Blessed are the breadmakers

Now that the youngest member of the house has reached an age where her diet more resembles an adult's than a baby's and has acquired a fondness for cheese on toast, bread has entered our home. One of my greatest weaknesses is bread and butter. Not foie gras, truffles or caviar, you ask? Well, I can take or leave the gourmet delicacies you may find in a fine restaurant but without bread and butter I will die.

We have previously had a ban on all baked goods and I must say, after an initial period of withdrawal and secret feasts in lunch spots, it took some getting used to. But we came through it and managed to eat very little bread. Sadly, however, its great for the wee ones and, they get the best of butter and full fat milk too would you believe. So, with the sorrow of one defeated and back on the crack, I buy nice wholemeal bread, the Kerrygold and cream, full-fat milk and blocks of cheese, (Emmenthal is a hit) all being devoured by the parents like prisoners released.

The best bread in the world is French. You can buy poor bread in France too, of course but overall the consistency of quality bread throughout the land is one of the main reasons we travel there. The quantity consumed by the French would lead you to believe along with wine and cheese that it's the heart attack capital of the world but no, not at all, hence The French Paradox. (I'll leave you to google that one).

I have thought about my lust for flour and dairy and conclude that my descent from the peasant population has left its indelible agricultural mark on my appetite. For example, I can not eat white soda bread without thinking of my grandmother in her country cottage up to her elbows in flour, measuring everything by sight, mixing with one hand and the loaf appearing from the range, its own warmth melting the hard cold butter. White soda bread (it must be white) paved with butter and blackberry jam from the briars in the fields is part of our national heritage as much as your georgian houses or Pearse himself.