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Superstitions & Traditions

  • Make a cross on your dough to let the devil out.
  • Cut bread at both ends and the devil will fly over the house.
  • A paste of bread, pepper and crushed garlic, applied to the face, relieves toothache.
  • If a boy takes the last piece of bread from the plate, he'll have to kiss the cook.
  • To burn bread can mean that a preacher is coming or that your sweetheart is angry with you.
  • Leave bread and coffee under a house to prevent ghosts from calling.
  • Eating bread baked by a woman whose maiden name is the same as her married name is a cure for many illnesses.
  • If all the bread is eaten at the table, the next day is sure to be fair.
  • Sin-eating was carried out at a funeral, when the sin-eater would eat a loaf of bread and by doing so took the sins of the dead person upon himself.
  • Sailors formerly took a hot cross bun to sea to prevent shipwreck and farmers kept one or two in their granaries as a protection against rats

Bread Traditions

Chapattis
  • 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.

Bread 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
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