Pairing Bread

Bread, in America, in the twenty-first century, is a before-thought. At a nice restaurant we expect bread to come to the table, free of charge, prior to the arrival of the food we came to eat.

In a restaurant of lower quality, or in our own homes, bread is a vehicle used to deliver the contents of a tuna sandwich, a barbecued burger, or hold together Skippy peanut butter and Welch's grape jelly.

Much of the problem lies with the devolution of American bread. It really isn't worth much more than a thoughtless bite.

But consider these sourdough garlic naan.

Now ponder these naan like they were wine. First, you wouldn't expect it to come for free. Second, you wouldn't eat it mindlessly while you were waiting for the real thing to be delivered to your table. Third, if you were patient, you would taste it slowly.

In the case of sourdough garlic naan. You would sense the subtle flavors of sourdough beneath the garlic and in this case chopped parsley (because I did not have cilantro in the house). You might consider the baking process, which for naan is done in a clay oven, or in my case on a stovetop.

Or to push the analogy a bit farther, like wine, good bread can be paired with the right food, bringing out the best of each partner.

Sourdough garlic naan with curried red lentils.

Good bread can even be paired with traditional toppings, but if given equal billing, the meal, in this case a well-known sandwich, can become more than the sum of its original parts.

Here is a bread I threw together because I had extra ingredients. The starter was rye. The dough was chocked full of bulgur and sunflower seeds that had soaked in water for 24 hours. I added spelt flour, which is high in protein and is richer in taste than traditional wheat, giving this bread more chewiness, a moist interior, and a very crisp exterior.

Here is sourdough rye, bulgur, sunflower, spelt bread beneath an old favorite.