Bread Therapy

I suppose you know that I’m looking for a job. Have I mentioned that, up until lately, I’ve worked in bookstores for years? Yes, I’m a reader so when I took up this project my first impulse was to check the library shelves to see what people have written about bread. I’m not really looking for other bread cookbooks right now since I have my hands full baking through my point of departure. I had in mind a book about the history of bread, possibly something specifically about yeast. The first one that came to hand, however, was one of the “pick a subject and travel around the world to see how it’s done in various places” genre. I have nothing against that kind of book. I’d like to write one (or three or five) of them myself. Do you think there’s a market for a book about accordion music from around the world? Bet I could make it funny. Anyway, here’s the book I found…

 Going with the Grain: A Wandering Bread Lover Takes a Bite Out of Life by Susan Seligson. I wanted to like this book. I really did. She professes to like bread. She also appears to like travel, one my own passions. To tell you the truth, she pretty much loses me on the first page when she confesses that she doesn’t bake at all. She wants to make this book about bread as an expression of the cultures she visits, but for the most part I think she fails at this task. She talks to people who are evangelical about the “authenticity” of their artesanal breads but never mentions how these almost ritually made loaves taste and why they’re any better than say a good neighborhood bakery. She goes to Jordan and talks to a bunch of men who aren’t the ones who make the bread. She never figures out a way to speak to the woman who is dipping her fingers in the fire. She does better in Paris where she seems to actually enjoy both the bread and the culture, but to my mind she never makes a connection as to how one inspires the other. Worst of all, she complains every step of the way. It’s too cold and rainy in Ireland (duh.) It’s too hot in New Mexico (double duh.) The lady at her table talks too much. The Indians at the pueblo won’t talk to her at all. Everyone around the world appears to lie to her and try to take advantage of her. Finally, she could really use an editor. Sentences are unclear. Several unrelated topics get mashed into one paragraph making the reader feel like they’ve missed some connecting bit of logic. The biscuit baker in Alabama is “tired-looking” and on the next page the waitress is “tired-looking.” Somebody should have been blue pencilling here.

I mean, it’s not as if she’s writing a blog, right?

Maybe I’m being a little harsh. Maybe you’d enjoy her descriptions of her travels. Maybe her attitude wouldn’t set your back up the way it did mine. It’s not a horrible book. I did read it all the way through. I just couldn’t help feeling that I wouldn’t care to call Seligson my friend.

Tags: book, bread, going, grain, review, seligson, susan, travel

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