FRESH BREAD: AROMA OF FRESHLY BAKED BREAD BECKONS MOST ALL WHO GET A WHIFF

Evelyn Thiele kneaded the bread dough before putting it into a pan.

Georgiann Smith of Cape Girardeau measured the ingredients for potato bread and put them into her breadmaker machine.

A little control is left to the user of a breadmaker by pressing the proper buttons.

Enjoying food is a sensory experience involving more than taste. Perhaps no food proves that more readily than bread.

Whether baked in a traditional oven, a bread machine or in a bakery, the aroma beckons most all who get a whiff.

Though through the years the yeasty smell of warm bread has emanated from fewer kitchens, that may be changing.

Evelyn Thiele's children have always said they can tell when mom is baking bread, even before the dough makes it to the oven. "They can smell it when it's rising," the Jackson woman said, chuckling.

There has been plenty of opportunity to savor that sensation.

"My mom always made bread, and when I got married, we just continued," Thiele said. Evelyn and Edwin Thiele marked their 49th year of marriage last month.

"I make just plain bread, about six loaves once a month," Evelyn Thiele said. "I used to make four loaves, then the family got bigger and I raised it to six loaves."

Four of those loaves spring from a four-loaf pan she purchased when she married. These days, Thiele freezes the extra loaves for eating during the ensuing weeks. Each month, she sets aside one day for making bread. The process, she said, takes the better part of a day.

The bread-making ritual that Thiele has continued is a rite that has been lost in many families.

But bread-making is experiencing a revival in kitchens everywhere. Some cooks are going back to the traditional methods, while others are using bread machines.

Plus, while fresh bread has been available through some bakeries and in grocery bakeries for years, there are new kinds of shops opening around the country with fresh baked bread as their cornerstone.

"Fresh baked bread is something that is the best new, old idea around," said Ken Rosenthal, founder of St. Louis Bread Co., which has a store in the West Park Mall and can be found in cities throughout the Midwest and eastern portions of the United States. The first shop opened in Kirkwood in 1987.

"There has been a resurgence of the appreciation of bread, and of fresh baked products in general," he noted. "The awareness of bread is happening throughout the United States, in different ways and different places."

"We look at our bakeries like little, neighborhood bakeries," places where people might stop by for fresh bread on their way home, or at lunch, he said. While the shop features other taste-tempting delicacies, fresh baked bread -- particularly sourdough bread -- is the company's heart and soul, Rosenthal explained.

Georgiann Smith and Donna Robert are two Cape Girardeau women whose kitchens often smell of fresh baked bread, where once that aroma was rare.

Both became owners of bread machines within the last few years.

"I don't know of anything that I've enjoyed as much," Robert said. She bakes bread at least once a week.

As cooler weather sets in this autumn, both women expect to use their bread machines even more. "During cold weather, you tend to eat more breads than in hot weather," Smith said.

Simplification of the baking process is the feature of their bread machines that both women enjoy. "This is so much easier," than making bread the traditional way, Smith said.

"The only thing you mess up is your measuring cup or your measuring spoon," Robert said.

Besides the pure enjoyment of eating bread, there are other benefits. Bread is an important part of the food pyramid, and, Robert noted, many bread recipes are low in fat. "The recipe I use only calls for a tablespoon and a half of butter or Crisco," she said.

Bread machines can produce varied kinds of breads, plus, the machine can be used just to eliminate the mixing, kneading and rising processes, Smith pointed out. The prepared dough can be shaped and placed in any type of preferred pan and baked in an oven.

Smith believes the bread machine is helping to bring bread-making back to many homes. "Especially some of the younger girls that never made homemade bread before, with bread machines they tackle it," she said.

At Schnucks in Cape Girardeau, fresh bakery bread remains a popular feature. "People love fresh, baked bread," said Dennis Marchi, manager. He's seen that popularity continue through his more than two decades in the grocery business. Lately, he has noticed a resurgence in the popularity of sourdough, or San Francisco-style breads.

The appeal of fresh baked bread tends to be universal, Rosenthal observed. Regardless of where it's baked, the enjoyment can't be denied. And that aroma can't be beat, Robert noted with a chuckle, "I've always said heaven is going to smell like hot bread and brownies."