“Breaking bread together is life changing. The most humble of all food, bread brings life and allows others to share life together,” says master baker Joshua Westover, founder of Atlanta’s Bake-N-Jam, a family-run Atlanta bakery that specializes in handmade artisan breads, jams, and sweets. “Radical hospitality is the welcoming of all to the table to share a meal and the lives that each other bring.”
“Bread gives us the opportunity for life. Without bread, civilization wouldn’t exist. Bread in any form is life. It provides connection to the earth, and to each other,” Westover maintains. In fact, bread has been an integral part of community as far back as the first civilization. The Food Timeline states, “The history of bread and cake starts with Neolithic cooks and marches through time according to ingredient availability, advances in technology, economic conditions, socio-cultural influences, legal rights (Medieval guilds), and evolving taste. The earliest breads were unleavened. Variations in grain, thickness, shape, and texture varied from culture to culture.”
Raised in an Ohio Mennonite community, breaking bread together was rooted in cultural tradition. “Memory is found in cookbooks, as well as an expression of faith and a desire to share meals. My grandmother would share recipes with friends and neighbors all the time, and in turn would receive recipes from others,” he recalls. “My grandparents’ home almost always smelled like fresh bread, as well as other foods cooking. Zwieback, a Russian Mennonite roll or yeast bread, was most popular in my family.” ...Read more at Michelle Writes