What Does Unleavened Bread Taste like?

Cindyt

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A starving child MC steals unleavened bread from a church closet, and I gotta know what it tastes like. I have looked EVERYWHERE. So here it is for my AW friends. It was baked in a wood stove, which has to do with the flavor, but I can figure that out if I just have an inkling to the general taste.
 
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Enlightened

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Leavening agents make food rise. Yeast is one example (trapped gas). Steam is another (butter does this, as well as eggs). Baking powder (chemical leavener) does this as well.

I'm sure you've had unleavened "bread" before, such as tortillas. I think communion wafers are unleavened, but I never looked at a recipe or procedures for preparation. Matzo bread is unleavened. Wasa bread might be unleavened, but I do not know.

The taste will differ on the type of unleavened bread you eat (e.g. tortilla vs. matzo bread). Communion wafers, if you want my opinion of their taste, resemble paper thin crackers that liquify with saliva to form something hinting at oatmeal, but without the texture, density, or any filling attributes. Of course, this is only one wafer at a time.
 
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Enlightened

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Yep, tortilla is a flat bread. I'd stick to flour tortillas of course.
 

cornflake

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A starving child MC steals unleavened bread from a church closet, and I gotta know what it tastes like. I have looked EVERYWHERE. So here it is for my AW friends. It was baked in a wood stove, which has to do with the flavor, but I can figure that out if I just have an inkling to the general taste.

You've had unleavened bread, I guarantee, but it can taste like anything, same as any other bread. It's just about the texture, not the taste. Depends on what type of flour, seasonings, how it's baked, what kind of oil, etc.

Most churches use wafers, which taste like doom.
 

benbenberi

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There are a lot of variations on the unleavened-bread theme, but they generally have a few things in common: flour, water, salt. That's the basic flavor profile. As cornflake says, the texture is the thing.
 

Cindyt

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I found a picture of what 18th century Communion wafers look like--slightly ragged disks that look like my grandmother's flat breakfast biscuits.

Again, thanks everybody!
 

shakeysix

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Back when I was in college --Mt. St. Clare in Clinton, Ia.--we used to swipe the un blessed communion wafers out of the school kitchen. They came in square sheets with each host a perforated circle. We punched out the hosts but ate the edges too. They weren't bad but they weren't good either. Peanut butter or honey made them a bit tastier. Not sure why we did it. The school menu was sufficient if a little bland. Probably just because we were bored. A tortilla is unleavened bread, too. And a little karo syrup and peanut butter on a tortilla is tasty. A school friend showed me that rick in the 8th grade. --s6
 

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Years ago all bread was unleavened. What it's like depends on the ingredients. Matzo is a Jewish version and is made to celebrate Passover. In Asia, especially India, bread like Roti and Chapati is eaten by most people every day.
 
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lonestarlibrarian

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Is your WIP set in the 18th c? Because bread would get moldy pretty fast, with the lack of preservatives and things. When I make homemade bread, it starts to show mold if it sits for three days-- and that's in a climate-controlled house. It's more likely to be used the day it's made, or perhaps made the evening before in time for use the next morning--- but not being stored from week-to-week.

Some friends of mine are Greek Orthodox-- they attend church at two different churches about 500 miles apart. In both cases, I believe the ladies of the congregation coordinate to make the altar bread used for communion, although I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of antidoron/prosphora.

I think Catholic hosts are made from flour and water only, and Orthodox altar bread can sometimes have salt and yeast in addition--- yeast, of course, being a leavening agent. But the point being, if you're set in the 18th c, it's more likely that the ladies of the congregation are bringing in the altar bread fresh as-needed, rather than sending away mail-order like they do nowadays. :)

Consecrated altar-bread would presumably be kept reserved in a tabernacle, if you're talking about Catholics/ Orthodox/High Anglicans/Lutherans. (Catholics stopped reserving it in an aumbry after the Council of Trent, but the holy oils continue to be kept in aumbries.) Reformed churches generally don't do "reservation of the elements" in the 18th c.
 

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Is your WIP set in the 18th c? Because bread would get moldy pretty fast, with the lack of preservatives and things. When I make homemade bread, it starts to show mold if it sits for three days-- and that's in a climate-controlled house. It's more likely to be used the day it's made, or perhaps made the evening before in time for use the next morning--- but not being stored from week-to-week.

Some friends of mine are Greek Orthodox-- they attend church at two different churches about 500 miles apart. In both cases, I believe the ladies of the congregation coordinate to make the altar bread used for communion, although I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of antidoron/prosphora.

I think Catholic hosts are made from flour and water only, and Orthodox altar bread can sometimes have salt and yeast in addition--- yeast, of course, being a leavening agent. But the point being, if you're set in the 18th c, it's more likely that the ladies of the congregation are bringing in the altar bread fresh as-needed, rather than sending away mail-order like they do nowadays. :)

Consecrated altar-bread would presumably be kept reserved in a tabernacle, if you're talking about Catholics/ Orthodox/High Anglicans/Lutherans. (Catholics stopped reserving it in an aumbry after the Council of Trent, but the holy oils continue to be kept in aumbries.) Reformed churches generally don't do "reservation of the elements" in the 18th c.
It happens on an early Sunday morning. The pastor's wife did indeed make the bread at the crack of dawn for the communion that day. So it's fresh. Thank you!.
 

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There's Irish soda bread -- must be a ton of recipes online -- which is pretty yummy. I love it, particularly with some decent cheese.
 

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Why not just make some? There are lots of recipes, and it's easy.
 

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Seriously; just Google "How to make unleavened bread" there are recipes and even videos.

If you can stir, you can make unleavened bread.
 

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I don't know if all churches are the same. I was brought up as a Catholic. Then bead used at communion was tiny discs of paper-thin bread and tasteless. It was symbolic bread. Not something you would eat for lunch
 

Cindyt

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I don't know if all churches are the same. I was brought up as a Catholic. Then bead used at communion was tiny discs of paper-thin bread and tasteless. It was symbolic bread. Not something you would eat for lunch
I know the kind you're talking about from the movies. I was brought up protestant. We ate soda crackers. Other churches baked their own.
 

benbenberi

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There's Irish soda bread -- must be a ton of recipes online -- which is pretty yummy. I love it, particularly with some decent cheese.

Definitely yummy. But not at all unleavened -- the name gives it away. Baking soda is the main non-yeast leavening agent in the modern kitchen!
 

kikazaru

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I had a friend from India and she gave me her recipe for a curried vegetable stew with chapati. The chapati was incredibly easy to make - just whole wheat flour (about 2 cups) pinch salt and aproximately 1 cup of water mixed with your hands til it's pliable and doesn't stick to your hands. To cook it you break off pieces and roll in to small balls and flatten very thin and then place on a heated ungreased frying pan. When it starts to puff, flip it over and cook the other side til brown. From start to finish its very quick and it tastes very similar to pita to me.