Mother Is Baking Bread....

On the farm there were so many wonderful experiences for children; some were daring and a little dangerous; some taught humility, patience and reason; some were strenuous and tiring, and some were down right delicious. Mother was a wonderful cook and baker and worked hard every day to make healthy meals for the family; her five children and her husband, my Father.


She was particularly adept at baking homemade bread. The process was a long one and involved a pinch of this and a shake of that and there was never a cookbook in sight. I loved to "help". Sitting on a stool in the country kitchen and watching the flour and the other dry ingredients get mixed while the yeast was growing, bubbling and turning in warm milk in another bowl was a very pleasent experience indeed. It included chatting with Mother about the pets, the day ahead and just anything that popped into my head. The contents of the two bowls came together into the biggest bowl I have ever seen, then or now! It had to be big - there were many of us who wanted to eat the bread and the buns that were the result of this work. They were so good with the fresh butter and the jam that Mother also made from the fruit growing on various bushes and trees around us on the farm. All this, accompanied with fresh, rich and natural cow's milk to drink, was truly delicious.


Once the mixtures came together the batter had to be kneaded, not once - but twice with a rest period in between to allow the dough to rise. I can still remember my mothers' gentle hands, pulled into fists and unrelenting at this work. She used to say that the bread would only be good if one was not lazy anout the kneading. Mother worked this magic in one of the two kitchens on the farm - one used in winter and one used in summer. My favorite place was the summer kitchen because the two big screen doors at either end would let the summer spill into the house. Fresh air, and sounds of birds and other farm animals, flowed in as a wonderful backdrop to the chatter of Mother and I baking bread. While the dough was rising we would go outside and check the garden for vegetables or we would do a little cleaning in the house; make the beds or dust the wood that seemed to be everywhere in the old farmhouse.


The dough was ready. It had risen a second time and now it could be formed into whatever we wanted; braided bread, loaf pan bread, or large dinner rolls. The forming meant that the big kitchen table had to be dusted with flour, so that the dough would not stick to the surface - there seemed to be flour everywhere, on the table, in the pan, on Mother's apron, and her hands and on my nose somehow...I realize now how hard it must have been for her to work on the kitchen table, bent over, straining her back. In those days everything happened on the kitchen table - there were no counter tops in the farmhouse kitchen.


The row of pans, laden with the dough formed into it's intended shape and risen in place one final time, could soon be popped into the oven. This was not an oven like we have today where electricity drives the heating element. No it was a big wood stove. It was twice the size of today's stoves, where water, for tea, could boil on top; where water, for bathing or washing dishes, could heat in a large reservoir on the side; and where wood had to be fed into round, covered holes the size of dinner plates on the top of it. This wood heat was ideal for baking bread - it was not too hot and it was evenly distributed in the large square cavity, that opened on the front, that was the oven. The wood stove was not a place for children to be too near. It was hot on almost every surface. It radiated heat into the room as well. As the bread was baking, the wonderful smells and the radiating heat were very soothing indeed and made the work involved in getting to this point seem all, undeniably, worthwhile.


Anyone who approaced the farmhouse on a day where bread was baking was almost overcome by the wonderful aroma. They would come to the kitchen, sit down at the table, chat with Mother and sip on coffee or milk while they waited, patiently, for a slice of the cooling, delicious home made bread.