Christ knew that by bread alone you cannot reanimate man. If there were no spiritual life, no ideal of Beauty, man would pine away, die, go mad, kill himself or give himself to pagan fantasies. And as Christ, the ideal of Beauty in Himself and his Word, he decided it was better to implant the ideal of Beauty in the soul. If it exists in the soul, each would be the brother of everyone else and then, of course, working for each other, all would also be rich. Whereas if you give them bread, they might become enemies to each other out of boredom.
I remember our childhood dayswhen life was easyand math problems hard.Mom would help us with our homeworkand dad was not at home but at work.After our chores, we’d go to the old fort museum with clips in our hair and pure joy in our hearts.You, sister, wore the bangles thatyou, brother, got as a prize from the Dentist.“Why the bangles?” the Dentist asked, surprised, for boys picked the stickers of cars instead.“They’re for my sisters,” you said.Mom would treat us to a bottle of Coke,a few sips each. Then,we’d buy the sweet smelling bread from the same white vanand hand-in-hand,we’d walk to our small flat above the restaurant.I remember our childhood days.Do you remember them too?
The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight...[Breadmaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world's sweetest smells... there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour ofmeditation in a music-throbbing chapel. that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.
Perhaps this war will make it simpler for us to go back to some of the old ways we knew before we came over to this land and made the Big Money. Perhaps, even, we will remember how to make good bread again.It does not cost much. It is pleasant: one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with peace, and the house filled with one of the world's sweetest smells. But it takes a lot of time. If you can find that, the rest is easy. And if you cannot rightly find it, make it, for probably there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.
There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes.
There was a bag of coffee beans beneath a harpoon gun and a frozen hunk of spinach, but there was no way to grind the beans into tiny pieces to make coffee. Near a picnic basket and a large bag of mushrooms was a jug of orange juice, but it had been close to one of the bullet holes in the trunk, and so had frozen completely solid in the cold. And after Sunny moved aside three chunks of cold cheese, a large can of water chestnuts, and an eggplant as big as herself, she finally found a small jar of boysenberry jam, and a loaf of bread she could use to make toast, although it was so cold it felt more like a log than a breakfast ingredient.
My first encounter with a baguette, torn still warm from its paper sheathing, shattered and sighed on contact. The sound stopped me in my tracks, the way a crackling branch gives deer pause; that’s what good crust does. Once I began to chew, the flavor unfolded, deep with yeast and salt, the warm humidity of the tender crumb almost breathing against my lips.
You might be offered oatcakes as well as bread (especially in the north). If these do not tempt you, consider eating "horse-bread." This is made from a sort of flour of ground peas, bran, and beans–if contemporaries look at you strangely, it is because it is not meant for human consumption.
Eaters of Wonder BreadMust be underbred.So little to eat.Where's the wheat?
Then his singing paused, and he stood for a moment to cry out softly in the vernacular of the region: 'Blest be Adonoi Elohim, King of All, who maketh bread to spring forth from the earth,' in a sort of nasal bleat. The bleat being finished, he sat again, and commenced eating. The wanderer had come a long way indeed, thought Brother Francis, who knew of no adjacent realm governed by a monarch with such an unfamiliar name and such strange pretensions.
A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in. A minute to smile and an hour to weep in. A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, And never a laugh but the moans come double. And that is life. A crust and a corner that makes love precious, With a smile to warm and tears to refresh us, And joy seems sweeter when cares come after, And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter. And that is life.
I love the caraway seeds in the classic rye bread, but I wonder if the rich dough might not also hold up to other flavors. I jot down some notes. Aniseed. Fennel seed. Orange zest. Golden raisins. Coarse salt? Maybe if Herman doesn't come down when I am working on the dough, I can use a small batch for a little experiment. I'm thinking rolls, not loaves. The kind of rolls you want to smear with cold sweet butter at dinner, or split and toast and spread with cream cheese for breakfast. Savory and sweet. Maybe semolina on the bottom instead of the coarser cornmeal we use for the regular rye loaves.
Broken things are precious. We eat broken bread because we share in the depth of our Lord and His broken life. Broken flowers give perfume. Broken incense is used in adoration. A broken ship saved Paul and many other passengers on their way to Rome. Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.