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October 10th, 2008

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Feeding soldiers' love of loaves

Portable oven development on a roll but Defense Ministry unlikely to bite

By Hilda Hoy
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
July 18th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO

Tomáš Béza of Brno's Military University says nothing would satisfy soldiers more than a yeasty, chewy slice of Czech bread. enlarge

COURTESY PHOTO

The goal is to develop an oven portable enough to travel to remote military postings. enlarge

Homemade Czech bread

3 tablespoons tepid milk
Pinch of sugar
1 cube compressed yeast
5 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons salt
12 tablespoons dried thyme
12 tablespoons caraway seeds
2 cups tepid water
A little vinegar and water, mixed
Dissolve the sugar in the milk. Crumble the yeast in and wait for the mixture to foam. Mix flour, salt, thyme and caraway. When the yeast mixture is ready, add it to flour. Add the water and mix to make a dough. Form into a ball and let rise for one hour.
Dampen your hands and form the dough into two long loaves. Grease and flour two loaf pans, add the loaves and let rest for 20 minutes.

Just before baking, soak a pastry brush in the vinegar mixture and glaze the loaves.
Bake at 200 C (390 F) for five minutes, then bring the temperature down to 175 C and bake for another 30 to 40 minutes. During baking, glaze with the vinegar mixture several times.

Source: www.labuznik.com

“Let them eat cake,” French Queen Marie Antoinette infamously quipped, responding to peasantry that complained about their lack of bread to eat.

Let them eat Czech rye, one Moravia researcher is decreeing, responding to soldiers stationed overseas who are complaining about their bland bread rations.

For these military men and women, stationed in such far-flung places as Afghanistan and Iraq, nothing quite satisfies like a yeasty, chewy slice of Czech bread, says researcher Tomáš Béza of Brno’s Military University. He’s developing an oven he hopes could quell such cravings in the remote locations where Czech soldiers serve.

“The food and nutrition issue is often very neglected, but its psychological side is very important,” he says. “Good food … means that soldiers on missions feel good. But when the quality of the food is insufficient, the tolerance for stress could be decreased … and also the ability to cope with stressful situations.”

Starting in 2005, Béza and his team spent two years looking at the rations fed to Czech troops posted in Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Kosovo.

“We found that the food, in terms of bakery supply, is really in bad shape,” Béza says. “It says in mission requirements that soldiers must eat food they are used to eating, meaning the national food.”

Czech bread typically has a dense crumb, a thick, dry crust and is delicately flavored with caraway seeds. A days-old loaf of the traditional Šumava bread could easily be used as a doorstop.

But soldiers are fed white, Western-style toast bread, which, by contrast, is pale, airy and anemic, with a texture akin to a foam mattress.

Enlightened by their research, Béza and his team of students rose to the occasion, buying an industrial oven and baking batch after batch of bread, rolls and pastries. The ultimate goal: to develop a prototype of a small oven portable enough to be taken to remote military postings but efficient enough to bake loaves for hundreds.

As for other national delicacies troops might crave, like beer and sausage? Soldiers are barred from drinking alcohol during their missions, Béza said. And meat products are already easy enough to preserve and bring along. Bread, with its unfortunate tendency to go stale, must be made frequently.

Béza extols the wonders of his favorite food: “When a soldier is on patrol and hungry, a slice of bread will fill them. You don’t have to warm it up, and you can eat it every day.”

He’s not the only one that’s excited.

Colonel Mojmír Mrva, former commander of a Czech military field hospital in Iraq, was excited to see Beza’s work at a recent defense trade fair in Brno.

“These field bakeries could be used on humanitarian missions in Third World countries,” he says. So far, the military has been involved in setting up field hospitals and water treatment facilities in these countries. Adding a field bakery means Afghan children could have a taste of Czech cuisine, and would “multiply the importance and effectiveness of humanitarian missions,” he says enthusiastically.

At one point, the Czechoslovak Army had bread ovens in their military kitchens, but they were inefficient and eventually abandoned. Beza hopes to slim his oven down to a small, easy-to-use model, plus develop no-brainer baking mixes for hungry soldiers to use overseas.

But despite all his hard work slaving over a hot oven, Beza isn’t banking on the government to shell out big bucks on his project.

“Well, I think I know the end of this story,” he says sadly. “They won’t have the money for it.”

It appears his prediction may have come true.

“At this moment ... we don't intent to purchase these bakeries for the Czech Army,” says Defense Ministry spokeswoman Blanka Majkusová.

— Hela Balínová contributed to this report.

Hilda Hoy can be reached at hhoy@praguepost.com

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