The flatbread is the bread that the passage day produces when the overnight loaf was not made the evening before: the bread that begins with flour and water and salt and oil at six in the morning and is on the table at six-fifteen. No yeast, no rise time, no oven: the dough that the five-minute mixing produces and the two-minute cooking on the gas flame converts into the specific bread that the passage galley relies on in the conditions that the overnight loaf’s three-hour production schedule does not accommodate.
The flatbread is the backup bread in the way that the backup autopilot is the backup autopilot: it is less refined than the primary and it works completely and the person who is hungry at six-fifteen in the middle of the Pacific has no complaint about the difference.
The Dough and the Technique
Two hundred grams of flour, a pinch of salt, two tablespoons of olive oil, enough water to bring the dough together into the ball that holds its shape without sticking to the hand. Five minutes of working the dough against the bowl, the five minutes that the gluten development requires and that the flatbread’s two-minute cooking time does not compensate for if they are skipped.
Divided into four balls. Each ball rolled to three millimetres on the floured board, the wine bottle serves the function of the rolling pin that the galley does not carry because the rolling pin is the item that the galley always considers packing and always decides against in favour of the wine bottle that does the job and is going to be in the galley regardless.
The gas flame is turned to medium. The flatbread goes directly onto the gas flame’s trivet, over the open flame, without a pan. This is the technique that the Indian chapati uses and that the Afghan naan uses and that the Bedouin flatbread uses and that every culture that has been making bread over open fire since before the oven existed has arrived at independently: the flame’s direct heat produces the specific char on the surface of the flatbread that the pan cannot replicate, the blackened spots that the contact with the heat creates that carry the specific bitter note alongside the doughy warmth that makes the combination the combination worth making.
One minute per side. The flatbread inflates slightly as the steam that the dough’s moisture produces is trapped between the two surfaces. It is done when it is charred on both sides and puffed in the middle.
The Taste and the Occasion
The flatbread tastes of the char and the dough simultaneously: the bitter note of the flame’s contact on the surface carrying the sweetness of the cooked flour that the interior of the bread provides when it is torn open and the steam escapes and the warmth of the bread’s inside arrives at the nose before it arrives at the mouth. It is the simplest bread and it is good in the specific way of the simple thing executed correctly: not complex, not ambitious, providing exactly what the passage morning requires in the form that the passage galley can produce in two minutes from the ingredients that the dry stores always carry.
The occasion for the flatbread is any passage morning when the overnight loaf was not made and the day started before the provisioning could produce an alternative. It is also the occasion of the spontaneous flatbread: the specific bread that gets made at the anchorage because someone wanted the hummus from the Aegean provisioning and the hummus requires the flatbread and the flatbread requires five minutes and the five minutes are available right now in a way that the three-hour overnight loaf is not.
The hummus goes with the flatbread. The flatbread goes with whatever the anchorage has produced that the morning’s combination of the dive and the market and the trolling line and the spontaneous decision of the offshore chef has assembled on the afterdeck table. The simplest bread and the freshest context. This is all that is required.
