What is “A Baker’s Odyssey”?
In “A Baker’s Odyssey” Greg Patent celebrates the living traditions of America’s immigrant bakers. Preserving recipes is one of the most important way that immigrants maintain their cultural identity, and even families that came over generations ago still prepare cherished recipes handed down by grandmothers.
Visiting the kitchens of more than five dozen master home bakers around the country, Patent discovered the baking secrets of thirty diverse cultures, from Austria, Norway, and Italy to Mexico, India, and Nigeria.
A Recipe from Swedish Immigrants.
Jody Anderson, who made this for me on a late summer day when her Transparent apples were at their peak, learned the recipe from her Swedish Mother-in-law, Anna Anderson, who had been taught the recipe by her mother, Beda Bood.
Mrs. Bood immigrated to the United States in 1885 from Varmland, an area of Sweden with a relatively mild climate conducive to growing apples. Jody says only late-summer apples will do for this recipe, and since she has a Transparent apple tree right outside her kitchen door, that is what she always uses.
What Kind of Apples are Best?
Any first-of-the-season apples, available at farmers’ markets and in some supermarkets, will work. Lodi, Summer Red, and Wealthy are all excellent. I have also had wonderful result with first-of-the-season McIntosh, which are available in late September int the first part of October.
Jody’s mother developed a technique for cooking the apples in bathes in a microwave oven. “I just love the fact that there’s no spattering,” Jody says. But I have also made the applesauce in a large pot on top of the stove with minimal to no spattering.
