The Bread that Launched a Revolution and Turned Me into an English Major (Updated for the 21st Century Baker)

“A recipe doesn’t belong to anyone. Given to me, I give it to you. Only a guide, only a skeletal framework. You must fill in the flesh according to your nature and desire. Your life, your love will bring these words into full creation. This cannot be taught. You already know. So please cook, love, feel, create.”

— Edward Espe Brown, The Tassajara Bread Book

In 1980 I was in my second semester of freshman English. My professor, Richard Morton, was having us read Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I had been struggling to write papers that ever got more than a C+ from Dr. Morton who was a notoriously tough grader. That’s when an idea hit me. I would bake a loaf of bread and write about it in the style of the first chapter of Walden. In this chapter, “Economy,” Thoreau goes into meticulous detail about how he built his famous cabin in the woods by the banks of Walden Pond near Concord, Mass. He even includes a list of materials that lists the price that he paid for nails.

I would do the same only for a loaf of bread instead of a cabin. Of course, I had never baked a loaf of bread before. But no matter, I could follow a recipe – if I could get one.

The Guilford College library did not have a bread cookbook and there were not many bread cookbooks on the market in 1980. Beard On Bread comes to mind. But the book that began the home bread baking revolution had been published ten years earlier and was still the go to for home bakers looking to get into bread: The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown, a Buddhist monk and communal baker at the Tassajara Zen Center in California, which gave the book and the bread its name. I found a new copy at the bookstore across the street from campus ($4.95) and with a $10 withdrawal from the Wachovia Bank ATM, I bought everything I needed to make the bread including all the ingredients and two loaf pans with money left over. (I documented the costs in my paper in homage to Thoreau.)

My all-male dorm didn’t have a proper kitchen, only the women’s dorms had those. So, I camped out in my friend Lindsey’s room making the bread in her dorm kitchen late into the evening and hiding out in her room during risings. Males weren’t allowed to be in female dorms after midnight so the whole operation had to be super stealthy. As luck would have it, Lindsey’s roommate had returned to campus that January only to immediately withdraw from the college. Lindsey had the room to herself, which meant there was no one to disturb as the baking project carried on to nearly 2 am. Lindsey was fast asleep when I packed up my pans and crossed back to my side of campus.

The bread was a success by which I mean it was edible. I made two loafs and gave one to Dr. Morton along with the paper (Lindsey and I split the other loaf.) I got a B+ on the paper, the best grade I had gotten from him to date though I was never sure if it was the writing or the bread that had earned the grade.

During the subsequent summers, I made Tassajara bread again and again. For many years, it was the only bread I made. The recipe calls for 100 percent whole wheat and it is sweetened with honey and enriched with butter or oil. It makes a pretty dense loaf but it is quite tasty especially fresh from the oven.

After graduation, I lived in Albany, N.Y. for about a year and during that time I worked in a retail shop six days a week. I had only Sunday’s off from work and I invariably made Tassajara bread on that day. I’d make two loafs every week, cut each in half, freeze the halves and defrost as needed. I lived mostly on sandwiches during this time and two loaves got me through the week. I never bought any commercial bread at all.

Later I moved on to fancier breads, bagels, challah, and the occasional sourdough but that copy of The Tassajara Bread Book with its stained, yellowed, and ragged pages has moved with me a dozen times. Last week, I got into my head to make a loaf for auld lang syne and I drew the tattered brown and orange volume from the shelf.

One hurdle was that I now bake by weight and the recipe is for volume measurements. I decided that as I baked the bread, I would convert the recipe to weight and then rewrite the recipe for you! So here it is. It tastes just as I remember it. Feel free to add a cup of raisins if you like (I used to always do that) and eat it with the best butter you can find. Kerrygold Grassfed Irish Butter is an excellent choice.

Tassajara Yeasted Bread by Ed Brown Updated for the Modern Baker (I’ve tested this; it works.). If you prefer the old school volume recipe — well the book is still for sale! It costs $18.61 now.

Makes Two Loaves

You’ll need:

850 grams of Whole Wheat Flour (any kind but I like King Arthur)

680 grams of warm water (it should feel warm but not hot on your wrist. 98F/37C. If the water is too hot, it will kill the yeast, and you’ll end up with matzah). (note: the method I used for calculating the amount of flour was by taking the water volume in the original recipe (3 cups) and converting it to grams. Then I reverse calculated the amount of flour to arrive at an 80 percent hydration which seemed right for an all whole wheat dough. Actually the original recipe calls for 6 cups of water, but I cut the recipe in half years ago because four loaves of bread is a lot to bake at one time unless you’re feeding a monastery!)

17 grams of salt

8 grams of instant yeast (packet or jar)

75 grams of honey

50 grams of a neural vegetable oil

A cup of raisins (or as many as you want)

2 aluminum loaf pans

A kitchen scale that measures in grams

Place the water in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer and add the yeast.

add enough flour to make a thick batter the consistency of pancake batter.

Mix with a large spoon 100 strokes OR mix with your stand mixer until smooth.

Let rest for 15-30 minutes.

Add the honey, the oil, the rest of the flour and the salt, and the raisins if using. Mix with the mixer or by hand until you have a shaggy mass. Let rest for five minutes.

Now knead by hand or with your mixer for about five min. Rest for 10 minutes and knead again for five minutes. Repeat the knead and rest once more. The exact times aren’t that important.

The dough should be smooth and elastic. Sparingly add a little more flour if you need to prevent the dough from sticking to you fingers and the counter or kneading board. Form into a ball and place into a large bowl or (better) a Cambro until the dough is doubled in size. Gently push the air out of the dough and let it double again. This is often call “punching down the dough” but no need to get aggressive. No one likes someone who punches down.

Generously oil two bread loaf pans. Split the dough into two equal pieces (use the scale or just eyeball it.) Roll each dough into a tight smooth loaf the size of your loaf pans and place them into the pans pressing the dough into the corners.

Cover the loaves with a damp towel and allow them to rise for the final proofing. You want to see the dough cresting the tops of the pans. This will take 30 minutes to an hour depending on how warm the dough and your kitchen is. When you think the dough has maybe 20 minutes to go, pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees F/190 C.

Optional: brush the tops of the loaves with a beaten egg and add seeds if you like. Poppy, sesame, or caraway. Slash each loaf with a couple of diagonal slashes using a lame or a serrated knife. This allows the loafs to “bloom” and expand in the oven during the first 15 minutes of cooking before the crust sets.

Place the loaves on the middle rack and immediate lower the temperature to 350F/175C.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the loaves give a hollow sound when thumped or (more accurate) when an instant read thermometer registers 190-200F/90-95C.

Let them cool for 10 minutes then remove from the pans. Use a knife to loosen around the edges of the loaves if needed. Let cool completely before slicing. If you plan to slice and freeze. Let them sit overnight and slice the next day. They will be much easier to slice. Otherwise slather with butter, jam, honey, cream cheese, or Nutella and enjoy. I used to make a peanut butter and banana sandwich for breakfast and eat it strolling up Central Avenue on my way to work in the store.

Best bread ever? I give it a solid B+.

Oh and that roommate of Lindsey’s, who had so disliked Guilford that she had only stayed one semester, baked Tassajara bread with me the following summer and married me seven years later. She’s a hell of a good baker herself.

Did you have a copy of The Tassajara Bread Book? Share your memories below.

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.

No Bad Lands or Dogs

Returning home from our road trip to Alaska in 2022, it occurred to me that there were just two of the United States that I had not visited. I had never so much as set foot in either North Dakota or South Dakota. It may not be surprising that I had missed these. They are far from population centers and don’t host as many national conferences and meetings as Florida, California, or Illinois. Barbara had visited South Dakota but not North so when we found ourselves with a window of opportunity between the High Holidays and the onset of serious winter, we decided a quick road trip of 5,000 kilometers was in order.

With our window limited to just three weeks and much distance to cover, we made a beeline for Fargo without much faffing about. Just four days after pulling out of our driveway, we arrived in Fargo ND having camped our way through the intermediary states. Neither Fargo nor Bismark a few hours further down the road had a lot to capture our attention but another day found us in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

I can’t say enough about the quiet beauty of this park which receives a fraction of the visitors of Yosemite or the Grand Canyon. And in late October, the number of guests drops to a trickle. With water and other services already shut off for the winter, we had our pick of campsites inside the park. Just $5 per night with a Golden Age Park Pass. ($10 for youngsters).

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, N.D. Vastness and solitude.

The park has a northern and a southern unit. The northern is even less visited then the southern. There were greeted with dark skies filled with stars, a waxing moon, and even a comet! The temperatures in the Northern Unit dipped to near freezing at night but we were cozy and warm in VanGo! under a thick down comforter. A warm hat and wool socks helped keep the extremities warm as well.

Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS as captured by iPhone from Theodore Roosevelt National Park

One of the main attractions of these parks are the large number of bison that roam ad libitum throughout the park. These massive creatures are mostly quiet and chill but visitors are warned to stay at least several bus lengths away from them. They can get ornery if they feel you are in their personal space. On a day hike we encountered one just a few feet from the trail and had to stray deep into the brush to give him a wide swath. He took little interest in us.

The parks other attraction is its stunning geology including giant egg-shaped formations called concretions. These formed underground and were exposed when the sedimentary rock around them eroded. Even geologists are not sure exactly how they formed.

Where Mother Earth lays an egg. 

Feeling there was still more to see, the pressure of time pushed us south into the other Dakota. This was my last state. I celebrated with a photo at the Geological Center of the United States and used the rest room at the visitor’s center there.

In South Dakota we visited Custer State Park, Badlands National Park, the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, and the Crazy Horse Memorial, which was begun in 1948 and is still being sculpted out of a mountain face today with at least another 50 years of work left to go. When complete, it will be many times the size of Mount Rushmore. Fun fact: Crazy Horse’s visage is the work of the imagination of the sculptor. No known photograph of Crazy Horse exists.

I got mine back but quickly misplaced it again. 

Our son and his space dog Laika met us for the weekend in Custer and we splurged on an AirBnB for the four of us. Asher wanted to see Mount Rushmore, where we had gone a few days earlier. Unfortunately (for Laika) dogs are not permitted on the viewing plaza. I waited with her outside, while Barbara and our son visited the monument. People love a dog! I was approached dozens of times by men, women, and children who wanted to say hello to Laika! People also wanted to know what kind of dog she was. I replied that she was of the breed canus nonspecificus, which seemed to satisfy the curiosity. Laika enjoyed the attention, which perhaps compensated for her missing the stone visages of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and the pince nez’d Theodore. She didn’t say one way or another.

Boy love him some dog. 

All too soon, it was time for Laika and her boy to head back west and for us to begin the long journey home. As we headed back east, we stopped in Chamberlain, S.D. home to the Dignity of Earth and Sky sculpture and the South Dakota Hall of Fame. There I was surprised to see L. Frank Baum claimed by South Dakota as their own. I knew that he had lived in New York State and in California but hadn’t realized he had lived in S.D. as well. The Hall of Fame honored him for his role in the women’s suffrage movement of which I had also been largely unaware. I should have known: His Dorothy and Ozma didn’t tolerate any mansplaining from the know-it-all and decidedly male Wogglebug. (Incidentally, Ozma may have been the first trans kid in children’s lit transitioning from male to female in The Land of Oz (1904), the sequel to The Wizard of Oz.)

Not So Bad Lands for Big Horned Sheep

Finally, we stopped in Mitchell, S.D. to visit the “World Famous” Corn Palace. The interior of the building is not very remarkable. Most of it is taken up with a basketball arena. But the exterior is a façade of images made of corn cobs and is changed every year.

The Castle Corn Made

Leaving there, we plowed into Iowa and sped toward home and obligations.

Friends upon hearing my new boast about having been to all 50 of these United States often ask if I have a favorite. I don’t. There is not a place in this country, indeed on this planet that doesn’t host its own special and unique sources of beauty and wonder. We found Dakotans to be warm and friendly, the culture interesting and engaging, and the natural beauty of those states breathtaking in its vastness and solitude. Like many spots I have visited, I left there with a sense that there was much still to explore yet all too aware of the strong likelihood I will never return.

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.

Getting Used to Anything

This past July in the midst of a bunch of other stuff going on in my life (ask me about it sometime), I tripped and fell breaking the fifth metatarsal in my left foot. It was an uninteresting incident. I walked out onto the back porch to check the salmon I had on the grill and my foot caught on the one step down and I fell forward twisting and breaking my foot under me. It was the first time in my 62 years that I broken a bone.

I tried to pretend it was ok but by the next morning it was swollen and painful and clear that it needed attention. Barb drove me to the Urgent Care Clinic where, after making sure I had insurance, they x-rayed it and confirmed the break. They put me in a boot and told me to contact an orthopedist for further care.

I was near despair. I hate to sound like a baby but my primary exercise is walking. At the time, I was walking two hours a day. This break was really going to mess up my life. It was very painful to walk on even with the boot. I tried using crutches and not putting any weight on the foot but that is not easy to do, as you may or may not know.

A few days later, I saw the orthopedist. By then, I was hobbling around pretty well. The pain was mostly gone, and I was able to resume most activities around the house. Going downstairs to the basement was challenging but I was managing better than I had imagined I could just days earlier.

NP Lee looked at my x-ray and then turned to me. “I am sorry this happened, man,” he said. “How are you doing with this?” he asked with genuine concern pointing at the boot.

“It’s amazing what you can get used to,” I replied.

He paused in thought for a moment, looked deep into my eyes and said, “that’s true” in a way that made me believe that he had had to get used to a thing or two in his life.

The good news, he told me, is that I didn’t need a cast or surgery. The boot would do as long as I wore it all the time except when bathing or sleeping.

Over the next few weeks I adapted. I couldn’t drive our Civic, which has a clutch, but I could drive the minivan just fine. I could clomp around the grocery store and do the shopping. I could even go for shorter walks around the meadow right near home. In short, with a few exceptions, my life carried on fairly similarly to what it was before the break.

Six to eight weeks sounded like a long time, but it went by quickly and a day came in September that Mr. Lee told me that I didn’t have to wear the boot any longer. Complete healing would take a long time but as long as I was careful, I could go back to wearing a complete pair of shoes.

The first day or two without the boot were strange! Even though there was no pain, it felt weird to walk without it. I limped though there was no need to. I just felt odd to walk without the boot, I had gotten so used to it.

A few days later I was walking normally again.

Change comes when we least expect it. It is rarely welcome. It brings stress, challenge, even despair. But the human ability to adapt is our species’ superpower. It’s why we have managed to spread to and live in every climate our little planet has to offer from the frozen waste of Antarctica to the broiling deserts of Africa.

The universe, as I’ve constantly had to be reminded, doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what you do or don’t want. What you’d rather not deal with. How you wish it were different. As my college roommate used to infuriatingly tell me, “It’s part of the deal.”

Whatever happens, we adjust. We change as required. We rise to the moment. We go on.

Resilience? It’s just a fancy word for getting used to the things we’d rather not.

When life hands you lemons, you may not always be able to make lemonade. It turns out though, you can get used to eating lemons.

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.