<story><title>A Guide to the Breads of India</title><url>http://luckypeach.com/guides/guide-breads-india/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tptacek</author><text>The process of baking is almost definitely not what makes a bread a bread. We had breads long before we had ovens, and we have things that are indisputably breads today that aren&amp;#x27;t cooked inside ovens. Even today, we can readily cook breads that are typically cooked in an oven over a suitably large open fire or uncovered grill.&lt;p&gt;A bread is a solid stable foam created by heating a dough made primarily of milled plant matter and water. There are no breads that aren&amp;#x27;t foams, and there are no breads I&amp;#x27;m aware of that made primarily of something that isn&amp;#x27;t plant matter or that hasn&amp;#x27;t been crushed or otherwise processed to create a homogenous dough with a water-based liquid.</text></item><item><author>sean_patel</author><text>&amp;gt; canonical definition of bread.&lt;p&gt;Love it! Spoken like a true engineer :)&lt;p&gt;The process of Baking is what makes a Bread a bread. If it&amp;#x27;s not baked in an oven, it&amp;#x27;s not Bread. I didn&amp;#x27;t make that up, that what has defined a Bread since the beginning of time :)&lt;p&gt;Dosa is fried on a stovetop pan. Appam is cooked on a stovetop pan. Iddiappam is steamed on stovetop using water. None of these are baked at any time in the process.</text></item><item><author>jasim</author><text>Only if you believe that there is a canonical definition of bread, which refers to the things made out of wheat flour, whose only acceptable meaning is what the western hemisphere thinks of as bread.&lt;p&gt;Dosa, Appam, and Idiappam are breads, even though even in South India, if you ask for &amp;quot;bread&amp;quot; from your local grocer, they&amp;#x27;d give you sliced loaves. We use the word bread to refer to these other staple breakfast dishes in an anglicized context, because it maps better than any other word to the meaning we want to convey. Which is why restaurant menus categorizes them under &amp;quot;Indian Breads&amp;quot;, and if you accept that language is mutable and responds to how people use it, this is as good an alternative meaning as it can get.</text></item><item><author>sean_patel</author><text>Nice writeup, but calling Dosa, Appam and Iddiappam &amp;quot;Breads&amp;quot; is more than a stretch. None of these 3 have the major ingredients of what makes a bread. And it&amp;#x27;s missing the most important Indian bread - the Naan (despite the tagline saying &amp;quot;go beyond the Naan&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;1) Dosa - Crepe made from fermented lentil &amp;amp; rice paste&lt;p&gt;2) Appam - Rice pancake&lt;p&gt;3) Iddiappam - Steamed rice noodles.&lt;p&gt;None of these are anywhere close to the traditional Bread as we know them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ars</author><text>&amp;gt; A bread is a solid stable foam .... There are no breads that aren&amp;#x27;t foams&lt;p&gt;So Matzo is what? It&amp;#x27;s unquestionably bread, yet is not a foam.&lt;p&gt;And your definition is too broad - what about a pancake?</text></comment>
<story><title>A Guide to the Breads of India</title><url>http://luckypeach.com/guides/guide-breads-india/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tptacek</author><text>The process of baking is almost definitely not what makes a bread a bread. We had breads long before we had ovens, and we have things that are indisputably breads today that aren&amp;#x27;t cooked inside ovens. Even today, we can readily cook breads that are typically cooked in an oven over a suitably large open fire or uncovered grill.&lt;p&gt;A bread is a solid stable foam created by heating a dough made primarily of milled plant matter and water. There are no breads that aren&amp;#x27;t foams, and there are no breads I&amp;#x27;m aware of that made primarily of something that isn&amp;#x27;t plant matter or that hasn&amp;#x27;t been crushed or otherwise processed to create a homogenous dough with a water-based liquid.</text></item><item><author>sean_patel</author><text>&amp;gt; canonical definition of bread.&lt;p&gt;Love it! Spoken like a true engineer :)&lt;p&gt;The process of Baking is what makes a Bread a bread. If it&amp;#x27;s not baked in an oven, it&amp;#x27;s not Bread. I didn&amp;#x27;t make that up, that what has defined a Bread since the beginning of time :)&lt;p&gt;Dosa is fried on a stovetop pan. Appam is cooked on a stovetop pan. Iddiappam is steamed on stovetop using water. None of these are baked at any time in the process.</text></item><item><author>jasim</author><text>Only if you believe that there is a canonical definition of bread, which refers to the things made out of wheat flour, whose only acceptable meaning is what the western hemisphere thinks of as bread.&lt;p&gt;Dosa, Appam, and Idiappam are breads, even though even in South India, if you ask for &amp;quot;bread&amp;quot; from your local grocer, they&amp;#x27;d give you sliced loaves. We use the word bread to refer to these other staple breakfast dishes in an anglicized context, because it maps better than any other word to the meaning we want to convey. Which is why restaurant menus categorizes them under &amp;quot;Indian Breads&amp;quot;, and if you accept that language is mutable and responds to how people use it, this is as good an alternative meaning as it can get.</text></item><item><author>sean_patel</author><text>Nice writeup, but calling Dosa, Appam and Iddiappam &amp;quot;Breads&amp;quot; is more than a stretch. None of these 3 have the major ingredients of what makes a bread. And it&amp;#x27;s missing the most important Indian bread - the Naan (despite the tagline saying &amp;quot;go beyond the Naan&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;1) Dosa - Crepe made from fermented lentil &amp;amp; rice paste&lt;p&gt;2) Appam - Rice pancake&lt;p&gt;3) Iddiappam - Steamed rice noodles.&lt;p&gt;None of these are anywhere close to the traditional Bread as we know them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pcrh</author><text>&amp;gt;A bread is a solid stable foam&lt;p&gt;Another engineer I&amp;#x27;d bet :-)</text></comment>