Traveller's Bread
Traveller's Bread is a high fibre and high protein dense food that is used mainly by commoners or travelling folk, hence it's name. It is a dense, long lasting food usually baked in large batches and shared in neighbourhoods or stored for long travels. It can be frozen or wrapped and stuffed into a satchel. When eaten raw it has a bitter or sour taste, it can be quite soft when fresh but often is quite crunchy and hard on long travels. Depending on the region it may be combined with various local jams or butters, or various sweeteners or additives. It goes with alot of different meals and can provide alot of body and foundation to usually light meals. It can also be cooked over a fire after it becomes rather like a cracker in consistency, leading to a quick and easy meal.
Manufacturing process
Traveller's bread is usually made by mixing flours and dough, then adding into the sourdough starter.
To create Traveller's Bread a person must first put water, yeast, flour and their sourdough starter (a piece of the leftovers from the last time a person made this bread) into a large bowl or bucket, optimally the largest bowl that can be found or deep bucket, and mix them roughly together. This step is usually undertaken in the evening or late in the day, as the next step will be to leave the mixture to set for 8-12 hours.
On the next day, the task will be mainly mixing, it is preferred that you mix in rye flour atleast 3 times a day with a dedicated mixing stick (a long wooden spike-shaped tool with various wooden prongs at one end). After the mixture has been thoroughly mixed in 3 different intervals it will be left for the rest of the day.
History
Reports of Traveller's bread go beyond the written word, and with many variants and origins it can mostly be traced back to the traveller's of the heart's core movement.
Traveller's Bread is ridiculously common, found in a wide variety of different variations and presentations, sometimes with additives such as berries or fish but also commonly found as simple hearty bread. It is cheap and easy to produce and is a recipe commonly passed down amongst commoners. It is considered a staple on most dinner tables.
Although the specifics of how the bread is constructed varies by region, the bread is usually made of a rye meal and a sourdough starter. Such sourdough starters can be considered heirlooms and be passed down from family to family and among neighborhoods leading to different strains of traveller's bread evolving across the nation.
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