Wednesday, January 17, 2007

The Amish

It's official: I could never have an Amish friend.

It's nothing on the Amish folks. I have no theological quibble with them... I find that I prefer not to God-quibble with anyone, it's bad for my complexion. I'm sure they are decent and fun people in their own right... it's their bread. Grrrr!

A bit of back story:
It appears to be a local Utah custom to make up a batch of this so-called Amish Friendship Bread, take out four portions of the dough to put into four gallon sized Ziploc baggies. You are supposed to keep one of the bags for yourself, then give away the other three with the xeroxed instructions. It's kind of like a real life meme, and the goo in the bag is a "start."

Looking at the recipe it appears to be a sweet bread of some sort. I say appears, because although I have been given four separate starts, by four separate friends over the past year... they have all four been round filed after four pathetic attempt to follow a few simple instructions. I suck at this kind of friendship.

Here's the deal: It takes ten days of mushing the bag around once a day... except the fifth day you are supposed to add some ingredients and then continue with the mushing. The paper saysmush it. Mush. A very apt term for this bubbly concoction that flops in it's increasingly nasty looking Ziploc baggy. On my counter. Did I mention that it smells vaguely like beer and vinegar. Around day three I lose it and chuck that nasty bad boy into the pantry so I don't have to smell it or look at it.

I usually find it a week or so later. It is grey and non-bubbly by this time.

This last time I made it to day six with it taking up valuable real estate on my counter top. Too bad we passed up day five which was the "add stuff in" day. I considered trying to make a go of it anyway... but when I opened that bag to add the stuff? Holy SWEET mayonnaise! I was hit with flashbacks of old beer cans and bad hangovers... count me out, maaaan!

What I need is some nice, forgiving Amish Blogship Bread. I can handle a meme a la tehInternets, they don't stink! Speaking of which J.D., I really will be getting on that meme you tagged me with. The rest of y'all? Especially if you were a giver of a bag o' goo, bread meme thingy? Please take no offense... I just kinda suck at alot of this stuff right now.

7 comments:

Fantastagirl said...

That amish friendship bread - is not a good thing...

I'm not good at it.

~M~ said...

Here in NY it is called Padre Pio bread. And yes it stinks to high heaven. It tastes a bit like cornbread when everything is mixed and baked. But the good thing is that you are only allowed to make Padre Pio bread once in your life. If you have made it before no one else can give it to you.

Blogarita said...

There is another recipe that works the same way, but it is for a cake with fruit (NOT fruitcake) and the starter doesn't smell that bad. I don't have the recipe anymore, though; we just don't eat that many sweets, let alone having a perpetual one around.

Emmie said...

well that amish friendship bread stinks for sure... hope something nice comes your way.... !!!

The Absent Minded Housewife said...

Is layered chocolate chip cookie ingredients in a mason jar out of style now?

I still have a jar of that stuff from five Christmasses ago. I should toss it.

sari said...

I don't have an emoticon for "grimacing", but I'm doing it now!

Lynanne said...

I gag just thinking about the stuff. A friend of mine passed some on to us a while ago and I just couldn't do it. I kept imagining what was growing in there. I know cooking would kill most of it (minus the toxins) but still.....eeeeewwwww.