Pumpernickel bread that came to be known as "Pumpernickel", Westphalian pumpernickel is distinguished by use of coarse rye meal and a very long baking period, which gives the bread its characteristic dark color. Like most traditional all-rye breads, pumpernickel is traditionally made with an acidic sourdough starter, which preserves dough structure by counteracting highly active rye amylases. That method is sometimes augmented or replaced in commercial baking by adding citric acid or lactic acid along with commercial yeast. Traditional German pumpernickel contains no coloring agents, instead relying on the Maillard reaction to produce its characteristic deep brown color, sweet, dark chocolate,
What Work Is sometimes been criticized for leaning too hard on his blue-collar "bona fides". The critic Adam Kirsch, writing in "The Times Book Review" in 1999, noted, accurately enough, that “in his autobiographical essays he goes out of his way to tell us that he is essentially a peasant.” David Baker, writing about "What Work Is" (1991) in the "Kenyon Review", said Levine has “one of our most resonant voices of social conviction and witness, and he speaks with a powerful clarity…What Work Is may be one of the most important books of poetry of our time. Poem after poem confronts the