Table of Contents

Notes on molding in bread

Name: M. Whitman

Date and Time: 

2021.05.16, 12:10pm

Location: Apartment kitchen, manhattan

Subject: Bread molding, round 1

I tried to remove the bread from the pan immediately after I pulled it out, which was difficult because the baked overflowing parts had hardened and the bread stuck to the sides of the pan. Once I did get it out, it was very challenging to scoop out the pith—I made no progress with a spoon, tried with a knife, and realized I was going to destroy the bread. I cut the portion of the loaf in half and tried pressing my object into it (on both sides). I tried leaving it alone for about 24 hours but it was still quite soft and difficult to extract the object. It doesn’t seem to have much of an imprint.  

Name: M. Whitman

Date and Time: 

2021.05.17, 12:10pm

Location: Apartment kitchen, Manhattan

Subject: Bread molding, round 2

I immediately cut off about 1/3 of the loaf. The crust is much more developed and crispier than the previous loaf, which made scooping out the pith with the spoon much easier. I quickly realized the pith was not enough and cut off another portion to roll out with a rolling pin. The pith did not stick to the pin at all, but rather the counter top, I think because of how hot it was. But it did start to cool quickly, underscoring the urgency of using hot bread for this endeavor. I wound up adding even more pith, and soon realized my mold would not accommodate a double-sided press, so I recombined it and tried to press in the object on just one side. I’m not sure how well it will work. The rolled pith is very dense and not susceptible to much flattening, so it was hard to press in the object. I’m going to leave it overnight before removing to see if the bread will dry around it, but I may have already screwed up just in timing this exercise too close to the mold-filling.

In my video, I speculated a little about how the author practitioner might have figured out that the pith was amenable to molding and wondered about the element of play in this discovery. The rolling of the dough—which maybe would have been easier with hands vs the pin, but may also have been too hot—seems like something a child would have figured out.

Name: M. Whitman

Date and Time: 

2021.05.18, 10:15am

Location: Apartment kitchen, Manhattan

Subject: Casting with beeswax

I realized in horror that I had recycled everything resembling a tin can but after consulting with the group I think the sauce pan with aluminum foil was totally functional, especially with a pouring lip. I did have issues with the wax overflowing from both molds, and it was worse with the rolled pith--that mold took longer to dry because, as I discovered when separating from foil, the wax surrounding the pith as it escaped the mold. For that mold (mold #2 from here on out), I had to pour delicately and in layers. The first two layers overflowed but between the built up wax, foil, and bits of bread I used to plug gaps, I was able to keep the next layers of wax specific to the mold. Mold #1, from the loaf pan, didn’t have as much leakage but the crumb was evident in the wax, whereas mold #2 had much less crumb and even had some sign of the markings on the anvil paperweight. In retrospect, the paperweight was not really an appropriate item for this due to its size, but I also think I would have had even less luck with a small object given how difficult it was to make an impression owing to the texture of the bread. In retrospect I might have spent more time with period recipes as opposed to a basic sourdough but time has been hard to come by, and, as I am discovering, it’s hard to resist falling back on instincts.

In that vein, I have been thinking more about habitus--it is what came to mind during last week’s discussion of the readings in Pamela’s explanations of what it means to gain knowledge to act, and I am thinking about this in terms of dispositions and improvisations, in a mostly Bourdieusian kind of way. The entire process, from starter to wax, for me involved no small amount of troubleshooting, which I think is a form of improvisation that demonstrates the dexterity that comes with developing a disposition. I am thinking more, too, about how such dexterity depends on materials--and here I am not talking about the bread so much as the entirety of the kitchen: the space, the utensils, the pots and pans, the weight of the pin, senses that let me know the beeswax isn’t burning, the cool breeze from the window, the rhythm of moving from stove to mold to mold to zoom in a dance simultaneously highly choreographed, contingent, and in the moment. I am trying to think of this in Barad’s terms more so than Ingold’s for my own selfish purposes but these ideas are in conversation.

Re the bread itself I have some lingering thoughts that are not yet fully formed--I made a video for the last bread in which I combined with my hands and tried to think about the extents of the body. One of the M&K essays spoke to this, and I was taken with the idea of sweat as an important component of bread, as I myself wondered if the bread is partially me because of the skin cells of my hands transferring to it (and, as Mol suggests, it becomes me when I consume it) but it does raise another question, about if there are traces of the body in these objects (and, of course, objects in the body) and to what extent that does and does not matter, and where these boundaries reside.

But back to the molds: this was surprisingly easy. I thought I would probably burn myself and had work gloves ready but at no point did I come close to burning myself. While my resulting objects did not have much definition, the process of casting is not to blame.

Stray thoughts: what does casting reveal about bread production?

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