Day 2: Comparing Laganes From Different Bakeries, March 19, 2013

Our 2013 Clean Monday Setting before sitting down for prayer and family time

Clean Monday is the one day of the year when we eat lagana bread (plural, in Greek, is laganes).  Although we made our own this year, we were curious how it compared with the ones we could buy at bakeries or grocery stores.  And, when we set the loaves next to each other, ours clearly looked homemade.  But, we are very proud that we had made our own, and we would do it again, each time learning a little more and making our lagana better each year.

Laganes from different sources.  Left to Right: Homemade, Serrano Bakery, Select Bakery, Olympia Bakery,  Toronto Bread Company

Then, we decided we would taste the different loaves, ours and the bakeries' to see how we did with flavour.  So, we went shopping.  We visited two grocery stores and three bakeries to buy one lagana from each location.  We did make a few stops at each of the big chain grocery stores in Toronto to see if they were catering to the Orthodox at all (possibly selling lagana) but we had no luck there.  One bakery had run out by 9:30 a.m. and would have their next batch around 11:00 a.m.  We did not wait for that, and decided to continue to other vendors.

We did find that the small to medium sized Greek and/or Italian owned grocery stores carried a reasonable number of loaves, and the actual bakeries were fully stocked and still baking!  The crowds were incredible with everyone buying lagana - three and four loaves at a time.  Surprisingly, some of the bakeries were expensive for this bread, especially when compared to buying a regular loaf of bread.  We paid between $2.25 to $3.50 per loaf, depending on where we were.  The grocery stores we went to did not make their own bread, they have it delivered from a bakery.  We even went to one large bakery and bought a loaf directly from the supplier.

The first thing we know about our own baking is that our loaves are not long enough.  The store-bought breads were 14 to 18 inches in length.  Ours was 12 inches long.  Each of the loaves we bought weighs between 5 and 13 ounces (between 142 and 369 g).  We weighed each one.  Ours weighed in  at 6.2 ounces (176g),  clearly lighter than any of the store bought ones.  We have read and heard from others that a lagana can be up to 10 pounds!  We would think one would need to invite the entire village to eat 10 pounds of bread!  The purchased laganes were similar in size, shape, and colour.  Interestingly, even the bottoms of the loaves had that dark brown hue. Some loves had corn meal on the bottom, while others had sesame seeds.  Ours was nowhere near that color -- not on top nor on the bottom.

Then, we had a blind taste test of our own.  There were 8 of us, ranging in age of 18 to 85, so we included all the generations.  We cut the five loaves into tasting pieces and labeled them with loaf numbers 1 through 5, and we included our own in the mix for this taste test.  All eight people tasted each loaf and told us which one had the best flavour, best texture, and the best color.  We had such varied results!

When asking people what they like or don't like about a product, sometimes it is hard to come up with exact words like "I like the airy nature of the sweet center," or "The crustiness of the bread is fun to eat..."  But, we had some interesting comments that we would never have expected from our tasters.  Here is what we learned from our blind taste test...

Loaf #1 was from Toronto Bread Company.  They are a large supplier bakery for many restaurants and grocery stores.  We bought a lagana there for $2.25.  The loaf weighed 10.5 ounces (298 g).  This was the longest, most uniform looking loaf that we purchased.  We all agreed that it looked the prettiest, but one person said it looked "manufactured."  We understand that uniformity often implies a machine pumped out the bread and did all the work.  The flavour had a very strong sesame flavour.  There were a lot of sesame seeds on top.  And, the  airy center complimented the chewy bread nicely.  Most of the tasters found this to be the softest of the breads.  This was the second most liked of the laganes.

Loaf #2 was our homemade loaf.  It weiged 6.2 ounces (176 g), and was the lightest (weight)  lagana.  One older lady said, "This reminds me of the bread we had to eat during the war.  It's flour and water, but it was all we had because we were so poor."  That was shocking and painful to hear.  Another taster said, "This is like prosforo.  It is just a different shape."  Prosforo is the Holy Bread used in the Divine Liturgy at church.  Hmm, maybe we made prosforo.  One taster was just honest and said, "Oh, I hope this one is not yours.  It's not good, and that would be embarassing."  We guess that the laugh is on him, because we are not embarrassed.  We are learning.  We are experimenting and sharing our trials.  We know that in the future, we would not use that recipe for lagana --maybe we would use it when we wanted to make prosforo!

Loaf #3 was from Serrano Bakery.  It is a a very popular Greek bakery which supply several grocery stores and banquet halls with pastries and breads.  For this, we paid $2.75.  This lagana weighed 10.5 ounces (298 g), which was an average weight in this test.  This loaf was airy and very good.  One taster said, "This is like a koulouri, but softer."  Koulouria (plural) are the circular sesame rings that are chewy and crunchy when first baked (similar to Turkish simit); for a great read on kolouria, check out Peter Minakis' interesting article).  Another taster said he liked the crust because, "... it gives you a crunch on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside."

Loaf #4 was from Sun Valley Market .  Sun Valley is a medium sized grocery chain that is Greek and Italian owned, where we find many of our products for this blog. We LOVE shopping at Sun Valley for most of our groceries (including most of the ingredients for our Easter Sunday).  Sun Valley does not make their own bread, they have it delivered from Olympia Bakery which is a local wholesale supplier (we could not find a web link for this bakery).  We paid $3.49 for this lagana.  This was the average weight for lagana, weighing 9.3 ounces (264 g).  The tasters agreed that this loaf seemed stale.  It was hard and dense, but had a good amount of sesame on top.  The popular opinion was that it was not sweet, so the sesame flavour really stood out.  And, this lagana would be perfect for any dip because it was a strong bread that would hold up to anything.  We agreed that this would be the right choice for any 'ladera' foods.

Loaf #5 was from Select Bakery.  They are newer in our bakery world (10 years as opposed to the 25 plus years of others), and have a dedicated customer base.  We paid $3.50 for the lagana.  And, this was the heaviest of all the loaves weighing at 13.4 ounces (380 g).  Most of the tasters thought this was the best of the loaves.  It had good flavour and was the least crumbly.  One younger taster thought it was very chewy and "labour intensive to eat."  It was bready, meaning it was dense, but had adequate airiness to the center.  And, of all of the loaves, this one was found to have a pleasant saltiness about it.  This was the most liked of all the laganes.

Each loaf cut into slices so you can see the different height, texture, and crust. Left to Right: Toronto Bread Company, Homemade, Serrano Bakery, Sun Valley (Olympia Bakery), Select Bakery

Since lagana is eaten only one day of the year, we thought this would be a good way to begin planning for next year.  We definitely want to try to make our own again, but with a different recipe.  The Marilyn Rouvelas book, Greek Traditions in America has plenty of useful tips and information, and some of the recipes are quite good.  We do not know for sure if it was the recipe, the flour, the age of the yeast (which we had recently purchased), or if we did something wrong, so we will have to try again another time.  We may even follow the recipe to the letter again and then make it the way we think is better and see what happens.  But, out of all of this, we know we can spend $2.25 or $3.50 and get a good loaf of lagana to carry us through our Koulouma.  If you are in the Toronto area, you, too, can get to these places and see what you like.  We would love to hear your opinions about it, and look forward to another year to do so.  In Greek, we often wish, "Και του χρόνου!"

"Fasting is acceptable to God when abstention from food is accompanied by refraining from sins, from envy, from hatred, from aclumny, from vailglory, from wordiness, from other evils.  He who is fasting the true fast "that is agreeable" to God ought to shun all these things with all his strength and zeal, and remain impregnable and unshakeable against all the attacks of the evil one that are planned from that quarter.  On the other hand, he who practices abstention from food, but does not keep self control in the face of the aforesaid passions, is like unto one who lays down splendid foundations for a house, yet takes serpants and scorpions and vipers as fello-dwellers therein."

St. Photios the Great
From the 2013 Daily Lives, Miracles, and Wisdom of the Saints and Fasting Calendar
by The Orthdox Calendar Company, Pittsburgh, PA.