ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, October 9, 1996             TAG: 9610090005
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 8    EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: CHARLES PERRY LOS ANGELES TIMES 

REAL BASICS FLAT BREADS ARE AT THE CENTER OF MUCH OF THE WORLD'S CUISINE

Jeffrey Alford sits in a restaurant booth, showing off some of his ``chekiches'' - a graceful goblet-shaped Uzbek model, a rugged Kazakh version that looks like a rather brutal currycomb and a big, flamboyant Turkmen ``chekich'' that suggests a Baroque candlestick with a bunch of nails sticking out of one end.

A chekich is a Central Asian bread punch. In the countries where Alford picked up these chekiches, people usually punch their flat breads with patterns of holes before sticking them into tandoor ovens.

With his wife, Naomi Duguid (pronounced ``do-good''), the tall, soft-spoken Alford has traveled through huge areas of Asia, usually on a bicycle, enjoying a leisurely, ground-level view of the world. In their travels, the pair noticed how much of the world's cuisine revolves around flat breads, rather than the high-risen breads people mostly eat in the United States. The result was their book ``Flatbreads and Flavors: A Baker's Atlas'' (Morrow, 1995).

Flat breads are ancient; the very first breads were all flat. Having been around so long, they tend, as the book makes clear, to have a more intimate relationship with the rest of a meal than high-risen bread does. Often they enter right into the composition of dishes, going under, over or all around other foods or getting layered into stews and salads. From pizzas to little savory pies such as the Indian samosa, they also take well to substantial flavorings.

Altogether, Alford and Duguid include about 70 bread recipes in their book. Steamed breads and fried breads, Tibetan breads and Ethiopian breads; Chinese buckwheat bread, Indian chickpea wafers, lacy Malaysian coconut pancakes, tortillas, Canadian berry bannock. With its recipes for traditional accompaniments to the breads - about twice as many as the bread recipes - the book gives a whole different squint on the world's cookery.

recipes for:

KURDISH BULGUR BREAD (``Nan-e Casoki'')

PUEBLO SUNFLOWER SEED BREAD

DEEP-FRIED WHOLE-WHEAT BREADS WITH CUMIN

(``Puri'')

LENGTH: Medium:   52 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  LAT. 1. Pueblo sunflower seed bread has a nutty flavor 
          and goes well with a cup of coffee. The recipe is on Page 3. 2. 
          ``Breads are just an endless subject'' to Jeffrey Alford (left), 
          co-author of ``Flatbreads and Flavors: A Baker's Atlas.'' color.