Bread or The Story of Sushi

Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Formulas

Author: Jeffrey Hamelman

The warm, complex aroma of a fresh-baked loaf of bread can be utterly tantalizing; the first bite, a revelation. In Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes, award-winning master baker Jeffrey Hamelman presents the definitive, one-stop reference on the art and science of bread baking - a kitchen essential for seasoned home bakers and professionals alike.
Hamelman, a professional baker for nearly three decades, was a member of the United States national baking team that won first place in the 1996 Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, the bread-baking World Cup. Here, he shares this experience, putting world-class artisanal loaves within reach of any serious baker. Opening with a comprehensive overview of the foundations - essential ingredients; hand techniques for kneading, scoring, and shaping; the basic process from mixing through baking - he lucidly guides bakers through all elements of this richly rewarding craft.

Bread contains 118 detailed, step-by-step recipes for an array of breads: versatile sourdough ryes; breads made with pre-ferments; and simple, straight dough loaves. Recipes for brioche, focaccia, pizza dough, flat breads, and other traditional baking staples augment the diverse collection of flavors, tastes, and textures represented within these pages. From the delicate flavor and aroma of classic French baguettes to the mellow smoothness of Roasted Garlic Levain, a bread for every season and every palate is here.

Each recipe clearly outlines the key stages, with easy-to-use charts that list ingredients in both American and metric measures, quantities appropriate for home baking, and baker's percentages. Hundreds ofdrawings vividly illustrate techniques, and 35 handsome color photographs display finished breads. Sidebars accompany each recipe and section with valuable tips, from the subtle art of tasting and evaluating breads to the perfect fare to complement Vollkornbrot. A complete chapter on decorative breads - with instructions on techniques as well as a wide variety of exquisite patterns - will inspire magnificent display creations.

Laced throughout the book, Hamelman's personal narratives offer a compelling portrait of a lifelong love affair with bread and vividly communicate this passion. For bakers seeking to finesse this time-honored craft or simply to learn the tricks of the trade from a real master, Bread is a resource to be consulted time and time again.

Table of Contents:

	Recipes	viii
	Acknowledgments	x
	Foreword	xii
	Preface	xiii
Part 1	Ingredients and Techniques
1	The Bread-Making Process from Mixing through Baking	3
2	Ingredients and Their Function	31
3	Hand Techniques	63
Part 2	Formulas and Decorative Breads
4	Breads Made with Yeasted Pre-Ferments	93
5	Levain Breads	143
6	Sourdough Rye Breads	187
7	Straight Doughs	231
8	Miscellaneous Breads	251
9	Braiding Techniques	285
10	Decorative and Display Projects	317
	Appendix	351
	Developing and Perpetuating a Sourdough Culture	351
	Rheological Testing and the Analysis of Flour	363
	Flour Additives	373
	Baker's Percentage	376
	Desired Dough Temperature	382
	Computing Batch Cost	386
	Useful Conversions and Equivalencies	387
	Sample Proofing Schedule	390
	Epilogue	391
	Glossary	393
	Bibliography	401
	Index	404
	About the Author	415

Go to: Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet or Le Cordon Bleus Complete Cooking Techniques

The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice

Author: Trevor Corson

The Story of Sushi
An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice

Chapter One

Sushi School

Kate Murray's alarm clock went off at 5:30 a.m. She forced her eyes open. Her college classes had never started before noon.

The day before—the Fourth of July 2005—Kate had loaded her Mustang and driven up the coast from San Diego to Los Angeles. Now unopened boxes sat scattered around the little house. She still had no furniture, and she missed her dog.

Kate dragged herself out of bed. In the bathroom mirror she looked skinny. The weeks leading up to sushi school had been stressful, and she'd stopped eating again.

On the drive to the academy she hit L.A. traffic. By the time she finally reached Hermosa Beach, she was running late. Fit-looking people on Rollerblades glided down the strip along the sandy beach, and several surfers were already out testing the waves. The Pacific Ocean stretched to the horizon. A block from the beach, Kate located the Hama Hermosa sushi restaurant and hurried inside.

She entered the foyer and saw a small dining room on her left with tables, a couple of booths, and a shiny red sushi bar. The restaurant appeared to be deserted, except for a gold Buddha sitting in an alcove.

Through a cutout in the hallway wall Kate glimpsed people. She followed the hall and stepped into a large space with a high ceiling and skylights. A second red sushi bar ran across the back wall. Down the center of the room stretched a stainless-steel table with sinks built into it, like in a chemistry lab.

All eyes turned and looked at Kate. Her classmates had already taken all the spots at the table, exceptfor the one closest to the Japanese chef at the head of the table. Crap, Kate thought. She walked up to the remaining space. Everyone was standing. There were no chairs.

The chef was a short man with a shaved head. He introduced himself as Toshi Sugiura, chief executive officer (CEO) of the California Sushi Academy. He was also executive chef of the Hama Hermosa restaurant. The restaurant and the academy shared the building.

Toshi was a pioneer of American sushi. He had started serving sushi in Los Angeles in 1978, before most Americans had even heard of it. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Toshi's sushi bar and restaurant—Hama Venice, in Venice Beach, just south of Santa Monica—had been one of the hottest sushi spots in all of L.A. Two years ago Toshi had shifted his efforts to the current restaurant, and it hadn't been long before Phil Jackson, coach of the L.A. Lakers, had stopped by to inscribe his signature on the wall.

Toshi had founded the California Sushi Academy in 1998. Opening a school for sushi chefs was unprecedented. For nearly 200 years, becoming a sushi chef had required a long apprenticeship—often five or more years. Toshi wanted to train people in a few months.

Toshi hired staff to manage the school and to teach. When the academy opened, three-quarters of the applicants were not even Asian. Toshi accepted them all. He couldn't be certain, but he assumed that many of his fellow Japanese sushi chefs considered him a traitor for welcoming outsiders into the world of sushi. The way Toshi saw it, Americans had already embraced sushi, and it would be foolish not to train American chefs. Since then, a few other sushi schools had opened in L.A., including the Sushi Chef Institute, run by a former instructor at Toshi's academy. So far, these were the only formal training programs for sushi chefs in the United States.

Anyone could apply to the California Sushi Academy. Toshi didn't require his students to have restaurant or kitchen experience. Hobbyists and home cooks had attended the school, along with experienced chefs, including seasoned veterans of some of America's best kitchens. Not all of the graduates went on to become professional sushi chefs. Over the years, the proportion of non-Asian students had remained high.

'Ohaiyõ gozaimasu!' Toshi bellowed to the class. This meant "Good morning" in Japanese. But around the restaurant, the chefs said it whenever they arrived for work, even if it was afternoon or evening.

Toshi taught the class another word. 'Irasshaimase!' That meant "Welcome." Sushi chefs yelled it whenever a customer walked in. Most Americans thought Japanese people were supposed to act quiet and dignified. But in old Tokyo, sushi chefs were loud and boisterous.

Kate liked Toshi immediately. He was cheerful and stern at the same time, like a monk who was also a kung-fu warrior. Toshi asked the nine students to introduce themselves. Kate looked around at the people who would be her classmates for the next twelve weeks. There were six men and two other women. It had never occurred to her that most of her classmates would be men. It hadn't occurred to her that there was anything unusual about a woman, or her in particular, wanting to become a sushi chef. Kate didn't see why a 20-year-old Irish-Italian girl with a pierced belly button and a nose stud couldn't make sushi.

The other students were also young, and a majority of them were white. They had come to the academy for a variety of reasons. Most of them had restaurant kitchen experience, and a few already had experience making sushi. Kate had neither.

One young man had made his start mass-producing sushi at a Whole Foods grocery store in North Carolina, and he wanted to move up to restaurant work. Another had seen how widespread sushi had become, and he hoped to purchase his own sushi restaurant in southern California. A man from El Paso, Texas, had been sent by his company, a real-estate and restaurant-development firm, because sushi was the hot new meal on the Mexican border.

Several of the students, including a woman from Barcelona, wanted to open their own catering businesses. A 17-year-old blond boy from Colorado thought working behind a sushi bar would be a great way to meet girls. There was one young woman, still in high school, who looked Japanese. She was from L.A.—her dad wanted her to learn Japanese food. There were two guys who looked Filipino or Indonesian, but they were both American.

The Story of Sushi
An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice. Copyright © by Trevor Corson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Publishers Weekly

To the uninitiated, few things can be more intimidating than a sushi bar. Though the process of ordering and eating sushi isn't nearly as involved as some would think, it does require a certain amount of knowledge and etiquette to dine properly. Thankfully, Corson (The Secret Life of Lobsters) presents an exhaustive look at sushi and the chefs who prepare it that will go a long way toward instilling confidence. Alternating between the cuisine's history and the key steps in a sushi chef's education, Corson puts the reader in the thick of things à la Michael Ruhlman's Making of a Chef, detailing the laborious process of making rice, the preparation of a myriad of fish and the storied history of the California Roll. Corson covers close to 30 plants and animals over the course of the book, which becomes a bit wearying, but his structure prevents the material from overwhelming readers, and his enthusiasm for the topic is infectious-especially when the subject turns to the popularity of sushi in landlocked states or the perils of dealing with mackerel. Given the breadth and scope of the book (a bibliography and source list are included), Corson has created what could be the definitive work on the topic, enabling customers to comfortably and confidently stride into a sushi restaurant and order omakasewithout trepidation. Corson seems to sense this, as an addendum regarding sushi bar etiquette closes with the admonishment, "Most experts agree on one thing. Customers who show off their sushi knowledge are tiresome. Chefs appreciate customers who would rather eat sushi than talk about it." (June)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Shelley J.M. Brown - Library Journal

Those who have ever been curious to know the path the salmon sashimi had to take before arriving on their plates will find this book appetizing; it centers on a Los Angeles sushi school and one student's trials, in particular. Journalist Corson (The Secret Life of Lobsters) manages to illustrate the complex work of the sushi chef and the equally complex natural history of the sea creatures that became what is now an incredibly popular food at a time when many fish species may be endangered. Human interest and culinary and natural history combine to make an engaging book. The author has woven together some disparate story elements into a whole that will delight readers with a variety of interests. Recommended for most public libraries, especially those with good sushi restaurants nearby!

Library Journal

Journalist Corson (Atlantic Monthly, New York Times) follows top Japanese chefs and American newcomers to uncover the secrets of sushi. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.