Strange Bedfellows: Banana Peanut Butter Bread

Once again, our gracious host Renard of https://renardsworld.wordpress.com has welcomed me as a guest on his wonderful blog. I managed to get it under the deadline, too; it was published in February, which is a Black History Month, albeit on the last day of it. This is what happens when you teach eight courses, when the full teaching load is five, and I am technically supposed to work only part-time. I guess in some situations I resemble President McKinley, whose father told him, “It’s a good thing you are not a girl, otherwise you’ll always be pregnant – you just can’t say no!” Hopefully, I won’t be assassinated, though.

Here it is, Beautiful People, in honor of the Black History Month.

The story of tragic love that had appeared about fifteen centuries before “the star-crossed lovers” Romeo and Juliet is the myth of the poet and musician Orpheus and his doomed wife Euridice. From Virgil and Ovid to the French existentialists Cocteau and Anouilh, and to a graphic novel by Mazzucchelli, from literature and fine art to theater, cinematography, opera and ballet, a determined Orpheus makes a perilous trip to Hades (the underworld, or the Kingdom of the Dead), trying to bring his beloved Euridice back to the world of living. His music charms even Cerberus, the three-headed dog, employed as Hades’ security guard, and enchants Hades himself, who allows Orpheus to bring Euridice out if she does not look back. If his lyre sounded anything like Gluck’s famous flute solo, I am not surprised:

Tragically, a curious Euridice does sneak a glance back (if this reminds you of Lot’s wife, she lived quite a few centuries earlier than Euridice) and is dragged back by the “shades,” or ghosts of the dead, as you can see in this clip from the immortal ballet of Igor Stravinsky choreographed by George Balanchine:

Imagine my surprise when I heard a number from the lauded folk opera Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell and realized that we were back to the same Orpheus myth, yet lived in our days and sang and danced to music of jazz, spirituals, and even rap. If you, Beautiful People, think that an ancient Greek myth and Afro-American beats are strange bedfellows, watch this:

You’d have to listen to the very end of this clip to be hit by the powerful impact of every word of “Why We Build the Wall” and the magnificent bass that delivers it. Strange combination as it might be, this interpretation of Orpheus brings home the world we live now and its daily tragedies. It is even more poignant during the Black History month when we commemorate the heroic struggle of African Americans.

My latest baking experiment was also a strange combination: banana and peanut butter make strange bedfellows when baked together. However, anything combined with chocolate should be good, right?

As you see, it is pretty simple: just mash up overripe or frozen and defrosted bananas together with peanut butter, dump it into the bread bucket of the bread machine, and add the rest of the liquid ingredients – prostokvasha (clabbered milk), olive oil, and agave. As usual, dry ingredients are added last: whole wheat and spelt flour, unsweetened cocoa powder, and, to top it all off, chocolate chips. Yeast and a pinch of salt are important, as it is a bread, after all. I also add a pinch of baking powder, to make it rise better, and a sprinkle of cinnamon, to give off that heavenly aroma. Press Whole Wheat on your machine a go rest for a few hours. I served it still warm, laced with chocolate syrup, garnished with fresh raspberries. “Yay! Triple chocolate!” – squealed the grandkids, and the adults were not far behind gobbling it up.

INGREDIENTS

1. 3 large bananas, overripe or frozen and defrosted
2. 1 cup peanut butter
3. 1 cup prostokvasha (clabbered milk)
4. 1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
5. 1 cup white spelt flour
6. 1/3 cup olive oil
7. 1/3 cup agave
8. 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
9. 2 teaspoons bread machine yeast
10. Pinch of baking powder
11. Sprinkle of cinnamon
12. Pinch of salt
13. 1/2 cup unsweetened dark chocolate chips
14. Chocolate syrup and berries to garnish

PROCEDURE

1. Mash up bananas with peanut butter, add liquid ingredients.
2. Add dry ingredients.
3. Set bread machine on Whole Wheat.
4. Serve warm or cold, garnish with chocolate syrup and berries of your choice

Enjoy!