Who likes French toast?

September 17, 2011

To jest chalka.

Chalka z maslem.

The weekends have always been when I like to experiment with food. Any of you who read my other blog, Lowcountry Local Foodie, know this well. This weekend is no different. This weekend's experimental creation goes directly to the Origins of Polska herself....and somehow it begins with a history lesson and ends with French toast.

How??, you may ask. The story begins around the year AD 965, or even earlier, and it involves a bread called challah or chalka. (Please humor me and click on the links, I promise you will learn something!).

I will now give credit where it is due to my husband, Doug. While I was at work this morning, he was making challah. He found a recipe online, made it, and it has perfumed my kitchen all day.

If you have never had it before, I suggest that you find some soon! Challah is a delicious egg-bread that is similar to brioche. It is a special braided bread that is eaten on the Sabbath and holidays of members of the Jewish faith. Jews and Gentiles alike enjoy challah, thanks to the sharing of traditions and homogenization of culture in places like the USA. The biggest difference between challah and brioche is that challah, being pareve, is not made with dairy. Brioche and other sweet egg-breads commonly contain butter or milk. I've had both versions, and they're both equally excellent!

Chalka has been ubiquitous in the diets of the Ashkenazi Jewish communities of Western and Eastern Europe for over two thousand years. The largest population of Jews in Europe prior to 1945 was in Poland. There is also very little reason to doubt that Jews lived in Poland from the earliest of times, and that Judaism had antedated Christianity.1

Prior to the 1700's, Poland served as an oasis for Jews, a place where they could live with less persecution. When England kicked out all of it's Jews in the year 1290, many fled to Poland. In 1262, Boleslaus the Modest, Prince of Cracow, granted a General Charter of Jewish Liberties. These liberties listed the "right of the Jews to travel round the country without molestation; to engage in trade; to pursue their own religious practices, including worshiping in synagogues, Jewish burial, and ritual slaughter; and to be exempted from slavery or serfdom." This provided the basis of later Jewish prosperity in Poland up until the 1900's."2

These liberties did give Jews an advantage over the peasant class, leading Jews to securing the majority of the merchant and intelligentsia classes in Poland up until 1945.

Now...on a lighter note...the challah! And the French toast! How does that fit in?

I will let you explore this on your own. Alton Brown states that French toast is best made with very stale bread. This is true, in that if you slice fresh bread and let it stale overnight, it will absorb more of the custard that sets French toast apart from just plain toast.

Egg-based breads, like challah, are excellent at going stale. If you slice your challah into 1.5 inch thick slices the night before you make French toast, and leave them sitting out in your microwave, uncovered, this will do the trick. The more the dehydrated, or stale, the bread, the more moisture it can absorb!

Doug used this recipe today: Bistro Challah Bread (which is technically a brioche)

*Making your own brioche or challah from scratch will create bread that goes stale faster, as most commercial bakers (yes, even the ones at the farmer's market) use dough conditioners. These "conditioners" extend the shelf life of bread slightly, but are not true preservatives. If you buy commercial challah, let the bread go stale for two days in the refrigerator instead of just overnight.

Tomorrow we will eat French toast for brunch, made with our stale challah: Alton Brown's French toast recipe

It is only right for anyone who wants to sample the food of Poland to include challah. It is not only delicious, it is a part of what Poland has been and is....something great!

Works cited:

1. Davies, Norman. God's Playground: A History of Poland. Volume 1. The Origins to 1795. p. 64-66.

2. Davies, Norman. God's Playground: A History of Poland. Volume 1. The Origins to 1795. p. 67.

* Poles please forgive the mis-spelling of Chalka....I haven't figured out how to make the L-slash letter yet on my keyboard!