This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
The first morning after she'd left he'd come downstairs and immediately started pounding dough, desperate to re-create the scent of his failed marriage.
Bread.
There isn't any other smell that can wrap you up in a bear hug and make you feel all warm and cosy inside. The scent of flour and yeast, quietly baking in the oven, is intoxicating. It has more power than an estate agent to sell houses, making prospective buyers feel at home instantly. The smell is apparently pumped around the stores by supermarkets to entice customers. And it can make your recently filled stomach kick into gear and request food. It is evocative, personal (everyone has their favourite kind, right?) and can make anyone on a carb free diet quake in its aromatic strength.
Bread is powerful enough on its own, but for Toby, in 31 Dream Street by Lisa Jewell, bread is much much more.
Toby in his house on Dream Street, with his numerous lodgers, makes bread first thing in the morning. Every morning. This morning ritual is a time when the house feels like it is just his again, when he isn't sharing it with strangers. He goes through the motions of preparing the bread, just him in the kitchen. But it isn't a ritual in order to have a sandwich every day. It's a ritual to remind himself of his marriage. For it was his (now ex) wife who used to make the bread every morning.
In the same novel bread is also used by Daisy to re-educate Con's palate. Well, bread with olives in. She makes it her mission to re-train his taste buds from preferring McDonald's to actually properly feasting and dining on real food with real tastes. All thanks to real homemade bread. The sort you can't buy from a supermarket, however much they waft the smell around.
Bread, for me, can be a little scary. And unlike Toby I don't actually like the dough in and on my hands. But this recipe for a simple white loaf from The River Cottage is perfect (taken from The River Cottage Everyday recipe book). Just five ingredients, one of which is water, and if you have a mixer with a dough hook you can use that to knead instead of your hands.
The recipe makes two loaves. You could even make one plain and add a few chopped olives in the other.
I know I'm no Paul Hollywood, but you know what, it's better than a white sliced wrapped in plastic anyday.