A breadbox (chiefly American) or a breadbin (chiefly British) is a container for storing bread and other baked goods to keep them fresh. They were a more common household kitchen item until bread started being made commercially with food preservatives and wrapped in plastic. Breadboxes are still used by many people to store commercially purchased bread, but are used more especially by people who bake bread at home. They are usually made of metal, wood or sometimes pottery (pottery breadboxes are also called bread crocks ). Old breadboxes can be collectible antiques .
10-427: Breadboxes are most commonly big enough to fit one or two average size loaves of bread—up to about 16 inches wide by 8 to 9 inches high and deep (40 cm × 20 cm × 20 cm). Stale bread is colloquially called "dry", but drying and staling are distinct processes. Stale bread can weigh the same as "fresh" bread, indicating almost no loss of water; conversely, bread can be dried out without going stale. Staling
20-454: A conventional oven or microwave oven . Skordalia Skordalia or skordhalia or skorthalia ( Greek : σκορδαλιά [skorðaˈʎa] , also called αλιάδα, aliada/aliatha) is a thick purée in Greek cuisine , made of garlic in a base of potatoes , walnuts , almonds or liquid-soaked stale bread mixed with olive oil in to make a smooth emulsion , to which some vinegar
30-580: A refrigerator will have increased staling rates. Many classic dishes rely upon otherwise unpalatable stale bread. Examples include bread sauce , bread dumplings , and flummadiddle , an early American savoury pudding. There are also many types of bread soups such as wodzionka (in Silesian cuisine ) and ribollita (in Italian cuisine ). An often-sweet dish is bread pudding . Cubes of stale bread can be dipped in cheese fondue , or seasoned and baked in
40-608: A subsidiary ingredient in dishes such as fattoush (a type of salad in Levantine cuisine ). Stale bread can be used as a base for dips such as skordalia (in Greek cuisine ), or substituted with another ingredient. In medieval cuisine , slices of stale bread, called trenchers , were used instead of plates. Anti-staling agents used in modern bread include wheat gluten , enzymes , and glycerolipids , mainly monoglycerides and diglycerides . Stale bread can be partially made fresh again by heating to 60 °C (140 °F) in
50-457: Is a chemical and physical process in bread and similar foods that reduces their palatability . Stale bread is dry and hard, making it suitable for different culinary uses from fresh bread. Countermeasures and destaling techniques may reduce staling. Staling is a chemical and physical process in bread and similar foods that reduces their palatability . Staling is not simply a drying-out process due to evaporation . One important mechanism
60-464: Is a process of retrogradation , in which the starch transposes to a crystalline form in the presence of the water contained within the bread itself. The process speeds up at cooler temperatures, such as under refrigeration , and thus bread stored at room temperature remains fresher for longer periods than refrigerated bread. Frozen bread, however, traps the moisture as ice, and prevents the staling process. Breadboxes are thus designed to: The breadbox
70-554: Is added. It is usually made in a mortar and pestle . Skordalia is served as a sauce , side dish, or dip . Skordalia is the modern equivalent of ancient skorothalmi . The name, on the other hand, may be a pleonastic compound of Greek σκόρδο [ˈskorðo] 'garlic' and Italian agliata [aʎˈʎaːta] 'garlicky'. Skordalia is usually served with batter - fried fish (notably salt cod , μπακαλιάρος), fried vegetables (notably eggplant and zucchini ), poached fish, or boiled vegetables (notably beets ). It
80-489: Is commonly used to describe the size of other objects, a sense that has outlasted its routine use in the kitchen. The query "Is it bigger than a breadbox?" was popularized by Steve Allen on the American game show What's My Line? , where it became a running gag after he initially asked the question in 1953. It remains a popular question in the parlor game 20 Questions . Staling Staling , or " going stale ",
90-517: Is the migration of moisture from the starch granules into the interstitial spaces, degelatinizing the starch; stale bread's leathery, hard texture results from the starch amylose and amylopectin molecules realigning themselves causing recrystallisation. Stale bread is dry and hard. Bread will stale even in a moist environment, and stales most rapidly at temperatures just above freezing. While bread that has been frozen when fresh may be thawed acceptably, contrary to popular belief, bread stored in
100-832: The oven to become croutons , suitable for scattering in salads or on top of soups. Slices of stale bread soaked in an egg and milk mixture and then fried turn into French toast (known in French as pain perdu ' lost bread ' ). In Spanish and Portuguese cuisines migas is a breakfast dish using stale bread, and in Tunisian cuisine leblebi is a soup of chickpeas and stale bread. Stale bread or breadcrumbs made from it can be used to "stretch" meat in dishes such as haslet (a type of meatloaf in British cuisine , or meatloaf itself) and garbure (a stew in French cuisine ). It can be
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