09/13/08
A loaf of bread tells you a lot about a place and your relationship to it.
Bread cost $.65 USD when I came over one year ago. Today it is $.84, a 33% increase. Cheap you might say until you relate it to the percentage of a person’s income. You soon realize why a loaf of bread is considered a special food rather than a staple.
Samoans do almost all of their shopping at small family owned stores. Only a few have bread, which they must pickup at a distant bakery early each morning. So only a few stores actually sell bread.
Except for the city folk in Apia, there is only one kind of bread, white, not sliced. For the nutritionally sensitive, the bread has no preservatives.
Why write about bread? Because writing about it gives me almost as much pleasure as toasting it, then covering it with real butter and raw, crunchy sugar.
Yes, a loaf of bread tells you a lot about where you are and who you are.
A loaf of bread tells you a lot about a place and your relationship to it.
Bread cost $.65 USD when I came over one year ago. Today it is $.84, a 33% increase. Cheap you might say until you relate it to the percentage of a person’s income. You soon realize why a loaf of bread is considered a special food rather than a staple.
Samoans do almost all of their shopping at small family owned stores. Only a few have bread, which they must pickup at a distant bakery early each morning. So only a few stores actually sell bread.
Except for the city folk in Apia, there is only one kind of bread, white, not sliced. For the nutritionally sensitive, the bread has no preservatives.
Why write about bread? Because writing about it gives me almost as much pleasure as toasting it, then covering it with real butter and raw, crunchy sugar.
Yes, a loaf of bread tells you a lot about where you are and who you are.
My Bread Store
2 comments:
Dad, I really love seeing these pix of the places you go in your Samoan life. Is the bread in plastic tubs to keep insects away? Do those bottles on display in the window contain liquor? Fascinating!
Oh...I miss my bread store in Alafua or was it in Lotopa (it was kind of on the border)...the memory of the smell, texture, warmth...takes me back to my lovely Samoa! Thank you for this memory!
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