Can you guess the secret ingredient?
16th Century Parisians ate a LOT of bread… as much as 2.5 pounds per person per day, according to this academic source. So imagine their consternation when Henri VII of Navarre blockaded the city, creating widespread starvation. The solution, reports Atlas Obscura, was to disinter dead people and grind their bones into flour to bake into bread.
Unfortunately, the bones had very little nutritional value. The article quotes medical historian Gabriel Venel: ““The idea of reducing human bones to powder […] could only come from a mind essentially ignorant and overcome by hunger and by despair. Bones are not floury, and when they are spent by a long stay in humid soil, they contain no nourishing element.” Eyewitness Enrico Davillia called the bread “vile and macabre,” an “abominable food so contagious that, the substance having come from the dead, it so increased by many the number.”
At Burnt My Fingers, we can do better at making a flavorsome and nutritious Bone Bread. The key is to approach the project similar to Stone Soup, in which the stone is removed before serving and has no effect on taste or wholesomeness. Makes one 1 1/2 lb sandwich loaf or batard.
Ingredients:
1 package (1/4 ounce) OR 1 1/2 t active dry yeast
2-1/2 cups lukewarm milk
1 small beef bone or 2 chicken drumstick bones, boiled clean
1 T honey
2 T butter, melted
1 teaspoon salt
4 c King Arthur All-Purpose Flour
Method: dissolve the yeast and honey in warm milk, then add bone(s). Proof a few minutes until yeast begins to foam slightly. Remove and discard bone. Add melted butter, then pour this liquid mixture into a bowl containing the flour and salt. Mix thoroughly with a spoon, then knead 8 minutes or until the dough develops resilience and will not tear apart quickly when you pull the edges to create a “gluten window”.
Allow to rise in covered bowl until doubled in volume, about 1 1/2 hours in a warm room. Punch down the bread, then into loaves or transfer to a bread pan and rise 1 hour, covered. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes, or until bread develops a light crust and reaches an internal temperature of 206 degrees. Trick or treat!
