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Pulled Bread (Remove the crust from fresh)
Remove the crust from fresh bread and tear the center in small pieces. Dry in slow oven; the center of biscuits may be prepared in the same way.
A two-line recipe that depends entirely on the bread and the oven being low enough to dry rather than toast.
- Slow ovenRead this as roughly 300F, or lower. The object is to drive off moisture so the ragged edges crisp and gild rather than toast; too hot an oven will colour the torn tips before the interior dries.
- Tear, never cutThe irregular torn surface is the whole point — it gives the shards their fringed, crunchy edges. A knife produces croutons, which is a different thing.
- The breadUse a plain white loaf with an open, chewy crumb. The recipe calls for fresh bread; in practice a loaf a few hours old pulls more cleanly, as very fresh crumb tends to compress as you pull it and a soft sandwich loaf collapses altogether.
- "Biscuits"In an American book of this period this means soft baking-powder biscuits or rolls, not a hard cracker. Their centers pull apart the same way and, being smaller, dry more quickly.
- Timing and donenessThe recipe gives no time. Spread the pieces in one layer; expect something in the region of 20 to 30 minutes in a slow oven. They are done when pale gold and dry through — bite one, as pieces still soft at the center will not stay crisp.
- Yield and servingServed warm alongside soup or salad. It keeps a few days in a tin and re-crisps in the same slow oven.
Pulled bread belonged to the same late-Victorian and Edwardian table as melba toast and bread sticks: a way to turn the middle of a loaf into something that looked deliberate. Chafing-dish suppers were informal affairs, and they suited an accompaniment that could be made ahead and carried in dry. The instruction to treat the centers of biscuits the same way suggests a household in which little edible was thrown out.