The Modern Baking Scene

The bread-making scene has undergone few changes over the centuries, a testimony to the practicality and workability of ancient and medieval ways of baking. Rolling out unleavened dough thin and baking it on a saj (domed metal plate) is still done in northern Iraq, by the Bedouin, both nomadic and settled, and by the dwellers of the southern marshes. As for the leavened flatbread, it is still baked in the same clay ovens as of olden days, except that some of the modern tannours, especially the commercially operated ones, are fuelled with gas or kerosene. But there is nothing like the genuine traditionally baked bread touched by the smoky aroma of the smoldering coals of brushwood. The baker, normally the woman of the house, wraps her arms from wrist to elbow with pieces of cloth to protect them from the heat of the fire. She takes the fermented ball of dough and flattens it by wetting her hands and flipping the enlarging disc from hand to hand. The dough, as if by magic, gets bigger and thinner. She then puts it on a slightly domed bread cushion, evens up the edges, and slaps the disc against the hot inner wall of the tannour. The breads, 8 to 10 in a batch, will soon develop small golden bubbles all over their faces, and within 5 minutes, the baked breads start to peel away from the wall, and are ready to be picked up with long-handled tongs. The baked bread is then spread in a huge wicker basket. It is normally consumed while still warm.