Traditions and quotes
Traditions
• The New Year tradition of First Footing involves leaving
a piece of bread, coal and a silver coin at the front door, - to
bring you warmth, comfort and enough money to last throughout the
coming year.
• The bride at a Muslim wedding must eat 21 small chapattis
before leaving the room.
• Bread is used in our language as a symbol. Christians pray
for their ‘daily bread’ and we work ‘to earn a crust’. ‘Bread’ and
‘dough’ are slang terms for money.
• The workers who built the pyramids of Egypt were paid in
bread.
• The phrase ‘baker’s dozen’, meaning 13 not 12, comes from
the Middle Ages when there were problems with bakers cheating their
customers by producing under-sized loaves.
Quotes
• ‘The sight and scent of a newly baked loaf has a romantic
appeal that transcends all other culinary achievements’. Elisabeth
Luard
• ‘Bread and water - these are the things nature requires. For
such things no man is too poor, and whosoever can limit his desire
to them alone can rival Jupiter for happiness’. Seneca
• ‘We have learned to see in bread an instrument of community
between men - the flavour of bread shared has no equal’. Antoine de
Saint-Exupery
• ‘The universe of bread is made up of a nostalgia for one’s
childhood, the hard work of farmers, millers and bakers and the
distinctive pleasure given by something ‘authentic’ and
flavourful’. Jerome Assire
• ‘Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no
bread. Among modern statesman it really seems to mean that half a
loaf is better than a whole loaf. GK Chesterton
• ‘A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said, ‘Is what we chiefly
need: Pepper and vinegar besides are very good indeed’. Lewis
Carol (The Walrus and the Carpenter)
• ‘Wine that maketh glad the heart of man; and oil to make him
a cheerful countenance, and bread to strengthen man’s heart’.
The Book of Common Prayer
• ‘Their learning is like bread in a besieged town; every man
gets a little, but no man gets a full meal’. Dr Johnson
