Why Does the Host Taste Like Cardboard

[PhuturePriest]

Blech, intinction. I used to think it was cool until I received by intinction for half a year. I quickly learned the blood drips and very often somehow gets on your cheek while the priest is distributing it, and you have to awkwardly lick it off with your tongue. Far easier to receive just the Host or the Host and then receive the chalice, in my opinion.

Edited May 31, 2016 by PhuturePriest

[dUSt]

If Jesus humiliated himself to the point of becoming a piece of bread, it's not surprising that His humility is so great that the bread is also bland.

[AveMariaPurissima]

7 hours ago, PhuturePriest said:

Blech, intinction. I used to think it was cool until I received by intinction for half a year. I quickly learned the blood drips and very often somehow gets on your cheek while the priest is distributing it, and you have to awkwardly lick it off with your tongue. Far easier to receive just the Host or the Host and then receive the chalice, in my opinion.

Interesting...my parish distributes Communion by intinction, and in the 10+ years I've been going there, I've not once had any issues like you describe.  Though I have noticed (particularly when we have visiting priests) that some priests are more adept at it than others.  I see your point though!

[Era Might]

7 hours ago, PhuturePriest said:

Blech, intinction. I used to think it was cool until I received by intinction for half a year. I quickly learned the blood drips and very often somehow gets on your cheek while the priest is distributing it, and you have to awkwardly lick it off with your tongue. Far easier to receive just the Host or the Host and then receive the chalice, in my opinion.

This is what I don't like about the host, it's helped drive out the messiness of Christianity. It's like the Roman desire for beardless priests. But the history of unleavened bread that others have noted was interesting...I guess the problem isn't mere tastelessness but the lack of resemblance to actual bread, leavened or unleavened.

The reason I started this thread was because I somehow got one of those taste-memories and when I narrowed it down, it tasted like the host. So I made a thread. But I don't receive Communion so it's mainly just an interest in ritual and symbols that makes it an interesting topic for me.

[Gabriela]

On 5/29/2016 at 9:01 AM, IgnatiusofLoyola said:

The Jewish people have celebrated Passover by eating unleavened bread for thousands of years. As I understand it, the Last Supper was a Passover meal, so they, too, ate unleavened bread.

Nowadays the unleavened bread eaten at Passover (but available all year) is called matzo bread, and I'd classify it as an acquired taste. I happen to like it, because all my life I have ended up in neighborhoods with a lot of Jewish people, so I've been eating it since I was a child.

But it IS bland.

Note: I don't know if the matzo of today is the same as the unleavened bread in Jesus' time, but I expect the unleavened bread of Jesus' time was also bland, on purpose, to remember the hardships and sacrifices the Jewish people made in the Exodus. 

Jewish culture, at least what I know of it, celebrates the goodness of God, while never forgetting bitter times such as the Exodus and the destruction of the Temple. The Psalms are a perfect example of this. They alternate and combine praise of God with heartfelt pleas for mercy and forgiveness, and remembrance of the the times of the Exile and sadness.

So, in the Eucharist, there is simultaneously the blandness of the bread (remembering the Exodus and the Last Supper), and the joy of being given the gift to partake of the body of Christ. Similarly, wine is a celebration of the richness of the Earth, yet simultaneously the Blood of Christ. and his sacrifices for us.

Note: What I've just written is not taken from anything I've ever read, just thoughts that came to me. So take it for what it is worth, and ignore it if it is not helpful or is incorrect theologically or historically.

Actually, modern mass-produced industrial matzo is nothing like what Christ and the Apostles would have eaten at the Last Supper. Laafa is more like what they'd have had. I've had unleavened bread for Passover in Israel that was not matzo but was simply flour and water with salt, no leavening. Cooked on the metal cone that Bedouins use, it's actually very tasty.

I also studied professional baking in Israel, specializing in bread. Flour is actually quite flavorful if you know how to use it right. You can achieve a great deal of variation by using different flour blends (winter versus spring wheat, whole wheat versus white with germ but no bran, or with bran but no germ, etc.). The problem with today's hosts isn't that they're just unavoidably bland: It's that they're mass-produced. Industrial production will kill the flavor in anything. That's why manufacturers usually add a ton of salt and sugar to industrial food: cuz otherwise it'd all taste like cardboard.

It is possible to use any unleavened bread of flour and water for the host, and I have had valid hosts that were actual bread, from a real loaf, not wafer-like cracker cardboard things. It was much better. I far prefer the "real bread" variety, but the problem is that such a host is much more perishable and so is impractical for large parishes. It needs baking every day, or every other day. (I had it at the Monastic Family of Bethlehem monastery in New York.)

In my experience, most hosts taste like spongey cardboard, but occasionally I'll get one that actually has a good wheat flavor and real crispness to it. Obviously the latter is better. I'm not sure what makes the difference here, and I don't think it's just staleness, because I've been in a lot of monasteries that bake altar "breads", and many of these had the spongey cardboard type, despite the host having been made right there on site, probably just a few days before. So I do think manufacturing process contributes more to the appeal of the final product than the age or air-exposure of the host does.

Anyone who knows anything about how gluten works can understand this: The more you work it (knead it, mix it, etc.), the "stronger" the gluten network becomes. French sourdoughs tend to be extremely "strong": They're the breads that you have to pull on hard with your jaw to break off a piece. Semolina loaves are especially strong, because semolina is extremely high in gluten so you don't even have to work it that much to produce a very strong loaf. A "shortbread", on the other hand, is very crumbly, because the gluten network has been left deliberately undeveloped (i.e., the gluten strands are left short, rather than long, usually by introducing butter, which makes it impossible for the gluten strands to attach to one another and form the long, strong chains that force you to pull with your jaw on a strong loaf).

But water-to-flour ratio also matters for texture. So my guess about chewy hosts is this: Too much water is added, and the dough is over-processed. Most of the water is baked off (that's what cooking is: the evaporation of water out of a food), but not enough of it, so you get a kind of wet, chewy round. In a good host, the proper amount of water to flour is used, and the dough is minimally worked (just enough to get it to hold together), and it's baked longer, to get it crisper, which also develops the flavor of the flour.

You can see how industrial processing would produce the bad hosts: Water is cheap, but flour is not. So factories add more water to produce more hosts for the money. Then they over-process the dough because it's hard to work with a dough that's too wet and workers don't have the skill to do it right and the manufacturers want to ensure the hosts will hold together, because crumbly hosts have to get tossed, which costs more money. Then they underbake them because heating ovens costs money.

This is probably TMI and TL;DR and whatnot, but I geek out on this stuff, and I agree that the host should be tasty. Simplicity is tasty, but only when it's done right.

On 5/31/2016 at 7:00 AM, Makarioi said:

co-mingle.  It's really spelled with 2 M's.  Growing up, I remember the hosts were shiny white.  I guess with all of the allergies that didn't seem to be present when I was younger, caused things to change.  One church that I visited in NY seemed to have hosts that were sweetened.  Folks would probably complain about calories............ *sigh*

It is strengst verboten to add sweeteners to the host. It invalidates it. However, some wheat flours are naturally sweeter than others, depending on the time of year they were harvested (and also, less so, the variety of wheat). Normally, though, that difference in sweetness is imperceptible to most people. (I notice it because I'm a bread-nerd, but otherwise, probably only foodies would notice it.) I have once had a host that was so sweet that I know the crazy priest serving it added sweetener to it. I was mad and sad and shocked all at the same time.

 

On 5/31/2016 at 10:13 AM, vee said:

Interesting.  In the rite Im familiar with that uses leavened bread they also have it intincted.  It is in small cubes in teh chalice of Precious Blood and the priest has a teeny tiny little spoon made out of precious metal that he uses to remove one cube of the Eucharist and drops it in the communicant's mouth.  He is standing on a step so he is taller than most people and the communicant tilts their head back, opens their mouth, and basically receives like a little bird

I had this once at a Byzantine Mass. It was really gross. Shame to say that about the host, but it was just so... soggy. Never again. In general, I find intincture seems like a good idea in theory, but in practice, it's just... soggy. Eww. No, thank you.

It's also funny that, today, Ultra-Orthodox Jews avoid wetting the matzo on Passover because they're worried it might cause it to rise (which is absurd, but so are they in their world of "fences"). They will go to some serious extremes to avoid wetting their Passover matzo. And yet here we are dropping the host into wine. 

Whatever, I guess.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

usually tastes a little sweet to me whether i drink the blood or not. Doesn't matter which parish i'm at either. Perhaps you don't truly believe that the LORD is Good therefore he doesn't taste good to you. <shrugs> Idk.

On 6/1/2016 at 5:57 AM, dUSt said:

If Jesus humiliated himself to the point of becoming a piece of bread, it's not surprising that His humility is so great that the bread is also bland.

yeah our LORD was famed for being plain and straight forward.

On 6/1/2016 at 11:31 AM, Era Might said:

This is what I don't like about the host, it's helped drive out the messiness of Christianity. It's like the Roman desire for beardless priests. But the history of unleavened bread that others have noted was interesting...I guess the problem isn't mere tastelessness but the lack of resemblance to actual bread, leavened or unleavened.

The reason I started this thread was because I somehow got one of those taste-memories and when I narrowed it down, it tasted like the host. So I made a thread. But I don't receive Communion so it's mainly just an interest in ritual and symbols that makes it an interesting topic for me.

so the host has a distinct taste to you, that is kinda unique isn't it?

Just a heads up also, the only eternal sacrifice mentioned in holy scripture is in one of the prophets books in the O.T and that is the daily sacrifice of the bread, oil and lamb. Our host is all 3, i really disagree with adding or taking away from the word of God, the host should remain simply bread with a touch of oil, perhaps the oil can have various flavors,unsure, one would have to look at the jewish sacrifice to know whether we can or can't. But of course i'm not the holy magesterium and my opinion is just my opinion and there opinion is that which we all must follow. It is the only law in the old testament that is described as an eternal one as far as i'm aware, all other laws of the O.T reached there fulfillment on the cross, but this particular one i believe is indissoluble, it is a great verse to bring up with protestants, just bible search 'eternal sacrifice'.

Onward christian souls.

GodblesS.

God iz Good!

[CatherineM]

Our hosts back home weren't mass produced. They were made by Carmelite nuns. 

[PhuturePriest]

4 hours ago, Gabriela said:

Actually, modern mass-produced industrial matzo is nothing like what Christ and the Apostles would have eaten at the Last Supper. Laafa is more like what they'd have had. I've had unleavened bread for Passover in Israel that was not matzo but was simply flour and water with salt, no leavening. Cooked on the metal cone that Bedouins use, it's actually very tasty.

I also studied professional baking in Israel, specializing in bread. Flour is actually quite flavorful if you know how to use it right. You can achieve a great deal of variation by using different flour blends (winter versus spring wheat, whole wheat versus white with germ but no bran, or with bran but no germ, etc.). The problem with today's hosts isn't that they're just unavoidably bland: It's that they're mass-produced. Industrial production will kill the flavor in anything. That's why manufacturers usually add a ton of salt and sugar to industrial food: cuz otherwise it'd all taste like cardboard.

It is possible to use any unleavened bread of flour and water for the host, and I have had valid hosts that were actual bread, from a real loaf, not wafer-like cracker cardboard things. It was much better. I far prefer the "real bread" variety, but the problem is that such a host is much more perishable and so is impractical for large parishes. It needs baking every day, or every other day. (I had it at the Monastic Family of Bethlehem monastery in New York.)

In my experience, most hosts taste like spongey cardboard, but occasionally I'll get one that actually has a good wheat flavor and real crispness to it. Obviously the latter is better. I'm not sure what makes the difference here, and I don't think it's just staleness, because I've been in a lot of monasteries that bake altar "breads", and many of these had the spongey cardboard type, despite the host having been made right there on site, probably just a few days before. So I do think manufacturing process contributes more to the appeal of the final product than the age or air-exposure of the host does.

Anyone who knows anything about how gluten works can understand this: The more you work it (knead it, mix it, etc.), the "stronger" the gluten network becomes. French sourdoughs tend to be extremely "strong": They're the breads that you have to pull on hard with your jaw to break off a piece. Semolina loaves are especially strong, because semolina is extremely high in gluten so you don't even have to work it that much to produce a very strong loaf. A "shortbread", on the other hand, is very crumbly, because the gluten network has been left deliberately undeveloped (i.e., the gluten strands are left short, rather than long, usually by introducing butter, which makes it impossible for the gluten strands to attach to one another and form the long, strong chains that force you to pull with your jaw on a strong loaf).

But water-to-flour ratio also matters for texture. So my guess about chewy hosts is this: Too much water is added, and the dough is over-processed. Most of the water is baked off (that's what cooking is: the evaporation of water out of a food), but not enough of it, so you get a kind of wet, chewy round. In a good host, the proper amount of water to flour is used, and the dough is minimally worked (just enough to get it to hold together), and it's baked longer, to get it crisper, which also develops the flavor of the flour.

You can see how industrial processing would produce the bad hosts: Water is cheap, but flour is not. So factories add more water to produce more hosts for the money. Then they over-process the dough because it's hard to work with a dough that's too wet and workers don't have the skill to do it right and the manufacturers want to ensure the hosts will hold together, because crumbly hosts have to get tossed, which costs more money. Then they underbake them because heating ovens costs money.

This is probably TMI and TL;DR and whatnot, but I geek out on this stuff, and I agree that the host should be tasty. Simplicity is tasty, but only when it's done right.

It is strengst verboten to add sweeteners to the host. It invalidates it. However, some wheat flours are naturally sweeter than others, depending on the time of year they were harvested (and also, less so, the variety of wheat). Normally, though, that difference in sweetness is imperceptible to most people. (I notice it because I'm a bread-nerd, but otherwise, probably only foodies would notice it.) I have once had a host that was so sweet that I know the crazy priest serving it added sweetener to it. I was mad and sad and shocked all at the same time.

 

I had this once at a Byzantine Mass. It was really gross. Shame to say that about the host, but it was just so... soggy. Never again. In general, I find intincture seems like a good idea in theory, but in practice, it's just... soggy. Eww. No, thank you.

It's also funny that, today, Ultra-Orthodox Jews avoid wetting the matzo on Passover because they're worried it might cause it to rise (which is absurd, but so are they in their world of "fences"). They will go to some serious extremes to avoid wetting their Passover matzo. And yet here we are dropping the host into wine. 

Whatever, I guess.

Soggy bread. Something so vile and repulsive I should add it to the list of excommunicable offenses. I had several friends who loved their bread soggy. "Had" being the key word. It was impossible to watch them consume their ruined bread without the strong urge to vomit.

[Gabriela]

3 hours ago, CatherineM said:

Our hosts back home weren't mass produced. They were made by Carmelite nuns. 

Nuns mass produce the hosts. I just suspect that some pay more attention to flavor and texture than others. In general, though, their methods—or at least, their machinery and work process—appear to be largely the same as any large industrial factory. It's the only way they can keep the hosts affordable.

[CatherineM]

9 hours ago, Gabriela said:

Nuns mass produce the hosts. I just suspect that some pay more attention to flavor and texture than others. In general, though, their methods—or at least, their machinery and work process—appear to be largely the same as any large industrial factory. It's the only way they can keep the hosts affordable.

They are a cloistered order, but I got to see them making them. Flour, water, and rolling pins. 

[Socrates]

On 5/31/2016 at 2:57 PM, dUSt said:

If Jesus humiliated himself to the point of becoming a piece of bread, it's not surprising that His humility is so great that the bread is also bland.

Well said.  Jesus chose to come in the Eucharist in a way that is completely unimpressive and invisible to senses, and to anyone who didn't already have Faith in Him.  (He was willing to let followers walk away who thought this teaching absurd, rather than change to accommodate them.)

Something tastier would likely be a distraction, and you'd probably have more people coming just for the tasty food, rather than to receive the Lord.  Personally, I'd much prefer the taste of good barbecue and beer to bread and wine, but I'm not the one calling the shots.

[Era Might]

25 minutes ago, Socrates said:

Well said.  Jesus chose to come in the Eucharist in a way that is completely unimpressive and invisible to senses, and to anyone who didn't already have Faith in Him.  (He was willing to let followers walk away who thought this teaching absurd, rather than change to accommodate them.)

Something tastier would likely be a distraction, and you'd probably have more people coming just for the tasty food, rather than to receive the Lord.  Personally, I'd much prefer the taste of good barbecue and beer to bread and wine, but I'm not the one calling the shots.

While I don't have a problem with the spiritual point of view of Jesus humbling himself, etc., we should keep in mind that he didn't serve hosts at the Last Supper, and neither did the early Christians. Their experience of eating would have been very different. There's nothing essential to the Eucharist about little bland white hosts, but I understand it's place in the Western imagination, given practices like exposition. But the early church experience of the Eucharist was very visible to the senses, including the conspiratio, the ritual kiss they shared which has since been restricted to the altar for decorum.

[dUSt]

I would have no issue at all if Pope Francis made a papal decree to replace the wine with beer.

[Gabriela]

5 hours ago, CatherineM said:

They are a cloistered order, but I got to see them making them. Flour, water, and rolling pins. 

Oh, wow. And how was the texture?

[CatherineM]

4 hours ago, Gabriela said:

Oh, wow. And how was the texture?

A bit puffier than regular, but it still stuck to the roof of my mouth. Was weird that it was still a bit warm.