Essay One- Food Narrative

Laurel Caldwell

One would never know by the looks of me that I love to eat bread. People always say that bread and pasta and other types of carbohydrates go straight to your hips, but I have not ever had to deal with that problem. Being active in dance my whole life, I have always had a very high metabolism so I do not really need to watch what I eat, at least for now. Bread is one of those things that I am always eating. It comes in so many different kinds ranging from plain ol' white bread to cinnamon raisin swirl to whole wheat and even in other forms like bagels, and I have loved every kind that I have tried so far. Even though bread is one of the simplest forms of food, it provides me with great satisfaction.

One of my fondest memories as a child is when we would go up to Manchester, Tennessee to visit my Nana. Every time we came to visit, she would make me log cabin houses out of cinnamon toast. Traveling up there was only an hour and a half but it seemed like eternity because I was always waiting for nana’s amazing food. I remember waking up each morning and walking out to the table and sitting there in anticipation of what her next masterpiece was going to look like. She always made these elaborate houses that looked like they came right out of a candy forest. Watching her carry the plate that held my log cabin on it made my glands salivate just thinking about how good it was going to taste. The warm butter and cinnamon mixture melted in my mouth with each and every bite. Her making the log cabins was just one thing that I looked forward to every time we visited.

Another one of my childhood memories is when my dad would make homemade bread. We have this break maker that would make this irritating noise every time we used it. Even though it made that noise I was still fascinated with the whole machine. When you walked anywhere in the house, you could smell the yeast and automatically know that dad was making bread. He only made the bread occasionally, so when he did, it was something special. He would always let me help make it and mix the ingredients in and start the bread machine. Sometimes I would sneak a little bit of the dough and eat it when he wasn’t looking.

As a breakfast treat in the mornings, mom would most often make me French toast. When I was little, she would make it all the time. That was my all-time favorite breakfast then. During high school, she still always made me breakfast, but it was usually to go because I would wake up late or was somehow in a rush. She still figured out how to make French toast to go. She would put it in a zip-lock bag and drizzle a little bit of that sweet syrup, that I used to eat all by itself when I was little, on it. It wasn’t always French toast though, sometimes it was bagels with cream cheese or some strawberry oatmeal, but whatever it was, it was good.

Even now, I still love to eat bread. When I am not really hungry for anything and my parents tell me to eat something, I will go into the kitchen and say I will make a sandwich, but only really put two pieces of bread together and eat that. One time, my mom wanted me to go eat but I was not hungry, so I did that, and she caught me, but all she did was laugh at me. When I come home from being out with my friends, I am usually hungry, so for a quick snack, I will grab two pieces of bread and some orange juice or grape juice and take it upstairs with me to my room. Now that I am at college, I still run late in the mornings. I usually grab something like a blueberry bagel and spread some peanut butter on it, or get two pieces of either cinnamon raisin swirl or white bread.

Bread is not only something that I like, it is also used by many other people for different reasons around the world. For some, it is used in communion to represent Jesus’ body that was shed for us. In the bible, it talks about how Jesus is the bread of life. John 6:35 says “Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.’” Bread is also the lifeline for many other people that live in third world countries who do not get anything to eat but just a measly amount of bread maybe once a week. It is not only beneficial to people, but also to some animals. Ducks and birds also enjoy eating the bread when it gets thrown to them.