Scrummy selection of Sicilan bread

oh i can almost smell the bread

Lovely.
There's nothing like fresh bread.

Hywell, a bit more about bread .......... some I picked up as a child and other bits I've read about ...

To this day a Sicilian (or most Italians for that mater) would never dream of having a meal without bread. A thousand daily gestures depict their privileged relationship with bread - they kiss bread if it falls on the floor and always give crumbs to the birds. They break bread with their hands as it is frowned upon to cut it with a knife. The variety of bread stems way back to mythology and history - Plinius the Old relates in his Naturalis Historia that Demetra-Cerere discovered wheat replacing former acorns. She taught how to grind the wheat and make bread in Atticus and Sicily ......

Each area of Sicily has its own shape, type of flour, method of leavening and baking. There are round loaves, ring shaped ones, wheel shaped ones, loaves with brown crusts and yellow spongy dough, loaves covered with cumin seeds, half moon and horse shoe shaped loaves that were normally baked in July with the last of the harvest crop, so that they could be donated to neighbours.

The list then becomes endless if we consider the various shapes and decorations relating to religious festivals throughout the year. Tradition dictates that a cross must be made on the last loaf of the batch as a good omen and bread is never baked on Friday to avoid misfortune.

One of the oldest and life preserving of traditions is that 13 loaves of bread must be collected from 13 different homes. A saucepan is borrowed from the 14th home, a tripod from the 15th, some oil from the 16th, some water form the 17th, wood from the 18th and a sulphur match from the 19th. The pieces of bread are then cooked using all the ingredients and utensils and it was given to help a woman who had given birth but had no milk for her baby -

Terry I enjoyed this...you are very knowledgeable about bread!
I love bread too, but never dreamed that so many traditions could be formed around it.
Do you make your own bread, Terry?

When I have time Newfienurse, yes I do make my own bread and pizza too!!

I enjoyed reading this aswell Terry. Thanks for your trouble writing it all out.
I love bread and I don't know if it's because my grandfather and his father before him were bakers.
I have the recipie books they had written out with things they made in the bakery. I haven't heard of any folklore connected to it though.

terry that made excellent reading. loads of traditions surrounding bread esp in Italy

Thanks everybody for your kind comments - I suppose being a Catholic country, a lot of the pagan traditions were transformed into religious reverance, linked to the fact that bread was used at the Last Supper and is used for Holy Communion - I wonder if Ireland has similar traditions regarding bread ???