There's this Hemin Bread going around and a lot of people seem to be agog over it. But I have my doubts, not with the procedure itself, but the authenticity of it being the Holy bread of Padre Pio. Here's how the conversation went at pinoyfrugalchowhound yahoogroup:
(Photo from http://anton.blogs.com)HERE'S WHAT I THINK:
See, this is exactly the problem. We dunno where and from whom this bread originally came from and that makes it all icky and doubtful (in terms of its origin) because I have no way of checking if the dough was handled according to how it was supposed to be taken care of.
I'm not contesting the method since this really is a practice in the olden days. Rather, I called it a hoax because I dont quite exactly believe it's the "authentic" Hemin bread (of Padre Pio) as being circulated among peers and that "you are only allowed to make this hemin bread once in your lifetime."
Heck, if I were some cuckoo girl I could start circulating my own Hemin Bread and call it the Holy Bread of Padre Pio. In fact, at this very moment, this so-called phenomenon is happening simultaneously in other parts of the world like Italy and Spain. So, which is the real, authentic bread of Padre Pio?
I did a li'l research myself actually. "Hemin Bread is a variation of the Amish Friendship Bread (to be shared between friends and neighbors) or vice-versa. The bread is loosely symbolic of communion bread. You are taking the original sour given to you and creating more, from which you are making a loaf of bread then dispersing the sour to other friends.It is a sour-dough bread and needs to ferment for apparently 10-days before processing. Yeast breads should never come in contact with reactive metals, which explains the glass bowl and the wooden spoon."
As to the connection with Padre Pio, it was said that during WWII, in Italy, bread was being rationed. Padre Pio's monastery always had a lot of guests and poor who begged there for food.
One day the Friars went to the refectory and realized that the basket only had about two pounds of bread. The Friars prayed about it before their next meal.
Later that day Padre Pio went into the church, and when he returned he was holding a pile of bread in his hands. The Superior asked Padre Pio: "Where did you get all these loaves of bread?" Padre Pio answered: "A pilgrim at the door gave them to me".
Nobody commented, but everybody thought that only Padre Pio could meet such a pilgrim.So the Hemin bread recipe that we now have is actually the process as to how Padre Pio was able to feed multitudes given a single portion of the dough. Ingenious actually (",)
(",)
Opinionated Amy speaks, harhar (",)
