Integrative Assignment #1

1.

I have always assumed that a staple of Italian food was pizza. I believed this because it seemed a relatively easy meal to put together because it does not require many ingredients. I was surprised to learn that pizza had not always been so prevalent in the diet of Italians, and even when it was I was more surprised that it was primarily eaten by poor people. It seems to me that people of all classes in the modern day enjoy pizza, but back then it was an easy meal to make and sell on the street, alongside being relatively mess-free.

2.

The dish I have learned the most about so far in the course is bread. We have studied how it is made, what ingredients go into making it, and the science behind how the ingredients work together to produce a satisfying loaf.

3.

The most important ingredient in the process of baking bread is the gluten. Without gluten, bread would not be able to rise as effectively. Porous, light bread is essential to the Italian diet, so gluten is especially important here. Gluten is formed by the two proteins glutenin and gliadin, that exist in wheat, barley, and rye flours. The other important part of baking bread is the protein concentration in the flour. The less protein there is in the recipe, the less gluten will be formed, and the less the bread will rise. Bread flours have the highest concentration of protein (~14%), and then all purpose flours(~8%), and finally cake flours (~4%).

The gluten  forms a hexagonal matrix when combined with water that makes the dough come together. This matrix effectively forms a balloon that allows the dough to rise with it is filled with a gas. Yeast are added to the bread dough as the producers of the gas that will fill the gluten balloon. These unicellular organisms will perform the processes of glycolysis and fermentation, which along with producing ATP for the yeast to use will produce CO2 gas that will fill the gluten balloon. Depending on how extensive the gluten matrix is in the bread dough (which kind of flour was used in the recipe), the dough will rise different amounts to produce different textures.

4.

While bread is still an important staple to the Italians today, it used to have a much more serious role. For some farming families during the middle ages and renaissance, bread was their primary source of nourishment. Farmers either siphoned off small portions of the grain they grew to bake bread, or used their meager earnings to purchase tough loaves from bakers in town.  In Fenoglio’s Ruin, a boy and his family spend every day worrying and fighting for their next meal. The boy’s father sells his son into servitude for a few napoleons per year, and the mother would endure long walks to far off towns just to get a better price on what she could sell.

In Manzoni’s The Betrothed, Renzo enters a town to find it in turmoil. The townspeople are up in arms because the town leadership has been withholding resources from them, and they are going hungry. The townspeople resolve to break into the bakeries and steal the precious bread and flour. The ensuing chaos sees bakeries destroyed and looted, and the town ultimately is worse off because now it no longer has the means to produce bread, as the ovens had been destroyed in the mob’s rage. We can see from this that towns were built upon and razed because of bread. So important was this means of sustenance to the people that they were willing to do whatever they had to to get enough to feed themselves so they might survive another day.

5.

The gluten matrix in bread dough is what allows it to rise and become everything it can. It can only rise with the help of yeast performing the processes that it needs to to provide itself with sustenance. The Italian people can be compared to the gluten matrix in that they are what hold Italy (the entire loaf) together. Without its people, Italy would not be a country of any import. Meanwhile, the yeast can be compared to the bread that the people need to stay alive. Without the yeast undergoing fermentation, there would be no CO2 gas to make the dough rise. Ultimately, this would result in an unsatisfyingly tough loaf. Give the Italian people enough bread to live, and they will no longer need to spend every waking moment worrying about where their next meal will come from, and thus be able to focus on improving their lives in other ways. The bread makes the people rise and become all they can be.