Breaking the rye bread

Some of our readers may have been puzzled recently having discovered that some of the local grocery stores now sell Finnish rye bread – in the form of a pita.

Pita is a round, brown, wheat flatbread made with yeast. It is traditional is many Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines, where as dark and sour rye bread is especially popular in Finland, Estonia and Russia.

The bread, titled Finland Rye, is manufactured by Ozery's Pita Break, family-owned torontonian bakery.

– Our co-president, Alon Ozery, was travelling through Finland on business in 2005. He had been thinking of adding another variety to our existing lineup of popular breakfast pitas.

– Finland Rye came out of his travelling and sampling the many varieties of Finnish breads, says Carol Leivonen, product developer.

Leivonen tells VS that Mr. Ozery brought back with him the idea of Finland Rye and started to work on a recipe that uses the ingredients typical of a Finnish rye bread.

Tasting a rye pita one soon realizes that one is not dealing with a traditional Finnish rye bread. The experience is baffling, since the aftertaste is sweet. Leivonen, herself, describes the taste as “nutty”.

In some sense, rye pita – at its very core – is a distinctively torontonian product, a beautiful mongrel child of different cultures.

Its peculiar yet enticing taste derives from the ingredients.

– He combined dark rye, light rye, cracked rye, cocoa, sour dough, and caraway seeds, Leivonen explains.

Cocoa in a rye bread? Apparently the concept of rye bread is a bit more flexible here. But so are the service suggestions.

– Many of our customers tell us they enjoy Finland Rye as a breakfast item with butter or jam, or split them for tasty sandwiches and hamburgers.

Granted, perhaps rye pita goes well with jam. Stranger things have happened.

But still, that leaves me searching for a rye bread that tastes great with smoked salmon.

AM