Bread with Meals

[Jaymes]

...angel biscuits 

A favorite in our house, as well.

There's a thread on angel biscuits somewhere on eG, along with a lovely tribute from a writer (I forget exactly whom).

[Jensen]

I remember bread and butter being served with meals when I was a young child. As an older kid (i.e., teenager), fresh vegetables were more available throughout the year and we mostly had salads with dinner instead (usually dressed with mayonnaise).

Interestingly enough, when we have a dinner party, we ALWAYS have bread for the table. I never even realised that until this thread.

[petite tête de chou]

...angel biscuits 

A favorite in our house, as well.

There's a thread on angel biscuits somewhere on eG, along with a lovely tribute from a writer (I forget exactly whom).

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Here ya go.

Angel Biscuits, Looking for this childhood favorite

[markk]

We never had bread growing up, but it was because my mother wanted to emphasize that we were well to do (a new sensation for her), and she actually taught us kids that "only poor people eat starch", so except for when my grandmother would make potato latkes, we didn't have starch, period.

(Yes, I've made many shrinks rich over the years.)

When I started cooking for my partner (of 36 years) I never served bread with dinner, because that's how I grew up. After a couple of years, he asked one night "can we have bread with dinner, please" so the next night I bought some bread. After a few more breadless nights, he broke it to me that he hadn't meant just that one night, he meant that he had to have bread with his dinner. Well, it took me a while to remember that, but after 36 years, I finally remember to buy bread.

And for any of you that may be thinking bad things about my mother, I may as well tell you the rest of the story.

After we were together for a short time, my partner took me to dinner at a well to do friend's house (or so I thought). That fellow was a well know theatrical director and producer, and was of Italian descent and was famous for his dinners, and he made pasta. Suffice it to say that was the first time I had ever had pasta as my dinner, and on the way home I asked my partner "is so-and-so poor?" and the answer was, "of course not - why would you ask such a thing?" and I explained that my mother had brought me up to believe that "only poor people eat starch".

Well, I got an explanation that people ate pasta for dinner because it was delicious and they like it. But it was a good twenty-five years before I was ever able to have pasta as my main course.

And as I said earlier, I've paid for the new wing of many a psychotherapist's country home with this and related issues.

[Jensen]

And for any of you that may be thinking bad things about my mother, I may as well tell you the rest of the story.

[...]

Well, I got an explanation that people ate pasta for dinner because it was delicious and they like it.  But it was a good twenty-five years before I was ever able to have pasta as my main course.

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No bad thoughts about your mum here!

I didn't realise until I moved out that bacon strips weren't 4" long (before they were cooked). My mum grew up with little money (and my dad grew up with even less) and, when I was growing up, money was always an issue. When my mum cooked bacon, she cut it in half to make it go further. I'm sure she still does.

I remember one spring as a kid when we had a "family experiment" with vegetarianism. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realised that we just couldn't afford to buy meat for those months.

If starch were associated in my brain as "being poor" (especially if I'd lived it, as it sounds like your mum did), I suspect I wouldn't eat much of it either.

[onrushpam]

When I was very young, my Dad always insisted on bread with supper (the evening meal). The bread was usually "whack-a-tube" biscuits, or thick white bread buttered and toasted "Texas Toast". On REALLY good days, it was a loaf of my Grandma's fabulous homemade bread, made from a sweet starter she obtained from a friend's West Indian housekeeper.

Later, when Mom got heavily into organic gardening and healthy eating, bread played a lesser role (unless Grandma provided the golden loaf).

But, on Sundays and holidays, we always had bread... potato rolls or Grandma's bread or Aunt Irene's lighter-than-air dinner rolls... I still can't do a holidy meal without making bread... sometimes it's good, sometimes it's just so-so, but I have to make it! In a real pinch, I'll go buy a bag of Sister Shubert's rolls.

[suzilightning]

Growing up about the only times I remember bread on the table at meal time was if it was toast to soak up the egg yolk or under your stewed tomatoes or MAYBE as garlic bread with red sauce and spaghetti.  Our rule was protein, at least one if not two veg and one starch.

What was your experience?

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this is so sad(quoting yourself) but i did just remember the exception when so many mentioned the holidays. we always made my great grandmother's oatmeal bread and my mom's portugese sweet bread for thanksgiving. we didn't eat them WITH the meal but they were for the sandwiches later. i've also been looking through the cookbook my great grandmother transcribed for my grandmother when she, my grandfather, mom and uncle moved back to shelter island from the hudson valley of new york. there must be at least 10 - 15 breads including the oatmeal and brown bread recipes i use to this day. rusks are there. the family fruitcakes i remember making (white and dark) as a child and used as the grooms cake at our wedding 25 years ago are there along with biscuits. i can't make biscuits worth ..... expletive deleted. my hands are too hot.

johnnybird was just reading this thread over my shoulder and he said he remembers his paternal grandparents always had bread on the table - even if it was the white fluffy stuff just as his maternal grandmother and his mother have. his grandfather's mother ran the farm up in Pleasant Valley as a boarding house for the workers at their farm and always had a loaf on the table.

[onrushpam]

Methinks perhaps the "bread on the table" thing comes from a combination of:

(1) farm families where bread was/is a way to fill the stomachs of many children and field workers

(2) the Great Depression, when bread (or the means to make it) was one of the few semi-reliable sources of sustenance

For my Dad, bread on the table was a comfort... He didn't NEED it, but it made him comfortable to have it available.

[petite tête de chou]

My grandmother ("Nanny" to me) was born in 1922 and raised in Astoria Oregon by an Oregon pioneer family. Wow, was that great-grandmother a "tough old bird."

When she was a child Nanny *always* had bread (if nothing else) on the table. And while raising her five daughters there was always bread of some sort on the table. This tradition completely died out with my mother and now me. It's just too filling! I'd rather fill that extra space in my "hollow legs" (Nannys term for a big eater) with ice cream or more cheese!

I'll add that in her later years she kept a loaf or rolls of King's Hawaiian Sweet Bread on the table. Now *that* I can dig into any ol' time.

eta..Too bad there's no ribbon for using the phrase "on the table" the most times in already shaky sentencing. -sigh-

Edited August 24, 2007 by petite tête de chou (log)

[LittleChef22]

We never really had it for dinner... only if we had spaghetti or something..

[hummingbirdkiss]

my dad loves bread so yes we always tried to have some for dinner ..but .... and still funny to talk about when we gather .. ..my dad was always asked to grab a loaf on his way home from work from one of the Italian bakeries in our hood...I could hardly wait for a piece and was usually the first one to grab it ...well he was such an expert tunneler and then would put the bread back into the bag the other way so no one would notice that when I pulled it out of the bag and went to rip a piece off there was nothing inside but a very clean crust in the shape of the bread...

second to that my step mother would try to make rolls and always after starting dinner my dad would yell "where is the bread???" she would jump up with panic on her face run into the kitchen (and this was so often it was hysterical) as smoke billowed out of the stove there were the black rolls ...really black not just scrape to your own color kind

yes I still love some kind of bread with meals ..the table is just not complete with out it! ...and yes I have mastered the art of tunneling a loaf myself ..so the tradition is carried on in that respect as my kids tease the hell out me for trying to make it seem like the loaf must have come empty!

I dont burn rolls however like my step mom..but could if I really wanted to!

btw we were city dwellers and not depression era we just all loved bread for generations I think because both my grandfolks and cousins everyone partakes in this

Edited August 24, 2007 by hummingbirdkiss (log)

[C. sapidus]

Growing up, we rarely had bread with dinner. Well, except for a glorious but short-lived period when my sister went on a baking kick. But I digress.

We had a visitor from Croatia, a water polo recruit, over for dinner. He became very uncomfortable when lunch was served; picking at his food until finally blurting out that he could not eat a meal without bread.

I think we found him a bagel.

[birder53]

We had a visitor from Croatia, a water polo recruit, over for dinner. He became very uncomfortable when lunch was served; picking at his food until finally blurting out that he could not eat a meal without bread.

I think we found him a bagel.

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That's hysterical! My brother-in-law is Croatian. His son was married at a hacienda in Mexico last year and they Croations in the group finally formed a team to get to the nearest town to find bread. They weren't the biggest fans of Mexican food and only bread would get them through their stay.