Subject: Re: Unleavened bread

From: [email-masked] (Barry Shein)
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 11:25:31 GMT

Um, is there some fundamental misunderstanding of Exodus here and its
reference to unleavened bread?

The story there is that the Hebrews were in such a rush to leave Egypt
that they baked their bread without waiting for it to rise. That this
is even mentioned would indicate that bread was normally leavened.

    12:39 And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought
    forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened; because they were thrust
    out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for
    themselves any victual.

Apologies if I missed the point entirely.

|> 	One person wrote someting along the lines of "For pity's
|> sake, even Matza has some leavening". She was really condescending and
|> irritating as heck. She hurt my feelings, dammit. :'(

>Wasn't there just an article in National Geographic about Egyptian bread?  They
>examined papyri and tomb paintings, built a bakery, and made bread.  No
>commercial yeast (saccaromeces cerevisiai, or however it's spelled), but it was a
>bona fide sourdough, which means it was indeed leavened (by lactobacilli).  I've
>been meaning to find that article again, so thanks for bringing this up...  So
>even if the recipe only has flour, water, and oil, the bread could be leavened by
>yeast from the air (they were brewing plenty of beer, after all).

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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