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Whether the last supper was a Passover Seder I do not know. I do know that the rituals of the Passover dinner have been in place for thousands of years, although always open to evolution. And yet, there don’t seem to be any universal elements about Easter celebratory foods. The episode looks at these two contrasting aspects of ritual food.

First, Susan Weingarten talks about an essential item on the Passover table that is not mentioned in God’s original instructions for the last supper of the Israelites in Egypt.

Then, I talk to Lois Long about a recipe made famous by her mother, Edna M. Holmgren. Magic Marshmallow Crescent Puffs won the Pillbury Bake-Off in 1969 and were subsequently expropriated by some Christians to retell the story of the resurrection.

The recipe

This copy of Edna Holmgren’s recipe is not quite the original. Lois Long told me that “the flour in the cinnamon sugar mixture was Pillsbury’s idea. I cut it down to 1 tbsp but I don’t like it. The original recipe has no flour.” I do wonder what it is there for. Possibly to soak up melting gooeyness, because many of the comments on the Hall of Fame website are complaints about the mess if the pastry isn’t very carefully sealed.

Notes

1. Susan Weingarten’s book Haroset: A Taste of Jewish History is published by The Toby Press.
2. Huge thanks to Lois Long for sharing her time, her memories, and copies of some of her memorabilia.
3. The cover image is a print by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen after Albrecht Dürer, from the Rosenwald Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
4. The banner image of The Last Supper is by the workshop of Pedro Berruguete, circa 1495–1500, a gift of the Ahmanson Foundation to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
5. Oooops. Oh dear. I thought I had double checked the date of Pesach, but I apparently got it wrong. I said Thursday. It is Friday. Sincere apologies.

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Maybe you’ve seen the news that a Kernza crop failure has prompted General Mills to modify plans for a Kernza-based breakfast cereal. Instead of rolling out the product this year, the company is instead offering a box only to people who donate at least $25 to The Land Institute, the perennial crops organisation that has spent years developing Kernza.

There are a couple of things about the story that intrigue me. First, for anyone who doesn’t know, Kernza is a perennial cousin of wheat, which offers several potential advantages over its annual cousin. Mostly, these are the result of being a perennial that develops a root system much more extensive than wheat’s. Not having to preopare the soil each year, along with that root system, means that Kernza can reduce soil erosion considerably. It also reduces the leaching of nitrogen from the soil. All that currently comes at a cost, though, because Kernza also yields less grain than wheat.

The 2018 harvest was even lower than expected, however, because of “weather and mistimed planting and harvesting decisions”. That’s unfortunate, but these are early days and further research will surely help farmers to make better decisions about when to sow and when to reap. What I don’t understand, and the article barely makes mention of it, is whether the crop, being perennial, will simply regenerate itself this year. If so, and I hope it will, that would be yet another advantage over annual wheat.

Wes Jackson, founder of The Land Institute, always talks of harvesting ready-mixed granola from a mixed stand of various perennial crops. [1] Honey toasted Kernza cereal isn’t quite that, but there are apparently 6000 boxes available. At $25 a pop, that should be $150,000 for more research. And eventually, Kernza cereal everywhere, and maybe even perennial granola.

1. Federal subsidies for US commercial fisheries should be rejected. The full article is behind a paywall, but here’s a snippet:

“For an administration that rails against socialism, it’s bizarre that it would place more faith in big government to price vessel loans than in the private banking industry.”

2. For true coeliacs, seems like a restaurant is a bad place to lead a gluten free life.
3. Jess Fanzo on “on the complications of understanding what is a healthy diet”.
4. When a Big Ag conglomerate buys an iconic niche meat company, who has to change?.
5. If you close the Mexican border with the USA, you deprive the USA of avocados. Do those who support closing the border care a fig for avocados?
6. A beet that doesn’t taste beety. The article is about so much more than that.
7. If you know, would you mind telling me what this – White and Gold and cheese-chopped all over – is all about.

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In matters of personal taste there are no absolutes. I like this, you like that. But does that also mean that there is no good, no bad? That is a surprisingly complex question, especially when it comes to as fundamental a food as bread. William Rubel is a freelance historian of food who seems to take a delight in pricking the pretensions of people like me, who think that some kinds of bread are better than others. “Why can’t we like what we like?” he asked in a defence of supermarket packaged bread. To which I say, “Like it if you like, but don’t tell me it is good.” He also says that there is no historical tradition of using a leaven among Anglophone bakers, which somehow diminishes the efforts of English-speaking bakers to “revive” the use of sourdough leavens and long fermentation. And that revival denigrates supermarket bread.

Well, yes. At least as far as my own tastes go. But I wanted to understand this historian’s view of bread, and was glad that William Rubel accepted my invitation to be a guest on the podcast.

Notes

1. William Rubel’s Bread: A Global History is available from Amazon. His website contains some good stuff, although it hasn’t been updated in a while
2. Our exchange started with William’s response to an item someone shared with his Facebook group. That’s where he said “I find the flat out demonization of the Chorleywood process hard to accept. Why can’t we like what we like?”
3. On my own website – this one, right here – I was more than happy to explain Why I don’t like the Chorleywood Bread Process.
4. Searching for information on the world’s biggest baker, I was very pleased to learn that Bimbo has replaced hardtack at least for some sailors.
5. The banner photo of Bimbo bread is by Oatsy40 on Flickr.

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