PERSIAN bread is not baked in a loaf, as we bake it, but in a thin sheet which looks like an immensely-large griddle-cake; and the people of that country speak of "a bread," instead of saying "a loaf of bread," as we do.
They do not have stoves, and for an oven they dig a hole in the ground. They make it about six feet deep, smaller at the top than at the bottom, and plaster the inside with a mortar made of clay.
When baking-day comes, they build a fire in this pit or oven, and keep it burning until the sides are hot, and a good bed of clear coals is left on the bottom.
While the oven is being heated, the dough is being made; and, when everything is ready, a piece of dough about as large as a big apple is torn off, rolled out thin, and spread on a piece of sheepskin. With a careful swing, the dough is slapped against the hot
wall of the oven, and in a moment is as quickly taken off, baked to a nice brown.
Fuel is very scarce in Persia, and it takes a good deal of it to heat one of these ovens. For this reason, two or more women will do their baking at the same time, and, instead of baking every week, or oftener, as we do, they bake but once a month.
After the bread is baked, it is tied in a cotton cloth and hung up, or thrown into a corner, just as happens to be most convenient. If baked for a shop where bread is sold, it is at once hung on a line stretched in front of the shop, and is left there, exposed to the dust and flies, until it is sold.
The way the bread is used and eaten seems to us even stranger than the way in which it is made. If a Persian entertains his friends at a banquet, they find at each place on the table one of these breads, folded like a napkin. There is nothing else,—no knife, fork, or spoon, as we should find; and the
bread must take the place of them, and serve as a plate at the same time.
If anything like a stew is served, each guest tears a piece from his bread, and uses it to sop up the liquid. If he is served with something more solid, and not quite solid enough to be picked up in his fingers, he tears off another piece, and makes it serve as a spoon, after which he eats it; and all this time the bread has been serving as a plate. After everything else has been eaten, each guest eats his plate, and no one has a lot of dishes to wash.
Such bread as we have would not make a very good plate, even if baked in thin sheets; but the Persian bread is very tough. When chewed it becomes sticky. It is very nourishing, and is "the staff of life" in a far greater degree than bread like ours could ever become.—Eva R. Gailliard.
