Bread Recipes From Around the World.

Bread is the oldest technology in this atlas, and the way a culture makes it tells you what grain grew there and what heat was available. Ethiopia ferments teff batter for days into injera, sour and spongy, then uses it as plate, utensil and staple at once. Mexico nixtamalizes corn with lime, a chemical process worked out thousands of years ago that unlocks the nutrition and makes the tortilla possible. Uzbek non is pressed with a stamp and slapped onto the wall of a tandyr; Indian naan is baked much the same way, while roti stays on a dry griddle in the same kitchen. France pushed wheat, water, salt and time as far as they go and called the result a baguette. The Balkans bake pogača for guests and holidays; Georgia folds cheese into khachapuri until the bread is barely the point. Flatbread or leavened is largely a question of fuel — an oven you can keep hot for hours produces one tradition, a hot surface and two minutes produces another. Baking these at home comes down to managing fermentation temperature and getting more heat into your oven than it wants to give. Each recipe here explains the dough's behavior rather than only its timings, because bread schedules are always approximate and the dough is the one reliable instruction.

63 recipes on this route