Everyone Has A Bread

Welcome To My Page!

I'm Amanda, a bread enthusiast and complete food nerd! Honestly, that's pretty much all you need to know about me. I love talking about anything food-related, and as a communications major, I especially love talking about food and culture. This blog is going to be something of a case study. I'll be exploring the idea of the universality of food. Basically, it all boils down to this:

Every culture has a bread, a universal culinary commonality, and often, bread holds immense cultural significance.

So if you love being nerdy about bread, food, language, and culture, then you're definitely in the right place!

Essentially, I want to explore the commonalities of food. I think that there are more unifying elements to food than we might initially think, and though cuisines may differ around the world, there are still fundamental similarities across all cultures. There is always common ground to the way every person eats, and I believe that becoming aware of these similarities is a way to unite cultures in a world where we're so often driven apart. Bread is just one of those similarities, those fundamental building blocks that every culture has. This blog will use bread as a case study for the universality of food in general.

This blog will be structured like so:

1. Universal Food Theory

To explain some ideas from different thinkers about the universality of food.

2. Food, Symbolism, and Meaning

To explain how food gets embedded with emotional and cultural meaning.

3. Bread: The Case Study

To demonstrate how bread itself is a universal food, itself embedded with meaning.

Universal Food Theory

Core/Fringe Theory

This theory by Sidney Mintz essentially explains that many traditional plates can be divided into a "core" and a "fringe." The core is usually a fairly flavorless carbohydrate, and the fringe is something that adds flavor and nutrients to the core. Together (and often with a legume) these elements make up most traditional plates. While the specifics of this framework vary, the idea applies to many foods from around the world: rice and curry, potatoes and cheese, and (get this!) bread and butter!

Essentially, this framework from Mintz gives us an example of a way that food can be viewed through a universal lens, surpassing an understanding of food that's restricted by its cuisine. Click here to read the whole article!

The Culinary Triangle Theory

This framework from Levi-Strauss is a bit more complicated. Don't worry, the specifics aren't the most important thing for this blog. Remember, the goal is just to show you another way that food can be seen through a universal lens.

Levi-Strauss categorized food into three types, depending on its level of preparation: raw, rotten, or cooked. It's a bit confusing, because really, he means not prepared, semi-prepared, and fully prepared, depending on how much a human has been involved with the preparation. For example, a pickle is "semi-prepared," while a stead is "fully prepared." If you're curious as to more specifics, check out this chapter from Alejandro Colás that explains it in more detail.

2. Food, Symbolism, and Meaning

Let's talk about how foods become symbols! Symbols are created when something holds meaning beyond what the thing actually is. Food does this all the time, getting imbued with all kinds of emotional, religious, national, or cultural significance through the associations we've made about it. Let's look at a few examples:

Mac and Cheese

There's nothing inherent about mac and cheese that makes it a "soul food" or a "comfort food." Those are associations we've made with the dish, and now it's come to symbolize things like home, comfort, or childhood. There's nothing inherently "childish" about noodles with cheese, and yet those cultural associations are very strong.

Baguettes

Ok, since this is a blog about bread, let's break this one together (breaking bread? See what I did there?). I'm going to need you all to hang with me for a second.

There's nothing inherently "French" about a baguette. Sure, baguettes originate in France, but there's nothing about the baguette itself that is inherently tied with the nation of France, or even the people of France. Rather, the association between a baguette and France itself is a cultural association, a symbol that has been embedded with meaning over time. The baguette has become a symbol of France and French culture.

Here, we can see that we have a lot of associations when it comes to food. So much so that sometimes, it's really hard to find the difference between the food itself, and the meaning that comes attached with it. While food, symbolism, and meaning are all very closely linked (and even more complicated when you consider larger factors like religion, culture, or identity), when we are able to think critically and pick these things apart, we can recognize more of the similarities that exist within food. When you detach a baguette from its significance as a symbol of France, you realize its really not that different from the Italian ciabatta, which isn't far off from its neighbor, focaccia, and so on. Which is not to say we must ignore the significance and symbolism that food holds; those things are undeniably beautiful and unique to every culture. They are certainly fascinating to explore, as we will do later in this blog. What I am saying, however, is that when you detach a food from its local meaning, you can better recognize the universality of the food itself. On a more philosophical level, there is even a universality in the fact that foods have meaning across cultures. Bread is certainly one of these things, as we're about to see.

So think about these interesting things, the separation of food and its meaning, as we explore the intricacies of bread around the world. They are a part of what makes food so complex and beautiful. Food on its own is nutrients and sustenance, sure, but add people, culture, language, and society into the mix, and it takes on more meaning than most people realize.

I'm certainly not the first to look at food and its symbolism. Michelle Jones wrote a whole article about it, in which she said "But symbolic discourse utilizing food is more pervasive and complex... with more diverse meaning than is generally discussed" (Jones 2005, 132).

The article even quotes Levi-Strauss, who I think, put it the best:

"Food is not only good to eat, but also good to think with." - Claude Levi-Strauss

Now that we've discussed how food is universal and laden with meaning, let's finally look at how bread is both of these things!

3. Bread: The Case Study

Types of Bread!

At first glance, it doesn't take a lot of effort to see how many different kinds of bread there are. From baguettes to tortillas, challah to bagels, there is no shortage of bread in the world! See how many more types you can think of!

Bread in Ancient Times

Bread has been intertwined with meaning from practically the beginning of recorded history. Predrag Matvejevic's book chapter describes the beauty of bread throughout history. Various faiths have seen it as essential to life, deeming it sacred and blessing it. People have sworn oaths upon bread, using it to arrange war and peace agreements, and more. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, when a main character eats bread for the first time, it is described as what distinguishes the civilized man from the uncivilized man (Matvejevic, 2014). Early Greek and Christian thinkers drew several connections between the bread and the body, which can be seen in the Christian practice of communion, where the congregation breaks and eats bread together in remembrance of the breaking of Christ's body during his crucifixion . Bread, from an ancient time, has signified life, sacredness, civilization, salvation, and more.

For as long as history records, bread has had cultural meaning, and is thus the product of both nature and culture.

Bread and Language

We're going to look at a really niche but incredibly fascinating example of the interconnection of bread and language. In the Albanian culture, bread holds immense significance, as it is a signal of hospitality and social bonding. It plays a central role in social gatherings and hosting, and similarly to the ancient civilizations we just explored, bread is also a sacred symbol of life. Albanian culture takes bread very seriously, to the point where if any bread crumbs fall on the floor, it is immediately swept up, as it is considered a sin to step on bread.

This reverence is reflected in the language as well. Language and culture are tightly knit, as they often reflect and shape each other. There are several sayings in the Albanian language that revolve around bread, used to bless and even curse people. See a few down below!

Traditional Albanian Bread Rolls!

"Pasha buken!"

"I swear to bread!"

An exclamation, said in a similar way in which we English speakers say "I swear to God!"

"Te vrafte Zoti e te vrafte buka!"

"May God and bread kill you!

A curse, which is fascinating when compared to the way bread is also used to bless people and strengthen social bonds.

"Ha buke"

"eating bread"

The verb for "eating," even if one is not actually eating bread.

An interesting note is that Mandarin Chinese does a similar thing with the verb for eating: chi fan, or "eat rice" is used even when one is not eating rice.

Keep in mind that the Albanian language isn't the only one that reflects the significance of bread. Even in English, we have a saying like "the bread and butter" to say that something is one's main source of income. We also say "breaking bread together," a saying stemming from the aforementioned Christian tradition of communion, meaning to gather, socialize, and bond with others. So while the Albanian language is a unique and fascinating example, it's by no means the only example of this!

So, In Conclusion:

It doesn’t take a lot of looking to see that every culture has a bread of some kind
There are many frameworks and ways to look at food through a universal lens
- Furthermore, universally, food is laden with emotional, social, and cultural significance
When it comes to bread specifically:
- Bread has been intertwined with cultural meaning since ancient times
- These cultural meanings can even go so far as to be integrated into language
Bread is a great study on how food is universal, but also uniquely culturally significant!

Some dinner rolls I made myself!

Thank You For Reading!

I hope you learned something reading this, and I hope that you have a newfound appreciation for the bread that you eat on a regular basis! Whether you eat a lot of bread, make a lot of bread, or haven't really thought that much about bread at all, I hope you enjoyed this read, and that you're a little more inspired to look at bread from a different angle. Remember, the world is a wonderful and delicious place, and there's always more exploring to do!

Want more bread content? I've got you!

Works Cited

Colás, Alejandro, Jason Edwards, Jane Levi, and Sami Zubaida. “Culture: Ritual, Prohibition, and Taboo.” In Food, Politics, and Society: Social Theory and the Modern Food System, 1st ed., 58–75. University of California Press, 2018. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv5j026t.7.
Hamiti, Vjosa, and Lumnije Jusufi. 2024. “A Transfer of Language and Culture: German Bread and Pastries and Their Names in Kosovo.” Comparative Southeast European Studies (Print) 72 (4): 465–92. https://doi.org/10.1515/soeu-2024-0014.
Jones, Michael Owen. “Food Choice, Symbolism, and Identity: Bread-and-Butter Issues for Folkloristics and Nutrition Studies (American Folklore Society Presidential Address, October 2005).” The Journal of American Folklore 120, no. 476 (2007): 129–77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4137687.
MATVEJEVIĆ, PREDRAG, and Russell Scott Valentino. “Levantine Legends and Histories of Bread.” The Massachusetts Review 55, no. 4 (2014): 547–53. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24494371.
Mintz, Sidney W., and Daniela Schlettwein-Gsell. “Food Patterns in Agrarian Societies: The ‘“Core-Fringe-Legume Hypothesis”’ A Dialogue.” Gastronomica 1, no. 3 (2001): 40–52. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2001.1.3.40.

Watch this video!

If you're curious about more kinds of bread, check out this video from Buzzfeed that inspired me to write about this topic!

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From a buttery loaf to soft and pillowy scrolls, this dough can get you anywhere. Claire's recipes have never wronged me, and I hope you have fun with this recipe!

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