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The Tyrol: Schüttelbrot (Alpine-spiced Rye Flatbread)

Schüttelbrot is a favorite crispbread of the Tyrolese regions, one that typically appears on the table at mountain ski huts and in cafés and casual restaurants at mountain resorts, in company with the local Alpine smoked hams and cheeses. The source of its name is a cause for mild controversy, as no one's entirely sure where it comes from. Though in modern German the verb forms of schüttel can mean to shake or shiver, there's nothing particularly shaky about this bread. It seems more likely that the name goes back to a dialect word for a drawer in a wall-mounted kitchen cupboard -- the kind of place where you might logically store a hard-baked thin bread like this one for long periods.

Possibly the most unusual thing about schüttelbrot is its spicing. The seeds of fennel, a herb that doesn't mind heights and grows well in the chilly alpine weather, normally make an appearance in schüttelbrot. So does caraway seed, one of fennel's relatives and an equally hardy herb. But a slightly more surprising ingredient is bockshornklee, "goat's-horn clover" -- or, in English, fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum). Normally these days fenugreek is more commonly associated with Indian food. But the herb shares its relatives' ability to grow successfully on barren ground like mountain scree-slopes, and it also turns up in some alpine cheeses (a close relative is the herb used in schabzeiger) as well as in this bread.

The seeds of these herbs are all pounded in a mortar, or otherwise chopped and crushed, and kneaded into the bread. After rising, the bread is rolled flat before one last pre-baking rise. (Some recipes suggest you use a pasta machine for this, but EuroCuisineLady thinks this may be going to a little too much trouble: a rolling pin seems to work fine.)

The essentially rural nature of schüttelbrot means that, in its normal habitat, there'll be a lot of variation in how it looks and tastes, depending on the local baker's preferences. Those who're trying for a very traditional look and feel will incorporate whole rye groats or kernels (roggenschrot): these are optional. (If you go for this approach, do not forget to pre-soak the rye kernels in warm water for a couple of hours before adding to the dough! Otherwise somebody's going to break a tooth.) Other bakers will coarsely chop, pound or grind down the same kernels before adding them to the dough in the early stages. Still other bakers prefer to leave the rye kernels out entirely, instead depending on the rye flour to carry that portion of the flavor, and pointing it up with varying amounts of caraway, dill, fennel or fenugreek, according to local preferences. What everybody seems to agree on is that regardless of its thickness -- which, depending on who's making it, can vary from paper-thin to about a quarter-inch when baked -- schüttelbrot has to be crunchy to best set off the sliced meats and cheeses it accompanies.

Click on "read more" for the recipe.

Malta: Ħobż Malti (Maltese Bread)

Countries with cultures more than a couple of thousands of years old typically get very enthusiastic about their breads, and with reason: for them, bread was truly the staff of life in a world where the food supply could often be precarious. But their breads also speak specifically to how life has been lived for generations in those places: what you had to bake with, what kind of grains you had to work with, what you had to eat with the bread after the baker's work was done. And Malta is definitely no exception to this rule.

Ħobż is the word for bread in Maltese. It arrived in the language from the Semitic-Arabic side of things -- no surprise, as Maltese is as profoundly influenced by Arabic languages as by the Latinate ones. And of course the Romans were here too -- Malta was a self-governing client nation of the Empire -- which is probably one of the reasons that Malta's baking is so good. Rome left a plethora of excellent baking techniques and technology behind it, and Roman-influenced bakers remain some of the best in the world.

Malta's Ħobż comes in many shapes, with local variations (see Dina's shot of bread in the marketplace here, and this image of the bread type called ftira). The thing that all the varieties seem to have in common is that they're all breads raised using a starter, and therefore (at least technically) are sourdoughs. Though some modern recipes do call for commercial yeast, there are Maltese bakers who insist they never use it, and there's the normal bragging and arguing about who has the best recipe or the oldest starter.

The recipe we're adapting here is complex enough that it looks like a fair approximation of what you might get if you bought a loaf of this most basic style of bread in Malta -- at least, the flavor should be close. It produces a bread that isn't incredibly sour-tasting (EuroCuisineGuy, who isn't a sourdough fan, ate several slices before he could be stopped...) and which has a nice tender / springy crumb and a super crust.

Please note: if you're just getting started at bread baking, this is probably not a recipe to attempt just yet, as it's fairly labor-intensive and a little tricky in its final stages. Try something simpler, like the New York Times no-knead bread method.)

Click "read more" for the Ħobż Malti recipe.

Ireland: Potato Farl

A very Northern Irish griddle bread, indispensable for the Ulster Fry.

This is best made with hot, freshly riced or mashed potatoes.

  • 2 lb/ 1 kg/ 2 cups mashed potatoes

  • 4 oz/ 125 g/ 1 cup plain flour
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Melt the butter. Stir it into the potatoes along with the salt: then add the flour and mix well.

Ireland: Bread and Butter Pudding with Irish Whiskey (March 9, 2008)

The Irish climate is the kind in which you need comfort food every now and then, and this dessert is one of the best sorts.

Bread and butter pudding has a long association with childhood and the nursery in these islands. A century or so ago, bread and milk was a common suppertime or bedtime dish for children. Eventually someone got the idea of making it a little more special by baking it: and probably someone else later came up with the concept that such a very simple dish might be made more interesting by adding dried fruit, or fruit preparations like jam or marmalade. After that, especially where Irish cooks were concerned, when they started thinking about tinkering with this old favorite from their past, it was probably only a matter of time before the whiskey arrived.

Just a note: probably it's not a good idea to make this with too lightly flavored a whiskey. EuroCuisineGuy (whose specialty is this kind of assessment) recommends Jameson's, Paddy's or Black Bush as whiskeys that would be able to stand up to the other ingredients and the baking process without being too aggressive. Lighter-flavored ones like Powers' or plain Bushmills are more likely to get lost in the shuffle.

Click on "read more" for the recipe.

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