Lithuanian Rye Bread
My dad just mailed me this bread. It was baked in Lithuania, sent through a distributor in Beverly Hills, and wound up at my door this morning. Fortunately longevity is one of the virtues of this kind of bread. The crust has suffered somewhat and has the feel of fondant but the crumb is still rich and flavorful. I ate this bread all the time when I was growing up as my father is a Lithuanian refugee and there are certain traditions he likes to keep. Indeed, Wikipedia mentions that ‘èmigrés from Lithuania will often mention their native rye bread as the food that they miss the most.’ For instance, before dinner he loves eating slices of this bread with edam cheese and Kalnapilis beer.
Both loaves are 65% rye and also contain some caraway seeds and rye malt.
May 24th, 2009 at 4:12 am
Dear John, thank you for mentioning the bread I sent you. Those seeds are sunflower seeds that are in the loaf on the right. I don’t remember them when I was a kid in Lithuania on my grandfather’s farm, but today several of the bakeries in Lithuania bake ever more varieties of dark rye bread. It always amazes me that they all taste great, but are in many ways different from each other. Even Germans, who also love a good loaf of dark rye, are very surprised at the variety available in every little neighborhood store. Once I counted 27 different kinds on the shelves at Maxima, one of the first big chain of grocery stores in Vilnius.
What is remarkable, as you say, is that the bread lasts and lasts. I order five or six loaves at a time and freeze them without any bad effects. What is even more astonishing to me is that a loaf baked in Lithuania and delivered to my door costs less than a loaf of local rye bread, which tastes OK but there is no comparison to the real thing. Of course, the UPS shipping cost makes it almost as expensive, but it’s a marvelous thing nonetheless: bread from the other side of the world. Thanks, Pop.
June 8th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Wow- that bread looks amazing!