Eating Healthier in Today's World

Slicing the Bread Straight

Every home baker need a good knife.  This is especially true if, like me, you can't wait to slice the bread until it is completely cool: a bad knife can REALLY wreck a fresh, soft loaf.  This is especially true if you are slightly Slicing Impaired, like I am, and you find it hard to get the slide straight.  Fortunately, although you can spend upwards of thirty dollars for an elegant knife, a truly splendid bread cutter lurks on the supermarket rack for about 5 dollars.  (They call it a ham slicer, but don't let them fool you.)  These knives have a long, thin blade with the wavy kind of serrated edge--not the saw-tooth sort, which is inferior.  They keep their sharpness for a year or two of daily slicing--not forever, granted, but in the meantime they are great.  They're very hard to sharpen at home.  Electric knives, if you have one, work very nicely. 

A short-blade knife is for the birds, by the way.  One of our favorite catalogs advertises a "bread" knife that has a 7 inch blade--ridiculous.  One the other hand, for loaves of the dense, firm sort, that want to be sliced thin.  a long, razxor-sharp French vegetable knife serves better than the one described above.   If you like really thin slices, favor the firm breads, and have a real problem getting it to be straight (like me) try an electric slicer.  Our Nesco slicer is tilted too so the bread comes out straight and falls off the other side with no help.  I can also slice meat, vegetables and cheese on it and have a whole sandwich.  You can change the thickness for fatter french bread chunks or real thin for rye breads, and every slice is the same thickness. 

To slice a loaf, cut with a smooth, gentle sawing motion--lots of sawing and not much downward pressure.  If you can, grasp the loaf on both sides with your noncutting hand.  The secret of perfect, even slice is fierce concentration, even more than manual dexterity.