Rising bread dough? Not easy without yeast this Easter
Loaves of bread are especially symbolic this weekend with the observance of Easter traditions.
Just as with the Jewish observance of Passover, which began at sundown Wednesday and ends at Sundown on April 16 associated with an emphasis on “unleavened bread” related to Moses and the Exodus from Egypt, other Easter tables wouldn’t be complete without a tall loaf of “risen” bread symbolizing Jesus rising on Easter morning.
In recent weeks, readers have shared their lament about not only flour and cornmeal being in short supply, but also the disappearance of yeast from store shelves.
“I cannot find yeast anywhere,” said Nancy Stonecipher of LaCrosse.
“I was in Walmart this morning …. none. Then tried Save A Lot yesterday in Kouts, and still none.”
Nancy’s neighbor Kathy Pearson said her friend Laura, who is from downstate in Jeffersonville, Ind., also reported Kroger stores being out of both bread and yeast. She sent her friend a recipe for beer bread, since it doesn’t require yeast.
Morris Paulsen of Valparaiso, a farm neighbor from across our fields from years ago and a family friend wrote me with similar frustration.
“I’ve been baking all of our bread for at least 10 years,” Morris said. “Trying to find yeast at any store around here is an exercise in futility.”
Reader Pearson, whose mother Barb Hucker of LaCrosse shares with her daughter the Paulsen maiden name, offered a great “emergency alternative” when yeast is not available. Her rising remedy only requires a potato, water, flour and sugar. She instructs to boil the potato until tender, remove it and set aside, reserving one and half cups of the water the potato was boiled in. In a bowl, combine the reserved water with one tablespoon of granulated white sugar and one cup of flour. Cover the bowl and leave it overnight in a warm place. By the next morning, the contents in the bowl should be “bubbly and smell like yeast.” Use the entire contents of the bowl, which is the equivalent of one packet of yeast, in the desired bread recipe.
After reuniting with our Paulsen family friends, I asked them to share two long-requested neighbor recipes. For years, I’ve been looking for these recipes from Barb’s mom, the kindly neighbor I remember while growing up and always referred to as “Granny Paulsen” when she’d come by the farm to visit with my Grandma Potempa. Mrs. Paulsen was known for her delicious homemade rye bread and also her “sour cream gravy served with pan dumplings.”
As my Dad and his late sisters, my Auntie Lottie and Auntie Lilly, would all often remind me, when Grandpa and Grandma Potempa first moved from Chicago and purchased our family farm in the late 1920s, it was the neighbors who taught them so many key essentials and crafts about the many chores and daily needs of living on a farm. While among other skills, Grandpa Skuderna taught my Grandpa Skuderna about art of beekeeping, hives and harvesting honey, it was our other neighbor Granny Paulsen
(who spoke Bohemian so she was able to talk with Polish speaking Grandma Potempa) who taught my grandma a great deal about gardening, canning and preserving.
Because Granny Skuderna didn’t speak Polish and preferred to keep to herself, she didn’t neighbor as much with Grandpa Potempa. But in later years, since I grew up close friends with her beloved great granddaughters Tracy, Heather and Tanya who also later lived just down the road, I remember her warmth and kindness, as well as the delicious pies and peanut butter cookies she would bake. My oldest brother Tom, who grew up friends with the Paulsen neighbor daughters and sons, as did my oldest sister Carol, recalls Granny Skuderna also baking wonderful pies and cakes.
While it seems the Paulsen Family recipe for “sour cream gravy and pan dumplings” has been long lost, Kathy and Barb were able to share Mrs. Paulsen’s recipe for her Bohemian Rye Bread. While “Grandpa Paulsen,” aka Morris Paulsen Sr., died at age 82 in December 1967 and “Granny Paulsen,” aka Blanche Paulsen, died at age 89 in April 1990, their wonderful memories, farming legacy and this treasured family bread recipe will live on with new generations.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at pmpotempa@comhs.org or mail your questions: From the Farm, P.O. Box 68, San Pierre, IN 46374.