by Slow Food USA staffer Nathan Leamy
Make sure to check out Nathan’s last post, “Breaducation.”
Often when out and about with friends, I am introduced to people as ‘Nathan: he bakes bread.’ It’s true. I spend a lot of time baking and eating bread. But as much time as I spend with baked goods in a practical relationship, it’s not often I spend time thinking about it in the more abstract. What is at the essence of breadyness?
After some ruminating on the topic, I finally came up with a bulleted list which divides up the taxonomy of bread into four major categories based on how (or if) they rise.
- Yeast breads (includes sourdoughs and commercial yeast breads, pan breads and hearth breads)
- White
- Whole-wheat
- Egg breads
- Chemical leavened breads (also called quick breads)
- Biscuits
- Crackers (a cracker is a salty, especially flat biscuit, often with docking holes)
- Cookies (a cookie is a sweet biscuit)
- Scones
- Cornbread
- Fruit bread
- Biscuits
- Mechanically leavened (Steam leavened/fat leavened/air leavened (fat, eggs, etc))
- Croissants
- Some biscuits
- Flat breads and unleavened breads
- Tortillas
- Naan (though some Naan and pita are made with yeast and some catch yeast, they are often unleavened)
- Pita
- Matzo
- Yeast breads (includes sourdoughs and commercial yeast breads, pan breads and hearth breads)