Bread turns me on!
I was born in an age when Bread was seen by most ‘Indian’
families as a sickness diet. If you were unwell, you were made to eat Bread.
Otherwise the idli dosa chapatti poori upma poha khichdi kachori brigade would
rule.
Butter and Margarine were occasional buys in my house. Seen
perhaps as too expensive and even foreign. So bread, even if had, would be had
with dal or rasam.
Even when I went to school, the bread we used to get with
lunch was consumed with an insane combination of dal, a spicy curry and curds.
So I don’t really know when my love affair with bread
started. Perhaps it was in my ‘cycle-to-school’ days when I’d come back home
after about 60kms of cycling through the day…when my mother tired of whipping
up something substantial for her fatigued son, used to put a loaf of bread,
some butter and jam on the table…which I would polish off with glee.
In college they served us untoasted but ghee’d slices of
bread that went very well with Khurma or podimoss (egg bhurjee). Only when I
landed in Bombay did my adventures with bread begin.
If Suresh Sheth, a photographer of repute, used to have a
team that rustled up sugared Butter Toasts to die for, the street food of
Bombay was replete with Pavs of the most delightful variety. The pav of the
Vada Pav was quite different from the Pav of the Pav Bhaji and different
outlets used to serve different kinds of this special bread.
In Germany I discovered the variety of breads that competed
with the varieties of meat that was on offer. And my love affair with bread
became something I had no reason to hide.
Even the movement to change from white bread to multi grain
did not have any impact on my love.
In fact when I had the opportunity of introducing my bread
to my other love ‘eggs’, my life became an extra marital affair that had my
wife’s approval…in fact regular participation.
Just as there were many things you could do with the eggs
there were a countless things you could do with bread. Toast it, grill it,
butter it, cheese spread it, ham it, salami it…and so on.
And life became an adventure called match making. What kind
of eggs would go well with what kind of bread? The discovery of the answer to
this riddle has taken me almost a lifetime…and I am still searching.
What about you?
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