Monday, July 4, 2011

Artisan Flour


I now see why every person with access to the interwebs who has ever made a loaf of bread is calling their result artisan: it's the flour. Surely if you start with artisan flour, you end up with artisan bread, no? Of course you do! Just ask the first 200 pages of google search matches for "artisan bread."

Glossing over the fact that flour is just ground up grain, and therefore is not an artisan product (rule four) let's dig deeper into this particular flour. It is bleached. Bleached! Or as the makers of this flour like to say, "scientifically cleaned."

This seems to come up a lot, so I am making a new rule. What are we on now, five? I don't feel like looking it up, so let's just call it five: If it took modern science to make, it is not artisan.

How does one bleach flour, you ask? (Or scientifically clean, if you prefer) - Using one of several available chemical agents, including benzoyl peroxide. Hm, benzoyl peroxide.... Benzoyl peroxide... Holy crap. There is Clearasil(R) in your bread!

I'm sorry. That's is just gross. And wildly unnecessary. ....kind of like Teff wraps.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Artisan Gluten-Free, Wheat-Free, Teff Wraps

If you ever, ever get to a point in your life where you consider putting gluten-free, wheat-free, whole grain, ivory teff wraps in your mouth, please stop. Stop.

I mean stop living. Because really, it cannot be worth it.

In the cock-up that is the packaging for these awful little grain frisbees, they managed to resist calling them artisan for approximately 10,000 words, ...but then just couldn't help themselves when they got to the lower left corner. It's there: "6 artisan wraps".

These things, besides not being artisan, are an affront to flatbreads worldwide. Seriously. Even Jesus, with his infinite love and oft-proven willingness to show up on tortillas around the globe, would not get near a teff wrap.

In addition to being a violation in concept, there are numerous disqualifiers in the ingredients list: soy lecithin, colloid powder (cellulose gum, maltodextrin, carrageenan), guar gum, calcium propionate???

Jesus wept.