Celebration Breads: Recipes, Tales, and Traditions (Hardcover)

by Betsy Oppenneer (Author), John Burgoyne (Illustrator) "Yeast is an amazing living fungus that hangs in suspension until warm water activates it..." (more)
Key Phrases: tightly woven towel, yeast along with the butter, lightly oiled work surface, Select the Dough, Christmas Eve, Shrove Tuesday (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Japan is about the only nation not represented in Betsy Oppeneer's Celebration Breads. And guess what? In Japan they don't celebrate holidays or special events with bread. Everywhere else, well, it's another story. And who better to tell that story than Betsy Oppeneer, longtime cooking teacher, author of Breads from Betsy's Kitchen, The Bread Book, and Betsy's Bread. There was a time in Europe when eggs and sugar were so costly none but the wealthy could use them for anything but special events, usually holidays like Easter or Christmas. Or there are special breads linked to events like the Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. Oppeneer has scoured the world for breads closely linked to this spirit of celebration, of special event. And what she found, in many cases, was a disappearing world where new generations were failing to carry on traditions and old recipes were fading out of mind and history. Celebration Breads acts as something of a bridge between what has been and what can be.

Always the careful, thorough teacher, Oppeneer begins her book with chapters on ingredients, special equipment, the how-tos of doing it by hand, by heavy-duty mixer, by food processor, or bread machine, and tips and techniques. She divides her recipe chapters by region: Africa, the Americas, the British Isles, Eastern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, Russia and Asia, Scandinavia, and Western Europe. You'll find flat breads like Egyptian Zalabya and yeast breads like Chelsea Buns. There are sweet breads and savory breads. Big breads and little breads. And in each of the more than 75 recipes Oppeneer is right there at your shoulder, enjoying new discoveries and old friends right along with you. --Schuyler Ingle

From Publishers Weekly
With recipes for more than 75 savory and sweet breads, Oppenneer's book offers home bakers accessible, homey recipes with wonderful histories about the celebrations associated with each entry. The author, a culinary teacher and consultant, lists the basics, such as ingredients, equipment and the steps to making bread (whether by hand, heavy-duty mixer, food processor or bread machine). From there, she organizes her book according to geographic region (Africa, The Americas, British Isles, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, etc.). Her choices sometimes surprise: under Morocco, she places the Yom Kippur celebratory dish, Sephardi Bread, which is filled with a mixture of coriander seeds and almonds; the holiday is celebrated in Canada with Montreal Bagels. For a wedding celebration, Oppenneer recommends Irish Soda Bread ("bread was broken over the bride as she entered her new home and became the woman of the house"). From Norway for Christmas comes Julekake, made with cherries and almonds and served with brown goat cheese. This solid book's stories are as warm and pleasing as fresh-baked bread.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743224833
• ISBN-13: 978-0743224833
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,067,578 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Special Topic Bread Book. Must Have for Bakers, May 16, 2004

By	B. Marold (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I ordered this book by experienced and highly recognized bread baking author, Betsy Oppenneer, because I was having no luck finding a recipe for Eastern European Paska (Easter) bread in my many other weighty bread baking books. I had even looked into cookbooks of eastern European cuisines such as Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Slovakian and Ukrainian. I found only one, which was so simple, I was sure the authors did not give it a lot of thought, or, eastern European peasants really did make this kind of very simple bread because they simply did not have the money or access to saffron, dried fruits, and fresh butter.

I was pleased to find that Ms. Betsy had not one, but two eastern European Easter bread recipes spelled Paska in the Ukraine and Pashka (or Kulich) in Russia. As luck would have it, I had also found a Pashka bread recipe in the latest Easter issue of Gourmet magazine that was, of course, different from Ms. Betsy's recipe. Of course, Oppenneer anticipates this by saying that she often finds dozens or even hundreds of different recipes under the same traditional name. The problem is generally to find the recipe that most closely resembles your personal memory, especially if your Grammy didn't write this precious recipe down or your bakery source has gone out of business or moved its business to Orlando.

All of this is to warn you that even though a recipe you remember may be in this book, it may not be exactly the same as you remember from your childhood or from a trip to Prague or Marseilles or Casablanca. In spite of this warning, it seems to me that Ms. Oppenneer has done a real scholar's job of presenting a good take on a wide selection of the world's celebration breads. In the process, she has reminded us of how central bread is to many cultures' spiritual life. This alone, aside from nutritional questions, is enough for me to not give up my bread in all its varieties in the face of `low carbohydrate' diet doctrines. The best part of this book is that it does not limit itself to coverage of `Bread Central' running from Paris and Rome through Germany to Vienna and the Slavic lands in the Balkans and into the Ukraine and Russia to the Urals. There are interesting samples from northern Africa (Egypt and Morocco, of course), native America (and some European imports to the new world), the Middle East, Greece, Scandinavia, and a rather large contingent of breads from the British Isles, featuring the famous Irish soda bread, hot cross buns, and Shrovetide Pancakes. It should come as no surprise that there are no representatives from the Orient, as wheat, and therefore, bread, simply did not play a large part of their cuisine. I am just a little surprised that there are no samples from south Asia, as I know there are flatbreads common to Indian / Pakistani cuisines. No matter, as the author provides an excellent bibliography of books and that very new, very 21st century bibliography of Internet web sites.

All of these very good things would be of little value if the recipes and bread baking techniques in this MS were not up to snuff. Take my word for it. They are very up to snuff. The book does not give bread baking technique the great depth of treatment you may find in a volume by Peter Reinhart or in Rose Levy Beranbaum's `the bread bible', but I found the author's understanding of her subject and her skill with imparting that understanding to be as much or more lucid as these experts, who are dealing with the more difficult task of covering the entire world of bread, ingredients, and techniques. As far as she goes Ms. Oppenneer makes it all seem very, very easy, without skimping on any of the niceties. Her explanation of kneading and her rationale for that technique may be worth the price of admission for serious, amateur breadmakers.

As this is a book on specific breads and not on breadmaking in general, Ms. Oppenneer does not cover things like artisinal breads based on sponge, poolish, or biga. In fact none of these words appear in the index, even though I did find one recipe which used a sponge. One indication of this limited range is that Ms. Betsy gives four important steps to bread baking over four pages of text, while Beranbaum takes ten steps and about thirty pages to cover basic bread baking. This reinforces the fact that this book is not the only bread book you will need.

Aside from the interest in the subject of the book, the most interesting aspect of the book is that the author gives techniques based on up to four different types of equipment. These are your hands, a stand mixer, a food processor, and a bread machine. I never use a bread machine or a food processor to make bread so I cannot make any judgment on these techniques. I can say that the manual and stand mixer techniques are excellent, with many new twists on how to use this very versatile machine to make bread. Understandably, not every machine works with every type of bread. Next to manual techniques, the stand mixer is the most widely applicable method.

One somewhat disorienting position taken by the author is her not routinely blooming yeast before adding it to other ingredients. Just as I first learned to work with yeast by blooming active dry yeast in warm water and sugar, Ms Oppenneer says she first learned a simpler `standard' technique of simply suspending the active dry yeast in warm water. This is the method she uses in most recipes.

Highly recommended book for those who are looking for a traditional bread recipe. Also highly recommended for bread bakers in general. Especially good for novices, although few recipes are `easy'.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My New Favorite Book!, May 5, 2004

By	June Jacobs (Jersey City, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is my new favorite book! I've been baking bread since I was 7 years old, and I love to get my hands into a pile of dough. Betsy Oppenneer is my roommate at IACP Conferences, and one of me dearest friends, so sue me if I'm prejudiced, but... she has left NOTHING out of "Celebration Breads!" She has researched not only the recipes, but also the history of each of the breads included in the book. Additionally, she's included three methods for making most of these breads: by mixer, by food processor and by bread machine. Take your pick. She's included some fried treats as well as more traditional breads from all over the world. I've especially enjoyed comparing her recipes with those I've been baking for years. Whatever your ethnic heritage, you will find easy-to-follow recipes for the breads and coffee cakes you grew up with. This may be the perfect year to "get your hands into a pile of dough" and create a tradition!