Bread has the most enticing aroma. I think if someone could bottle it, they would be an instant millionaire.
It is one of the first foods I remember from my childhood. The sound of the knife slicing through the crust. Arguments over who got that crust. The command not to eat just the bread but the whole meal. Warm, homely memories.
In Russian culture, bread is a symbol of hospitality. It’s in our folklore and phraseology. No meal is complete without it. My grandma was in Leningrad during the siege, when there was no bread and it became sacred.
Growing up, I was forbidden from playing with my bread, although it was tempting to make little balls from the soft sourdough. Even now, I can’t bring myself to throw away even the stalest loaf — I feed it to the ducks with my daughter.
My favourite is a dark rye. After perestroika, when there were great food shortages, bread was one of the few things you could buy in the USSR. I remember breaking bits off secretly as I walked home with my mum, hoping she wouldn’t notice. Its warmth was irresistible.
Mopping up the sauce on my plate or watching a warm piece of bread absorb melting butter are among the most ordinary but delicious pleasures in life.
Bread can also be “alive” of course. Take a sourdough starter. It lives in the corner of the kitchen, like a capricious, attention-seeking child. Panic sets in when you forget to feed it and before you know it, your starter has become some sort of Tamagotchi pet that needs constant care in order to survive.
Bread was what made us fall in love with Ollie Dabbous, now executive chef at Hide. In 2013, when we finally managed to make a reservation at his restaurant in Fitzrovia, it appeared in a little brown bag complete with its own date stamp.
I am always reluctant to share his bread basket with my fellow diners at Hide. It features five types of bread: pretzel epi, wild mushroom brioche, seeded sourdough, sweet potato focaccia and my favourite, the cute little round rye bread, which I grab before anyone else. Immediately I am transported from Piccadilly to Leningrad, but this time it’s me — and not mum — telling me off for eating too much bread.
Tatiana Fokina is chief executive of Hedonism Wines and co-founder of Hide restaurant
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