ANDRE BEGIN

A few days ago, I stopped into a kitchen gadget store, looking for a dough blender. I was able to find one, but by all appearances, there seemed to be just one model available for sale. I was hoping for an opportunity to do some comparison shopping.

I took the item to the sales counter and asked the clerk, “Do you have any other types of dough blenders or is this the only one?

The clerk responded, “Yes, that is the only one we carry.”

I then replied, “OK, fair enough. Do you know if it’s a strong one? I’ve bent my old one out of shape. I think it might break the next time I use it.”

I could see by the look on her face that she was sizing me up and likely wondering how this compact, lightweight fellow could have possibly bent a dough blender out of shape.

“Yes, I’ve had mine for years”, she reassured me. “What are you using it on?”

A fair question, I thought, as one might be inclined to wonder if I was doing it right.

I elaborated “My recipe for pie dough calls for frozen butter to be incorporated into the flour mixture.”

“Okaaayyy, I can see how that might cause wear and tear. This one should be fine.”

The next time I made pie dough, I was delighted that the new gadget did indeed offer the strength promised by the store clerk. “This should see me through several more pie crusts”, I thought to myself.

It was when I squinted at my recipe that I realized it doesn’t actually mention using a dough blender. It calls for a food processer. That was when I stopped and asked myself why I was so hung up on doing this task manually.

I can’t chalk it up to force of habit because it’s only in the last couple of years that I picked up the trick for making pie crust.

Also, in our household, we watch enough cooking shows on PBS to know that even experienced chefs are not shy in calling upon technology to simplify tasks for home bakers.

So why do I cling to the idea of a hand-held, manual dough blender?

The reality is that for as long as I can remember, I have seen my mother and grandmothers using this classic tool to lovingly prepare sweet and savoury pies for the family. To me, to do anything else but blending dough by hand feels like cheating.

It’s about tradition. It’s about following in the footsteps of generations of home bakers before me.

In keeping with that argument, I am not suggesting for a moment that we need to go so far back to the point of cooking with fire to uphold generations of tradition. But for the ones I know and have known, making pastry by hand seems like the time honoured way.

I’ve never had an issue when it came to technology. My writing studio will bear witness to that, given the amazing tools that help me stay on course and organized with my creative projects.

But when it comes to “home-made” food, I wonder where that fine line sits between doing things by hand versus making life easier for ourselves with great appliances.

Nonetheless, after the bent blender incident, in the interest of prolonging the life of the new one, I have adapted my recipe a little and successfully made a batch of dough with refrigerated butter rather than frozen butter. For now, that may be the extent to which I might colour outside of the lines in the name of maintaining tradition.

Just the same, I realize that there will come a time when arthritis might force my hand, literally, and I may need to turn to technology for an assist.

At that point, I’ll just have to swallow my pride and moderate my expectations, hoping that previous generations will understand and that I did it their way for as long as I could.

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Have a great day,
André