The Love of Bread

_{The Love of Bread ©}

_{By Michael Casey}

_{I was wondering what to write about 5 minutes ago as I headed for the kitchen to make some green tea and as I looked around the kitchen my gaze fell on the loaf of bread. So now that I’m sat here sipping my green tea I’ll write about bread, yes that’s how organised I am, I am a Juke Box Writer, by turns this or that, you just have to make your choice or give me a lingering kiss, though that may put me off my theme, and then I write something. That’s why the style and context can be so different, it’s not my “fault” the title decides what you get, it’s whatever you pick from the menu, that is what you get. Though it’s me who is the actual picker.}

_{But I’ll thank you anyway as Bread, the band Bread has come storming into my consciousness, so a very big thank you to Spotify too. I had their album maybe 40 years ago, yes I am that old, though today I look like a convict as my local Pakistani barber cut my hair yesterday, my flowing silver locks have gone and I now look like a criminal. But I’ll be Snow White without the dwarfs in a couple of weeks, my hair grows as fast as Japanese knotweed.}

_{Bread the food bread has a long tradition, if you like your mummy, as in The Mummy, the great film then you may also know if you follow your National Geographic, and I get that magazine delivered as it is so good, you will know they discovered all the ovens used to make the bread to feed all the thousands of workers. If you have such massive construction going on, they had to feed the people too, whether they were slaves or stupid disciples. So I wonder in the future when archaeologists dig at Trump tower will there be a bakery in the very deep basement, or just a casino, we’ll find out in 200 years’ time.}

_{As I talk to you Bread are singing all their hits, thank you Spotify, that’s why we break bread together, because we are happy and at peace with one another. If you are sharing bread then you are acting like a family. And  in the Bible we have Christ breaking the bread, the ultimate expression of sharing and love, which is repeated at Mass or other church services the world over. You don’t eat with your enemies after all.}

_{Now bread is a big deal in many families. I can remember as a child when mum would buy a loaf and we’d all devour the crust but leave the inside alone, discarded. It would look like a piece of clay ready to be moulded, though it could just be left to rot, mouldy old dough literally. In the end mum and dad ate it or it was left to be used to dunk in soup. And yes Heinz Tomato soup is the best, John Kerry didn’t make me say that, though I confess it was me who pushed him of his bike and that’s how he broke his leg, he was trying to steal my baguettes to dunk in his soup. He gets it be the gallon load, a perk from his marriage, that’s why his secret service team all had such juicy orange lips, it was all the tomato soup they ate.}  

_{You have to have different bread for different occasions, for breakfast you have to have croissants, and the little jam and butter with oodles of coffee. My daughters say in Japan of all places you get great bread for breakfast, I know in France and Malta that is true but Japan is new to me, so any Japanese readers get in touch an let me know if this is true or are my girls teasing me.  Foreign bread in hotels really is a treat as is the chance to gorge on as much breakfast as you can fit in, if you are on a tight budget and you have to make every penny count.}

_{But back home baguettes were such a novelty when we first discovered them in the 1960s, maybe when the family went on  Pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1966, we did not like the French food so dad bought bananas and baguettes in the street and we had banana sandwiches for a week. Back  in Birmingham you leave a trail of crumbs everywhere as you share the bread, or steal as much of it as you can.} 

_{As time goes on the bread you eat changes, bread used to be delivered up the entry to the back door, that is one of my earliest memories, then sliced bread from the shop takes over. Then people start eating wholegrain or Hovis as tv instructs us that it’s better for us. Flavour and tastes are so different depending on which bread you chose or are forced to eat. Kids eat what mum buys and there is no discussion, certainly in my generation.}

_{Subway is invented, I can remember when it wasn’t around, and now you have such variety in bread. If you cannot afford Subway and David Gates is singing IF as I speak, then you can cheat, you go to Aldi and pick your favourite bread, brown wholemeal bloomer is ours at the moment, but you may prefer Warburton’s white sliced, that’s great too. Then you walk to the back of Aldi and pick out ham beef salami, not forgetting cherry tomatoes add a sauce or two. Then you add a 2 litre bottle of fizzy pop for 45p.} 

_{Then you go home and make your own Subway, you have enough stuff to feed 4 or more people at half the price. Having written all this down I think I’ll be doing this in the week as it is half term after all, and my big daughter got a new coat, which means she’ll get a DIY Subway and not the real thing.}

_{A meal is not a meal without bread, and it does fill the stomach after all, so always make sure your kids eat bread too, and brown bread does help them pooh. So as the music fades from Bread I think enough’s said, I need to eat now, maybe a bit of toast, and as Heidi said if you toast old bread you can still eat it, otherwise feed it to the birds, and then you can eat them, chicken soup with bread, the cycle is complete.}