Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and The... (134 page)

YOGHURT HERB BREAD

Makes 1 9-inch by 4-inch loaf

3 cups freshly ground spelt, kamut or whole wheat flour

2 cups plain whole
yoghurt

½ cup filtered water

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

¼ stick melted butter

¹
/
₃
cup maple syrup

1 teaspoon dried dill

½ teaspoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon dried thyme

½ teaspoon dried basil

½ teaspoon dried tarragon

Mix flour with yoghurt and water, cover and leave in a warm place for 12 to 24 hours—bread will rise better if soaked for 24 hours. Place flour mixture in food processor and process for several minutes to knead the dough. Add remaining ingredients and process until well blended. Pour into a well-buttered and floured loaf pan (preferably stoneware). Bake at 350 degrees for at least 1½ hours, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Besides skim milk, there is another important by-product resulting from the manufacture of butter, namely buttermilk. In butter making the fat globules are brought together by churning and removed, leaving a thin liquid. This buttermilk is very like skim milk in composition, but it has usually a milk-acid taste because the cream is generally allowed to sour before churning. Buttermilk is often used as a beverage. . .and is frequently fed to babies, especially in Holland, and is sometimes prescribed when the protein of ordinary milk proves indigestible. . .. Just as buttermilk represents the residue of milk from butter making, so whey represents what is left from cheese making and consists mainly of water, milk sugar and mineral matters. . .. In the "whey cures" for dyspeptics of which so much was heard some years ago, whey was usually combined with a simple vegetable diet. . .. Sour milk or clabber is a common article of diet in many parts of the United States and is wholesome and, to those who care for it, very refreshing and palatable. . .sour milk is much used in cookery, and adds materially to the nutritive value of the dish of which it forms a part. Before baking powders became so common, sour milk and baking soda were very commonly used to leaven doughs and batters of various sorts. Some cooks maintain that they can secure the best results by using only the whey of sour milk. R. D. Milner, PhD
The Use of Milk as Food
1915

BUTTERMILK BISCUITS

Makes about 1 dozen

3 ½ cups freshly ground spelt, kamut or whole wheat flour

1 cup buttermilk (
Cultured Butter and Buttermilk
)

4 tablespoons melted butter or lard

1½ teaspoons sea salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

unbleached white flour

Mix flour with buttermilk to form a thick dough. Cover and leave in a warm place for 12 to 24 hours. Place in food processor and process several minutes to knead. Blend in remaining ingredients. Remove dough to a well-floured pastry cloth or board and sprinkle with unbleached white flour to prevent sticking. Roll dough to about ¾ inch thickness. Cut biscuits with a glass and place on a buttered baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. Serve with butter and honey or mustard and cold meats.

Variation: Cheaters' Biscuits

Use
1 cup unbleached white flour
and
2 cups spelt, kamut or whole wheat flour
. This makes a lighter biscuit.

Variation: Date Scones

Add
2 tablespoons Rapadura (see
Guide to Natural Sweeteners
)
to melted butter or lard and
1 cup chopped dates
to dough before removing from food processor. Blend in dates with a few pulses.

Whenever we open a book on medicinal plants, we are surprised to find there almost all the herbs that play a part in good cooking. These "good herbs" are above all plants for our health. It is no accident that at the same time they are essential elements in food that we eat with pleasure. Here is the proof that for the cook, the food provider, good health and good taste go together. Claude Aubert
Dis-Moi Comment Tu Cuisines

YOGHURT DOUGH

1 cup plain whole
yoghurt

1 cup (½ pound) butter, softened

3 ½ cups freshly ground spelt or wheat flour

2 teaspoons sea salt

unbleached white flour

This excellent all-purpose dough recipe makes enough for two 10-inch, French-style tart shells. It cooks more slowly than dough made with white flour.

Cream yoghurt with butter. Blend in flour and salt. Cover and leave in a warm place for 12 to 24 hours.

Roll on a pastry cloth using unbleached white flour to prevent sticking. For a prebaked tart shell, prick well with a fork and place in a cold oven. Turn heat on to 350 degrees and bake for 20 to 30 minutes.

CORN BREAD

Serves 6-8

2 cups freshly ground cornmeal

½ cup freshly ground spelt, kamut or whole wheat flour

½ cup unbleached white flour

1½ cups lime water (see
Whole Grains
)

1 cup
buttermilk
or
yoghurt

3 eggs, lightly beaten

¼ cup maple syrup (optional)

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

¼ cup melted butter

Soak cornmeal in lime water for about 7 hours. Stir in flour and buttermilk or yoghurt and let stand in a warm place for 12 to 24 hours—corn bread will rise better if soaked for 24 hours. (Those with milk allergies may use
1½ cups water plus 2 tablespoons whey, lemon juice or vinegar
in place of undiluted buttermilk or yoghurt.) Blend in remaining ingredients. Pour into a buttered and floured 9-inch by 13-inch pyrex pan. Bake at 325 degrees for at about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Variations: Chile and Cheese Corn Bread

Add
1 cup grated Monterey Jack or Cheddar cheese
and
1 small can diced green chiles
to batter.

While pellagra was being investigated as an interesting curiosity in Europe, it was becoming a way of life in the Southern United States. . .. The general diet consisted of cornmeal and grits, soda biscuits, corn syrup and fat salt pork; and even when they had enough bulk of food, the Southerners developed sore skin and mouths, became thin and listless, and suffered from depression, hallucinations, irritability and other mental disorders. The clinical description of the typical poor Southerner, any time between about 1900 and 1940, comes alive in the novels of William Faulkner—the brooding sullenness suddenly shattered by outbursts of irrational anger, persecution mania, the feeling of people living in a cruel and demented world of their own. . .. Doctors knew very well that diet was at the bottom of all the misery they saw around them, and that the disease could be kept at bay by a balanced food supply. . .. The Red Cross distributed dried yeast, already noted as a cure for the disease, or could sometimes lend a rural family a cow until the general health and earning power had improved; but it was not until 1937 that it was finally proved that pellagra was due to a shortage in the diet of the very simple compound nicotinamide [vitamin B
₃
]. . .. The discovery that such a simple material could have such profound effects not only on the body but on the mind set off a great wave of nutritional research. One mystery was soon solved: doctors had known for years that poor Mexicans who also lived mainly on maize might suffer from many other diseases but very rarely from pellagra. It emerged that there was, in fact, some nicotinamide in maize, but in a form that could not easily be absorbed. The Mexican women had a custom taken from traditional Indian food preparation of soaking the corncobs in lime water before they made their tortillas. This apparently released the vitamin. It is an ironic thought that the adoption of one simple "primitive" custom might have saved the tens of thousands of ruined lives in the Southern states. Soon it was discovered that less of the vitamin was needed if there was plenty of protein in the diet, particularly protein containing the essential amino acid tryptophan. This knowledge might not have helped much in the worst periods of pellagra, because the people were too poor to buy much protein; and tryptophan is one of the rarest of the amino acids. However, it did explain why foods like milk and eggs, low in actual nicotinamide but rich in tryptophan, could keep pellagra away. Terence McLaughlin
A Diet of Tripe

CORNMEAL SPOON BREAD

Serves 8-10

2 cups freshly ground cornmeal

2 cups lime water (see
Whole Grains
)

2 cups
buttermilk
,
kefir
or
yoghurt

2 tablespoons butter

1 medium onion, finely chopped

5 egg yolks, at room temperature, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon sea salt

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/
₈
teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons baking powder

5 egg whites, at room temperature

pinch of sea salt