When I was a kid there would be the AROMA of baking bread in the house at least once a week. That’s where/when I learned to bake bread. Quite simple once you do it once. I baked it often when I was married in grad. school … my wife Julie is an FAS retard and the only thing she was good for was sucking my cock. So, on to baking bread.
You can find plenty of recipes on the net … I typically used a combination wheat/white flour. Too much wheat and the loaves get REALLY HEAVY. Once you have assembled all of the ingredients/tools your first step is to take a packet of “active dry yeast” (from the grocery store), mix it into a cup of WARM water (not too hot) with a few teaspoons of table sugar. Voila !!! Step back and watch the magic. The yeast “dissolves” in the sugar water and grows like crazy. Don’t leave these frat boys unsupervised for too long. If you do, the foam from the growth will overflow the cup and create a mess.
Next: Add all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl … more warm water, more sugar (to taste), a little salt, a lipid source (I am just sooo biochemical) … I usually use melted butter, and of course, the growing yeast. Stir all this stuff into a doughy mass which you knead on a floured surface … table, cutting board, whatever. Throw the kneaded loaf back into the lubed (any oil) mixing bowl, cover with a draped moist kitchen towel, and place the bowl in a warm environment … a garage during summer is a great place, right on the washing machine/dryer. Come back in about 30 minutes … the dough mass will be attempting to escape the bowl. Pour the dough onto the floured surface, knead again, and repeat the rising process 3X.
This will be enough dough to create three loaves. Heat up your oven … make sure you have an oven thermometer … the numbers on the oven dial are just approximate. Take three baking pans (shit, I can still see two on my microwave that I haven’t used for bread for over 15 years), grease them with butter. Cut the dough mass into approx three equal parts, fashion each into a shape appropriate for the baking pan, put the pans in the heated oven, close the door, and walk away. THE AROMA OF BAKING BREAD IS FANTASTIC !! It was Vincent Price on the Hollywood Squares who said he could make a fortune if he could invent a perfume that smelled like baking bread.
Check the oven every 15 minutes till the loaves’ surfaces are a dark brown … don’t let them burn! Take the pans out of the oven, dump the hot (very hot !!) loaves onto wire racks, let them cool. DONE!
So where’s the allegory? Everything I have typed so far is from the macro-human level. Now, imagine it’s from the yeast’s POV. Active dry yeast … what a weird form of … life? On a grocer’s shelf for God knows how long, add to sugary warm water and PRESTO, life! Look out little yeasties … you’re destroying your biosphere! There’s only so much sugar in your small bowl and you’re creating a poison (alcohol) which will eventually kill you if in too high a concentration. But behold … a miracle. You find yourself in a large dough mass, with tons of food, tons of moisture, nice and warm, and LIFE IS GOOD! Oh, you lucky buggers! But now what? The temperature is going up. What is that smell? That’s US roasting !!! Oh the humanity … er … uh … yeastanity.
And there you have it. Humans over-reproducing, destroying their biosphere, but unlike the yeast, you have the knowledge/technology to stop it and you choose not to. At least the yeast leave behind delicious bread. Can humans make the same claim?
Who wants a slice of yeast death? Butter anyone?
Ah, the miracle of life.
