag of bread flour.
Wegmans unfortunately for some reason didn’t have a large selection of flours. There was no high-gluten bread flour to be had. Only all-purpose flour.
I was forced to buy Wegmans’ store brand, which for some reason was a dollar or two more expensive than national brands like Pillsbury or Gold Medal.
Wegmans’ flour wasn’t all that great. For some reason, curiously, it seemed to clump together. It wasn’t sifted all that well. But still I got it to work, and made a few nice loaves, a few pizzas, and some muffins.
Imagine my surprise then, this morning, when I awoke to find the following startling message in my voicemail:
“This is Wegmans calling with an important prerecorded message about a product recall. Our Shopper’s Club records show you may have purchased this product after December 24, 2012. Wegmans has recalled all-purpose bleached flour, sold in a five pound bag, because it may contain …”
I held my breath, cringed, and prepared myself for the worst. What, I wondered, was I about to be told might be in my flour, and perhaps my baked goods?
“… small blue polyurethane balls. The balls are from the product sifting equipment and as such are made of a flexible, food-grade material. They are not sharp, and because of their bright blue color and size — about half the diameter of a dime — they would be easily seen in the flour. All product may be returned for a full refund….”
So there might be blue balls in my flour. I considered the possibilities. What about those blueberry muffins I’d been passing around like Typhoid Mary? I wondered.
What do they mean they’re recalling it? This isn’t a car. Am I supposed to swing by everyone I gave a blueberry muffin to and collect stool samples?
Wegmans, headquartered in Rochester, New York, has in recent years expanded in central Pennsylvania, and has shook up the traditional Weis Market and Giant dichotomy in these parts. Shoppers in Dauphin and York counties now have access to Wegmans, though Lancastrians remain out of luck. Perhaps now they’ll open a store in Blue Ball, Lancaster County.
Am I blue? Damn right I am. I’m reminded of the old blues song: “I woke up this morning with blues all around my head, went to eat my breakfast and found the same thing in my bread.”
The writer of that song I’m sure was referring to mold, the traditional scourge of fresh bread, and not small blue polyurethane balls.
I seek refuge in old-fashioned bread making to escape the modern shallowness of prefab life.
Thanks to Wegmans, prefab life has now found my mixing bowl.
