The English Muffin’s Rise to Riches

Bread #3: English Muffin Bread (Formally called My Mom’s Wonderful English Muffin Bread by Jillee)

Again, follow the link and you’ll be treated to an amazingly easy recipe that’s delivers on it’s promise of being both delicious and economical. The recipe yields four loaves but as I am lacking in counter and freezer space, I cut it down to two.

With just a simple smear of butter, it provides a beautiful flaky bite but try it with Swiss, Prosciutto, and caramelized apples for something a bit more refined if you wish.

For this one I’ve decided to let the bread speak for itself as it is very eager to tell of its humble beginnings and rise to prominence. Without further ado I give you…

Though I’m now at the center of most conversations had in what the humans regard as high society, I was once a lowly kind of bread, bound together with the scraps of dough left from the meals sent upstairs and destined to be consumed only by those that resided downstairs. My creators, though ingenious in their ability to adapt to any situation their overseers beg of them and resourceful beyond belief in the way they accommodate for their own needs and desires, are a humble sort. They fully commit to serving those that do little to acknowledge their necessary skill set and then find satisfaction in the smallest of pleasures, me included.

“Waste little, want not,” said the creator that first pieced me a full figure and made me solid in the heat of a cast iron griddle. This became, in a short time, a mantra recited during every one of my subsequent births. I lived to embody the set aside scraps, the leavings and leftovers, that all formed together as one and rose new for the satisfaction of have nots and want nots. That is, until I eventually became suited for the have mores and want always. What a strange climb that was. It was only by the grace on an unwound clock that I’d come to meet my new fate. The lady of the house, thinking it was quarter past two, rushed to find my maker, convinced she’d slipped behind on the planning of her tea party. I was turning golden on the stove when she first entered the kitchen and she’d thought, for a minute, I was destined to be hers in a short while.

“Have you already gone about preparing the tea time treats yourself?” she asked of my maker.

“No miss,” my maker said. “This is a scrap meal we downstairs tend to save for ourselves but you’re welcome to try one if you so fancy.” And so she did, taking me between two fingers and examining my texture in the light before slipping me between her two rose-soft lips. In an instant her face lit up and her eyes rolled back at the impression my morsel made on her tongue.

“How rich,” she said. “How very rich.”

Then, without hesitation, she requested that I be served to all her friends who would agree of my rich nature. These are ladies my creator consider’s “of the highest order” and  well versed connoisseurs of all things fine and luxurious. I was doubtful then that I would make an adequate entrance among all the other pastries which are beautifully adorned with frosted flowers and candied pearls. But before long, and despite my honest appearance, I became what many have called an afternoon tea delight. A staple to be paired with corsets and fine china and conversations ranging from nice weather to what women do confined to their extravagant jail homes. I sit on silver platters and soak in the sweetness of marmalade and am endlessly caressed by fingers pale and thin and unmarred by the trials of a work day.

Still, I do well to remember that I was once a lowly kind of bread, bound together with scraps to feed the serving lot, the humble creators, the humans compelled to embrace the discarded heap as something more and something good.