By Bread Alone

The ecclesiastical canons have approved the words, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” But like many things, written or otherwise, words are open for interpretation. Theorems thrive, strange as they may be.

**********

The operative word in this statement is, of course, live. And there’s no denial that to attempt to live a life without bread, especially bread glazed with sugar, is not only unthinkable, it’s downright savage. Abstinence is impossible. Avoidance is more torturous than having to survive on the popular monastic diet of soggy saltines and an entrée of red clay with ketchup.

Wander any quiet Paris street. Gaze into the window of a Patisserie. Your saliva glands ooze. You drool. The very sight of the vast selection of confections creates an uncontrollable craving. Palmiers, macaroons, galettes, croissants, cream horns, chocolate éclairs…an intense but inconsolable urge rages. Your tongue licks the very air.

You bolt inside, shove your way to the counter. You buy this, you buy that, you buy everything. The Tempter laughs hideously inside your brain. You curse the notion of living without bread.

We Southerners love bread. Just look at our girths. What are they saying? Avoid bread? Look, we bought the corn-pone franchise from the Indians before we confiscated their lands. It’s our staff of life.

We covet steaming-hot, baseball-sized biscuits that ooze butter, soaking with cane syrup on cold mornings. Imagine the ecstasy of biting into one. Especially one that’s holding a hunk of ham or slab of sausage. It’s the last-supper food of choice for most condemned prisoners.

Life consists in biscuits saturated with white chicken gravy or slathered with blackberry jelly. What good is a meal of fried chicken without it? Without Aunt Jemima, an entire industry of chicken farmers would vanish.

But wait…an evil beats on the door. Somebody’s trying to crash the bread pudding party. You can spot them slinking around in food stores, reading labels. It’s the Gluten-free Cult. Its adherents are anorexic holdovers from the ancient transient slaves who migrated from Egypt eons ago. They mostly live in Washington and Hollywood now.

This disgruntled crowd got fed up with manna-bread while wandering aimlessly around the Sinai Peninsula. They were looking for a land flowing with milk and honey. Why? Because they lusted for a perpetual source of sweetener to lather on their fig rolls, which, according to tradition, were forerunners of Fig Newtons. The Egyptians are still chasing them and suing for recipe infringement. Their hostilities never seem to end.

After forty years of itinerancy, they finally found a patch of parched earth to pitch their tents on. Unfortunately, others want to pitch tents there also. The Mort Mountebank tribe escaped and made off with the secret manna-bread formula. They became millionaires by cooking up Wonder Bread, which also has a forty year shelf-life. Even rats starve on it.

The gluten-free groups have unionized and receive federal aid. It’s a malevolent movement. The hoax is reminiscent of the dire global warming warnings of the minor prophet Gore. Where’re those disciples now? Under fifteen feet of snow in Minnesota. So much for imposters and swindlers.

A friend just had his seventieth birthday. I ask him how he feels. Be careful what you ask a 70 year old man.

“Never better,” he says.

“What’s your secret of longevity?”

“Bread,” he says. “Lots of bread. Forget the gluten scare.”

I remind him the Ancients warned that a man can’t live by bread alone.

“Rubbish,” he says. “Look, I’m a student of Scriptures. I follow them to the letter…Ecclesiastes 10:19, Leviticus 26:26, to be precise.”

Being forgetful of obscure Holy Writs, I ask him to explain.

“Remember our hippie days when ‘bread’ was also equated with money?"

“Vaguely,” I say. “What’s the point?”

“The point is money will buy a lot of bread, chefs and a lot more than you can imagine.” He whips out his Good Book and reads, “Money answers all things.”

Then he quotes Levi: “…ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight, and you shall eat.…”

**********

Such conceptualized nonsense shatters the foundations of common sense. But one thing is certain: 10 women cooks, 1 man and 1 oven make for a horrific disaster. Now, that would be news!

Bud Hearn
February 24, 2014