December 25, 2025 • 27 mins
This Christmas, Eva and Maite celebrate how bread—and the people who bake it—keep family, tradition, and community alive, even as this season looks different for many immigrant communities. They explore the bakery as a window into history, tracing the journeys of the baguette, pretzels, bagels, and pan dulce, and how immigrant communities shaped neighborhood bakeries in the U.S. Along the way, they reflect on the history of posadas, highlight bake sales as an expression of community, and uncover the roots of beloved bread idioms—from “putting bread on the table” to “breaking bread.”
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
My name is Evil Longoria and I am My de
Gomezraon and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that
explores our past and present through food.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So make yourself at home. Even well, it's Christmas time,
and I love this time of year. It's all about
cooking and spending time with family. It's also a time
where a lot of people can reflect on the past year,
and I think, you know, we need that right now
(00:40):
more than ever, a reflection.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
A lot has happened this past year, you know, especially
to our community. Oh I don't know why. I've just
got a little bit of a clemped. So yeah, for
a lot of us, it will hit harder during this time,
right because it's just it's a time of festivities and
it's just it's been it's been rough for our community.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
And I think one activity that's particularly important to chi
Gunnals is the pulsara. So we wanted to dig into
the history of the tradition a bit more for Y'alladas.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Like everything that we're talking about, it's this blending of
culture is coming together.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Oh my god, I really I got a little.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Oh it's okay, but yeah, it's a lot blending of sorts.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
It's a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So it's this Christmas tradition that blends Catholic ritual, indigenous celebration,
and community festivity. And this is a history that goes
back to the early colonial period. So before the arrival
of the Spanish, the Aztecs celebrated a festival in honor
of Zilopochli, who was the sun god and the god
(01:46):
of war, and during the winter solstice, which was mid December,
and so it lasted several days and included music and
processions and offerings, and all of these elements were later
woven into the posadas. And then in during the sixteenth century,
Spanish missionaries they wanted to replace these indigenous celebrations with
(02:09):
Christian ones. And in fifteen eighty six there was a friar,
fry Diego de Suria, who was a friar in near
Mexico City. He received permission to hold nine days of
mass from December sixteenth to December twenty fourth winter solstice,
and these nine days symbolized the nine months of Mary's
(02:31):
pregnancy that culminated on Christmas Eve with Jesus' birth, and
so to track these indigenous converts, missionaries added music and
fireworks and food and just making it really really fun,
making it likenk a celebration instead of just a solemn mass.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
The religious ceremony moved from the churches to the neighborhoods
and to the homes, and it became like this community
event that reenacts Mary and Joseph's you know, search for
lodging in Bethlehem. So it always includes a procession, you know,
where participants carry candles and images of Mary and Joseph.
They sing the traditional posada versus. There's call and response,
(03:11):
so those outside ask for shelter, those inside respond until
they're finally welcomed in. There's a pignata, of course, there's
a pignanda, of course, our shape. Of course, there are
star shaped with seven points representing the seven deadly sins
and breaking it symbolizes triumph over sins. And it has
candy or fruit like as the reward for faith and virtue,
(03:33):
and of course the food and the music. There's themales,
there's bunche bonelos, there's Christmas girls. It's it's just it's
celebrated across Mexico and Mexican communities, and it's just a
beautiful expression of Mexican culture and fusion. It's like the
Catholic liturgy meets indigenous community spirit.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It's all about this fusion. Right, did you grow up
with the posada? Are going to posadas?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
We were always in charge of making themalis for THEA
was like my aunt was a caterer, so she would
make like thousands of themalis and we would have to
like do the assembly line. You know.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
I love how we always talk about your aunt, Like
in every every season you've mentioned your aunt.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
She is amazing. This is the reason we do this
podcast is because she taught me everything I know about food.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
We've got more after the break, so don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Today we're talking about bread, bakeries and bonadi.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yes, but before we get into the history, let's talk
about some of the best bread related idioms. There's so many, Yes,
there's so many.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
One of my favorite is bread and butter. Like I
don't know that's that's your bread and butter. Be careful,
like what because that means main source of income?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, I are like breadwinner, the primary money maker in
the family is the bread winner.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Rolling in the dough to be very wealthy?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Are the greatest thing since sliced bread?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I say that one all the time. Do you really?
My most used idio in general was like, I really,
you guys, this meal is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The other day is a young person was like what
and then they go, oh, yeah, wasn't bread always sliced?
I'm like, no, no, and then they started slicing it.
So this is the greatest thing since that moment.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
It's revolutionary, revolutionary. Yeah, half a you know, a planet
is kind of half assed, isn't well really well thought out.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
But the one I love probably the most about bread
is breaking bread to share a meal? So where does
that expression come from? Because I love that one. It
has deep historical must have.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Religious roots, right it does. It does have religious roots,
and it's such a great one. And I figure, oh,
let's you know, we figure it's Christmas Day. Let's you know,
it's all about breaking bread bringing people together. But yeah,
like you said, it is. It has these deep historical
and religious roots. It symbolizes communal sharing and fellowship. It's
(06:10):
often associated with Christianity, but its origins actually traced back
to early Judaism, so an ancient Jewish tradition, breaking bread
was a ritual act that began with God instructing Moses
to break twelve loaves the Sabbath, and this act was
performed by hand because Jewish law prohibited the use of
knives on the Sabbath, and so additionally, the bread of
(06:33):
that time was harder than the self loaves were familiar
with today, and so breaking the bread, like literally breaking
the bread with your hands, was the only practical way
to share it among a group. And even today, like
on you know, Fridays, I know because my husband is
Jewish and it's like, oh Fridays. We wanted to start
(06:55):
doing it every Friday, and it was a Shabbat. But
it's like, I love the idea. You just stop and
you have a loaf of bread and just break it.
And it's just such a nice symbol.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You know. Even Jesus did it. Jesus broke broke bread
with his disciples during the Last Supper, symbolizing unity and
sharing of a meal, and it means engaging in a
communal fellowship. And so I really, I really like it
because today breaking bread is usually used when you share
a meal with others, emphasizing the importance of this community connection.
(07:30):
I love it. I do want to give a shout
out to Tony Shloum, who has a show on CNN
right now and it's called Breaking Bread and he goes
all over the world because bread is one of humanity's
oldest prepared foods, and bakeries are the places today that
keep that tradition alive. I'm fascinated with how universal bread.
(07:54):
It's prepared differently all over the world, but it is
all over the world.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And bakeries are more than just a shop. They connect
us to this oldest human food again, from all over
the world. They're like living museums of flour and fire.
They're really they're so meaningful of bread, and bakeries are
so meaningful.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, and they preserve techniques like sour dough fermentation, which
I still do today as everybody else on TikTok does,
or baking in stone or wood fired ovens. All of
these techniques and traditions really go back thousands of years
and bread really bread pre date civilization itself. So how
(08:41):
old are the earliest bakeries, Like, how old did they
how old is it when they got organized.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, So this idea of bread production is usually on
a larger scale than that of other foods, right, Like
it makes sense, like bread you could bake feed so
many people. So this bread product gave rise to its
early organization into a professional trade. And some of the
earliest depictions of bread baking appear in tombs in ancient
(09:10):
Egypt and the tombs of Sakara, showing workers grinding grain
and eating dough and baking in these conical clay ovens.
There are even like if you go to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York, there are these like
models that you could see them. You could see this
whole process of baking, and they're really kind of amazing.
(09:31):
So they were the first to produce bread on a
large scale at temples and palaces, and they even use
bread as currency, like workers involved and pyramid construction were
often paid in bread and beer. And then if you
fast forward a few centuries, the Greek writer Orchestratus around
the fifth century BC, he described bakeries in what is
(09:54):
now Turkey, and by one fifty BC, so just a
little over t and years ago, Rome, Ancient Rome, you know,
had its own baker's guilds, and there was this early
sign that bread making wasn't just a food, but it
was a profession. Like before the chef, there was the baker,
(10:16):
there was the bread baker.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Well, in the ancient Romans, they also developed commercial bakeries
that really probably closely resembled our modern day bakeries, and
they operated independently, they sold directly to the public, they
had a fixed location. So this Roman model of the
bakery really became the basis for bakeries across in Europe
and during the Middle Ages. You know, bread quality often
(10:42):
reflected class, right, so white bread was for the wealthy
and coarse rye or brand breads were for the poor.
And medieval bakers guilds in Europe about the twelfth century,
there were these independent organizations formed by bakers to protect
that trade and to regulate quality and to control competition
(11:02):
and kind of build this economic and social power within
their communities. Even the term bakers doesn't that comes from
medieval times, right.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
It comes from around this time, and it denotes a
cluster of thirteen items. So strict laws during the Middle Ages,
around the thirteenth century and in Europe, strict laws regulated
the price and weight of bread. And you just mentioned
it's like, oh, the bread for the wealthy was one
thing and the bread for the poor was different. And
(11:37):
so we start seeing these strict laws regulating the price
in wheat of bread, and so bakers who sold underweight
loaves could be fined, they could be publicly shamed or beaten.
To avoid punishment, baker started tossing in an extra loaf
when selling. It doesen't just in case one loaf came
(11:57):
in a little like I never knew BAERs doesn't meant
thirteen thirteen. But then obviously there was improvements in oven
design and grain milling, and that really changed how bread
and pastries were made. I mean the better ovens.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
That we were stronger and they had chimneys. They really
helped bakers control baking temperatures and the milling techniques producing
finer flowers.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
The Industrial Revolution they brought mechanization which allowed for mass
production of bread. Bread started shifting from this artisan product
to a factory made staple, especially in urban areas. And
this is when we start seeing the sliced bread in
eight bread slicer.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
So that was from America.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
From America, it was from the US This ventor named
Otto Frederick Waughweater. He sounds Dutcher German. I'm not sure,
but he built ires. He was from Iowa. He built
the first commercial bread slicing machine. He tested it out
at Corns Bakery in his hometown of Davenport, Iowa, and
(13:05):
by the end of that year, customers were hooked on
the convenience of pre sliced bread.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The following year, eighteen twenty nine, Slice to Bread was
spreading across the country, and then soon after the Continental
Baking Company was selling it nationwide under the Wonderbread.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Oh my gosh, what I love me some wonderbread.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
We have this slice spread in America. It's all about convenience,
and we have grocery stores and it's just all about convenience.
But at the same time we start seeing the bag
get in France, which is totally different.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So the baget it has a really interesting origin story.
We kind of explored this a bit in searching for France,
but there's a lot of different myths and things. It's
definitely been around. It wasn't named the baguette until you know,
around nineteen twenty, but you know, before the baguette shape
French bread was typically round and heavy. It was made
in large loafs. It was very central to the diet
(14:04):
of France. But one of the myths, or one of
the stories is they started making them thinner and longer
so that soldiers, Napoleon soldiers could carry it, whether it
was in their backpack or in their boot. And the
real story supposedly is that in the mid nineteenth century
(14:26):
August Zang, which was this Austrian baker, which by the way,
the croissant also comes from Austria. The original anyway, August Zang,
he was an Austrian baker in Paris. He introduced the
steam ovens and this allowed bakers to create breads with
like a light crisp crust, but they were soft an
area inside, and so these long breads began to appear,
(14:49):
and they weren't called bag get yet because the word
bag get which means wand or stick. It really first
appeared in the nineteen twenties because French law, which regulated
weight and price of the bread, it banned. They banned
bakers from working before four am. So because of these
restricted hours, bakers needed bread that could be made quickly,
(15:13):
and so the baguette's long, thin shaped shape helped the
dough rise and bake faster than the big traditional blows.
So that's how it became the baguette, which.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Is so interesting, which is the most delicious thing in
the world.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
And I mind them all the time. By the way,
I'm about to make a couple of meggots right now.
Oh my gosh, I mean, I made my bagette. We
did a whole petisserie episode on Sergeuvfrans and there's a
whole art and it's a it's a specific recipe. You
can't deviate from the recipe. And as a matter of fact,
in twenty twenty two, UNESCO inscribed the artisanal know how
(15:53):
and culture of the baguette on the list of Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity. So it just highlighted its role
in French life and community. And so it's this, you know,
the bag gets this modern invention that has come to
symbolize French culture and French identity. And it's one of
the few things because Europe in general is not to
(16:15):
go eating kind of society a culture you know that
you sit, you drink your coffee, you sit, you eat.
I don't know if you notice when you get get
like a proper to go coffee cup sometimes in Europe,
because they just like why would you walk with that?
Sit down? Enjoy same so same thing, Stop and enjoy
your food, like food is like to be enjoyed, not
(16:36):
to be eaten on the run. The bag get's the
only exception. You grab a bag get and you walk
and you tear it off and you can eat and
put some cheese. Or you buy a bagett and you
walk away and you go sit at the at the
seen in pairs or sit under a tree and eat it.
So that's the only like exception they do go that
you can eat on the go? Is it?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I love it? I'd love a good book. Yeah, and
I love that. It was this baker, this Austrian baker,
that introduced a steam oven, just like always, so let's
(17:18):
talk about these immigrant communities and baking in the US.
So there's this Austrian guy goes to France and brings
the steam oven. But then we also have these early
settlers immigrants in the US that introduced things like pretzels
and rye breads and all of these different kind of
(17:40):
foods like Dutch, German and English immigrants in urban centers
like Philaelphia and New York and Boston and Chicago, and
even in La. One of the earliest, or I believe
the first La bakery was called Vanda Kemp's Holland Dutch
Bakery in teen fifteen. They started out as a potato
(18:03):
chip stand selling Saratoga chips. Remember we talked about the
Saratoga chips in our Chips episode this So that was
like Saratoga, New York and Sarato Springs, New York, and
now here's La. They're selling Saratoga chips before they became
the modern potato chip and after a potato shortage in
(18:23):
during World War Two, they began selling whole grain breads.
And these whole grain breads were something so new in La.
And at their height they had three hundred and twenty
bakeries up and down the West coast. And these were
Dutch immigrants.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
So obviously there was Chinese immigrants in La. The Phoenix
Basia was founded in nineteen thirty in Chinatown by Fung
Chao and Wi Hing Chan. It's recognized as the oldest
family owned an operated Chinese bakery in the city. By
the nineteen forties, Lun f Cha, who studied baking in
(19:01):
Hong Kong, joined the family business as its head baker,
and in the nineteen seventies he developed the famed Phoenix cake,
which is this strawberry whipped cream cake. And they also
obviously offer traditional Chinese pastries like mooncakes and Alveun cookies,
chocolate d claires, bacla ba tres leches and when we
(19:23):
can't talk about La without talking about the Mexican immigrant
communities that brought with them deep traditions of bandulse, which
we've done an episode on before. But the Bolios, the
Pande Muerto, the Roscar Reez and early banalarias that opened
in Boil Heights East La Pico Union, they really became
(19:44):
community spaces. I think they still are, by the way,
because a lot of these these bakeries serve multiple generations
of immigrant families. And the oldest known Mexican bakery in
La is La Fama Panaleria, which was established in nineteen
twenty eight and it's and another one is La Mascota
(20:04):
Bakery and Boyle Heights, which has been there since nineteen
fifty two. I love what are you guys?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Do you have here? My favorite old school banaria it's
in Boyle Heights, Leita. I get my rosca is there
every year.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I make it.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
A couple of years, I've made it sometimes, but whenever
I buy it, I go there and the line is
out the door and it's the best. It's the best.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
It's so funny because like the Austrian went to Paris,
and then the Chinese and Dutch came to us, and
then Mexicans came to La But even in Mexico we
had immigrants that made our bakeries amazing, and so wheat
was introduced post conquest, and by the seventeenth century Mexican
(20:52):
started doing pastries because French bakers began migrating to Mexico
and opening bakeries and under Mexico's French occupation in nineteenth century,
people forget Mexico was under French occupation for like two seconds,
but the country was inundated with bakeries because that ruler,
the colonizer, brought so many French bakers with him. And
(21:15):
that's how we got bandulse, That's how we got ponchas,
That's how we got grief, that's how we got molios.
Like it just became so popular. So most bakeries were
Spanish or French owned, but ninety percent of the bakers
themselves were native artisans who developed these you know, unique
techniques for pastries based on the European trends, and so
(21:38):
we have more of that in our Bondulse episode. But
I always find it so fascinating and people go, I
love Bandulsa from Mexico. I'm like, well, super influenced by
the French.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, but it also just shows how everybody's influenced by
everybody else. Right. It's it's so rich and everything, and
it makes it better, the food, It makes it better,
and it makes it better, everything better, it really does.
It's all about community. Brett is about community. So I
thought we can't. We should talk about the bake sales
(22:09):
because the community, oh my, to have bake sales, yes, yes,
and it has this rich, rich, rich history. So in
the US they originally in the nineteenth century organized by
church groups and women's groups and temperance society. We talked
about this whole idea when we did our cookbook like This,
(22:30):
when we talked about community cookbooks and how women who
were forced to be in the home, they were you know,
raising writing cookbooks to raise funds. They were making big
good to raise funds for gools, for bake sales.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I grew up on these sales. I remember we were like,
the school needs a new computer. We were like, shall
we have a bake sale? Like that was the big idea.
That's the schools, the church's swimming pool broke. Should we
do a bake sale? Like it was the solution to all.
And it was like yes, and you know, we all
had to bake something and take it to church. I
(23:06):
grew up in bake sales.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, me too, me too. And it's just it's I
don't know, it's just kind of the best solution, you know,
because it's love basically. Yah, you make some muffins, you
make some cookies, you make some bread. It's just here love,
this is me, my heart.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
During World War One and World War Two, bake sales
became vital for war relief efforts. So even though like
for me, I think if it is something really small
and cute and like, oh, we can raise a little money,
you know, these war relief efforts which demonstrated how domestic
labor could contribute to national and community needs, and over
(23:45):
time they became staples of community life. And a modern
example in rural Mexico is the San Antonio in Giappas,
where a group of women built a communal oven to
produce bread to generate income for their families. And so,
I you know, here in La we have Homeboy Industries
(24:08):
and oh yeah, do bake goods for kids for people
that were incarcerated. And it's one of the few places
that will hire a former fell in and h father
father Boyle created this idea to reinvest in these kids
who may have made a mistake. And they sell all
(24:28):
kinds of baked goods. It's beautiful. They make bread, they
make sour no, they make cakes. I mean it's everything.
I love Homeboy Industries bake goods.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
There's also you know, lots of different examples of of
of people of baking, of bake sales as platforms for
these you know, political expressions and social justice. So of
course there's Homeboy Industries. There's Gather for Good which is
also in La, a group of bakers and chefs. They
(25:00):
make pies and cookies to sell funds for various causes,
including Peace for Kids, which supports foster youth. There's Bakers
Against Racism that was initiated in twenty twenty a group
of chefs including Paul la Veles, who's a pastry chef
and activist, that was initiated in response to the George
Floyd murder, and it began as a single event, expanded
(25:25):
into this global movement raising funds for organizations supporting racial
justice and equality, and from their website, they are unofficially
the world's largest bake sale, raising over two point five
million dollars for social causes worldwide. Wow Justice Causes Worldwide.
(25:47):
There's also Planned Parenthood Bakesdale that started in twenty sixteen
following the presidential elections. Pastry chef Natasha Picowitz organizer bakesale
in New York City to support Plan Parenthood and since
then they have raised over two hundred and twenty five thousand,
inspiring similar initiatives nationwide. So it's kind of it's sort
(26:11):
of amazing that this bake sale could be something just
so small and heartfelt to something really big in a
symbol of grassroots activism, but community spirit at its core.
Community spirit.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
We have got a great episode planned for next week's
New Year's Day. We're tackling the Bloody Mary and the
most iconic hair of the Dogs.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Thank you all for joining us today. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays,
and see you all next week.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Bye, see next week. Thanks Hungary for History is a
Hyphene media production in partnership with Iheart's Michael Bura podcast network.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Benepment, the
wo
My name is Evil Longoria and I am My de
Gomezraon and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that
explores our past and present through food.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So make yourself at home. Even well, it's Christmas time,
and I love this time of year. It's all about
cooking and spending time with family. It's also a time
where a lot of people can reflect on the past year,
and I think, you know, we need that right now
(00:40):
more than ever, a reflection.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
A lot has happened this past year, you know, especially
to our community. Oh I don't know why. I've just
got a little bit of a clemped. So yeah, for
a lot of us, it will hit harder during this time,
right because it's just it's a time of festivities and
it's just it's been it's been rough for our community.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
And I think one activity that's particularly important to chi
Gunnals is the pulsara. So we wanted to dig into
the history of the tradition a bit more for Y'alladas.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Like everything that we're talking about, it's this blending of
culture is coming together.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Oh my god, I really I got a little.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Oh it's okay, but yeah, it's a lot blending of sorts.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
It's a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So it's this Christmas tradition that blends Catholic ritual, indigenous celebration,
and community festivity. And this is a history that goes
back to the early colonial period. So before the arrival
of the Spanish, the Aztecs celebrated a festival in honor
of Zilopochli, who was the sun god and the god
(01:46):
of war, and during the winter solstice, which was mid December,
and so it lasted several days and included music and
processions and offerings, and all of these elements were later
woven into the posadas. And then in during the sixteenth century,
Spanish missionaries they wanted to replace these indigenous celebrations with
(02:09):
Christian ones. And in fifteen eighty six there was a friar,
fry Diego de Suria, who was a friar in near
Mexico City. He received permission to hold nine days of
mass from December sixteenth to December twenty fourth winter solstice,
and these nine days symbolized the nine months of Mary's
(02:31):
pregnancy that culminated on Christmas Eve with Jesus' birth, and
so to track these indigenous converts, missionaries added music and
fireworks and food and just making it really really fun,
making it likenk a celebration instead of just a solemn mass.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
The religious ceremony moved from the churches to the neighborhoods
and to the homes, and it became like this community
event that reenacts Mary and Joseph's you know, search for
lodging in Bethlehem. So it always includes a procession, you know,
where participants carry candles and images of Mary and Joseph.
They sing the traditional posada versus. There's call and response,
(03:11):
so those outside ask for shelter, those inside respond until
they're finally welcomed in. There's a pignata, of course, there's
a pignanda, of course, our shape. Of course, there are
star shaped with seven points representing the seven deadly sins
and breaking it symbolizes triumph over sins. And it has
candy or fruit like as the reward for faith and virtue,
(03:33):
and of course the food and the music. There's themales,
there's bunche bonelos, there's Christmas girls. It's it's just it's
celebrated across Mexico and Mexican communities, and it's just a
beautiful expression of Mexican culture and fusion. It's like the
Catholic liturgy meets indigenous community spirit.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It's all about this fusion. Right, did you grow up
with the posada? Are going to posadas?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
We were always in charge of making themalis for THEA
was like my aunt was a caterer, so she would
make like thousands of themalis and we would have to
like do the assembly line. You know.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
I love how we always talk about your aunt, Like
in every every season you've mentioned your aunt.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
She is amazing. This is the reason we do this
podcast is because she taught me everything I know about food.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
We've got more after the break, so don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Today we're talking about bread, bakeries and bonadi.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yes, but before we get into the history, let's talk
about some of the best bread related idioms. There's so many, Yes,
there's so many.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
One of my favorite is bread and butter. Like I
don't know that's that's your bread and butter. Be careful,
like what because that means main source of income?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, I are like breadwinner, the primary money maker in
the family is the bread winner.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Rolling in the dough to be very wealthy?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Are the greatest thing since sliced bread?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I say that one all the time. Do you really?
My most used idio in general was like, I really,
you guys, this meal is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The other day is a young person was like what
and then they go, oh, yeah, wasn't bread always sliced?
I'm like, no, no, and then they started slicing it.
So this is the greatest thing since that moment.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
It's revolutionary, revolutionary. Yeah, half a you know, a planet
is kind of half assed, isn't well really well thought out.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
But the one I love probably the most about bread
is breaking bread to share a meal? So where does
that expression come from? Because I love that one. It
has deep historical must have.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Religious roots, right it does. It does have religious roots,
and it's such a great one. And I figure, oh,
let's you know, we figure it's Christmas Day. Let's you know,
it's all about breaking bread bringing people together. But yeah,
like you said, it is. It has these deep historical
and religious roots. It symbolizes communal sharing and fellowship. It's
(06:10):
often associated with Christianity, but its origins actually traced back
to early Judaism, so an ancient Jewish tradition, breaking bread
was a ritual act that began with God instructing Moses
to break twelve loaves the Sabbath, and this act was
performed by hand because Jewish law prohibited the use of
knives on the Sabbath, and so additionally, the bread of
(06:33):
that time was harder than the self loaves were familiar
with today, and so breaking the bread, like literally breaking
the bread with your hands, was the only practical way
to share it among a group. And even today, like
on you know, Fridays, I know because my husband is
Jewish and it's like, oh Fridays. We wanted to start
(06:55):
doing it every Friday, and it was a Shabbat. But
it's like, I love the idea. You just stop and
you have a loaf of bread and just break it.
And it's just such a nice symbol.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You know. Even Jesus did it. Jesus broke broke bread
with his disciples during the Last Supper, symbolizing unity and
sharing of a meal, and it means engaging in a
communal fellowship. And so I really, I really like it
because today breaking bread is usually used when you share
a meal with others, emphasizing the importance of this community connection.
(07:30):
I love it. I do want to give a shout
out to Tony Shloum, who has a show on CNN
right now and it's called Breaking Bread and he goes
all over the world because bread is one of humanity's
oldest prepared foods, and bakeries are the places today that
keep that tradition alive. I'm fascinated with how universal bread.
(07:54):
It's prepared differently all over the world, but it is
all over the world.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And bakeries are more than just a shop. They connect
us to this oldest human food again, from all over
the world. They're like living museums of flour and fire.
They're really they're so meaningful of bread, and bakeries are
so meaningful.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, and they preserve techniques like sour dough fermentation, which
I still do today as everybody else on TikTok does,
or baking in stone or wood fired ovens. All of
these techniques and traditions really go back thousands of years
and bread really bread pre date civilization itself. So how
(08:41):
old are the earliest bakeries, Like, how old did they
how old is it when they got organized.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, So this idea of bread production is usually on
a larger scale than that of other foods, right, Like
it makes sense, like bread you could bake feed so
many people. So this bread product gave rise to its
early organization into a professional trade. And some of the
earliest depictions of bread baking appear in tombs in ancient
(09:10):
Egypt and the tombs of Sakara, showing workers grinding grain
and eating dough and baking in these conical clay ovens.
There are even like if you go to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York, there are these like
models that you could see them. You could see this
whole process of baking, and they're really kind of amazing.
(09:31):
So they were the first to produce bread on a
large scale at temples and palaces, and they even use
bread as currency, like workers involved and pyramid construction were
often paid in bread and beer. And then if you
fast forward a few centuries, the Greek writer Orchestratus around
the fifth century BC, he described bakeries in what is
(09:54):
now Turkey, and by one fifty BC, so just a
little over t and years ago, Rome, Ancient Rome, you know,
had its own baker's guilds, and there was this early
sign that bread making wasn't just a food, but it
was a profession. Like before the chef, there was the baker,
(10:16):
there was the bread baker.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Well, in the ancient Romans, they also developed commercial bakeries
that really probably closely resembled our modern day bakeries, and
they operated independently, they sold directly to the public, they
had a fixed location. So this Roman model of the
bakery really became the basis for bakeries across in Europe
and during the Middle Ages. You know, bread quality often
(10:42):
reflected class, right, so white bread was for the wealthy
and coarse rye or brand breads were for the poor.
And medieval bakers guilds in Europe about the twelfth century,
there were these independent organizations formed by bakers to protect
that trade and to regulate quality and to control competition
(11:02):
and kind of build this economic and social power within
their communities. Even the term bakers doesn't that comes from
medieval times, right.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
It comes from around this time, and it denotes a
cluster of thirteen items. So strict laws during the Middle Ages,
around the thirteenth century and in Europe, strict laws regulated
the price and weight of bread. And you just mentioned
it's like, oh, the bread for the wealthy was one
thing and the bread for the poor was different. And
(11:37):
so we start seeing these strict laws regulating the price
in wheat of bread, and so bakers who sold underweight
loaves could be fined, they could be publicly shamed or beaten.
To avoid punishment, baker started tossing in an extra loaf
when selling. It doesen't just in case one loaf came
(11:57):
in a little like I never knew BAERs doesn't meant
thirteen thirteen. But then obviously there was improvements in oven
design and grain milling, and that really changed how bread
and pastries were made. I mean the better ovens.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
That we were stronger and they had chimneys. They really
helped bakers control baking temperatures and the milling techniques producing
finer flowers.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
The Industrial Revolution they brought mechanization which allowed for mass
production of bread. Bread started shifting from this artisan product
to a factory made staple, especially in urban areas. And
this is when we start seeing the sliced bread in
eight bread slicer.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
So that was from America.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
From America, it was from the US This ventor named
Otto Frederick Waughweater. He sounds Dutcher German. I'm not sure,
but he built ires. He was from Iowa. He built
the first commercial bread slicing machine. He tested it out
at Corns Bakery in his hometown of Davenport, Iowa, and
(13:05):
by the end of that year, customers were hooked on
the convenience of pre sliced bread.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The following year, eighteen twenty nine, Slice to Bread was
spreading across the country, and then soon after the Continental
Baking Company was selling it nationwide under the Wonderbread.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Oh my gosh, what I love me some wonderbread.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
We have this slice spread in America. It's all about convenience,
and we have grocery stores and it's just all about convenience.
But at the same time we start seeing the bag
get in France, which is totally different.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So the baget it has a really interesting origin story.
We kind of explored this a bit in searching for France,
but there's a lot of different myths and things. It's
definitely been around. It wasn't named the baguette until you know,
around nineteen twenty, but you know, before the baguette shape
French bread was typically round and heavy. It was made
in large loafs. It was very central to the diet
(14:04):
of France. But one of the myths, or one of
the stories is they started making them thinner and longer
so that soldiers, Napoleon soldiers could carry it, whether it
was in their backpack or in their boot. And the
real story supposedly is that in the mid nineteenth century
(14:26):
August Zang, which was this Austrian baker, which by the way,
the croissant also comes from Austria. The original anyway, August Zang,
he was an Austrian baker in Paris. He introduced the
steam ovens and this allowed bakers to create breads with
like a light crisp crust, but they were soft an
area inside, and so these long breads began to appear,
(14:49):
and they weren't called bag get yet because the word
bag get which means wand or stick. It really first
appeared in the nineteen twenties because French law, which regulated
weight and price of the bread, it banned. They banned
bakers from working before four am. So because of these
restricted hours, bakers needed bread that could be made quickly,
(15:13):
and so the baguette's long, thin shaped shape helped the
dough rise and bake faster than the big traditional blows.
So that's how it became the baguette, which.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Is so interesting, which is the most delicious thing in
the world.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
And I mind them all the time. By the way,
I'm about to make a couple of meggots right now.
Oh my gosh, I mean, I made my bagette. We
did a whole petisserie episode on Sergeuvfrans and there's a
whole art and it's a it's a specific recipe. You
can't deviate from the recipe. And as a matter of fact,
in twenty twenty two, UNESCO inscribed the artisanal know how
(15:53):
and culture of the baguette on the list of Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity. So it just highlighted its role
in French life and community. And so it's this, you know,
the bag gets this modern invention that has come to
symbolize French culture and French identity. And it's one of
the few things because Europe in general is not to
(16:15):
go eating kind of society a culture you know that
you sit, you drink your coffee, you sit, you eat.
I don't know if you notice when you get get
like a proper to go coffee cup sometimes in Europe,
because they just like why would you walk with that?
Sit down? Enjoy same so same thing, Stop and enjoy
your food, like food is like to be enjoyed, not
(16:36):
to be eaten on the run. The bag get's the
only exception. You grab a bag get and you walk
and you tear it off and you can eat and
put some cheese. Or you buy a bagett and you
walk away and you go sit at the at the
seen in pairs or sit under a tree and eat it.
So that's the only like exception they do go that
you can eat on the go? Is it?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I love it? I'd love a good book. Yeah, and
I love that. It was this baker, this Austrian baker,
that introduced a steam oven, just like always, so let's
(17:18):
talk about these immigrant communities and baking in the US.
So there's this Austrian guy goes to France and brings
the steam oven. But then we also have these early
settlers immigrants in the US that introduced things like pretzels
and rye breads and all of these different kind of
(17:40):
foods like Dutch, German and English immigrants in urban centers
like Philaelphia and New York and Boston and Chicago, and
even in La. One of the earliest, or I believe
the first La bakery was called Vanda Kemp's Holland Dutch
Bakery in teen fifteen. They started out as a potato
(18:03):
chip stand selling Saratoga chips. Remember we talked about the
Saratoga chips in our Chips episode this So that was
like Saratoga, New York and Sarato Springs, New York, and
now here's La. They're selling Saratoga chips before they became
the modern potato chip and after a potato shortage in
(18:23):
during World War Two, they began selling whole grain breads.
And these whole grain breads were something so new in La.
And at their height they had three hundred and twenty
bakeries up and down the West coast. And these were
Dutch immigrants.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
So obviously there was Chinese immigrants in La. The Phoenix
Basia was founded in nineteen thirty in Chinatown by Fung
Chao and Wi Hing Chan. It's recognized as the oldest
family owned an operated Chinese bakery in the city. By
the nineteen forties, Lun f Cha, who studied baking in
(19:01):
Hong Kong, joined the family business as its head baker,
and in the nineteen seventies he developed the famed Phoenix cake,
which is this strawberry whipped cream cake. And they also
obviously offer traditional Chinese pastries like mooncakes and Alveun cookies,
chocolate d claires, bacla ba tres leches and when we
(19:23):
can't talk about La without talking about the Mexican immigrant
communities that brought with them deep traditions of bandulse, which
we've done an episode on before. But the Bolios, the
Pande Muerto, the Roscar Reez and early banalarias that opened
in Boil Heights East La Pico Union, they really became
(19:44):
community spaces. I think they still are, by the way,
because a lot of these these bakeries serve multiple generations
of immigrant families. And the oldest known Mexican bakery in
La is La Fama Panaleria, which was established in nineteen
twenty eight and it's and another one is La Mascota
(20:04):
Bakery and Boyle Heights, which has been there since nineteen
fifty two. I love what are you guys?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Do you have here? My favorite old school banaria it's
in Boyle Heights, Leita. I get my rosca is there
every year.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
I make it.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
A couple of years, I've made it sometimes, but whenever
I buy it, I go there and the line is
out the door and it's the best. It's the best.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
It's so funny because like the Austrian went to Paris,
and then the Chinese and Dutch came to us, and
then Mexicans came to La But even in Mexico we
had immigrants that made our bakeries amazing, and so wheat
was introduced post conquest, and by the seventeenth century Mexican
(20:52):
started doing pastries because French bakers began migrating to Mexico
and opening bakeries and under Mexico's French occupation in nineteenth century,
people forget Mexico was under French occupation for like two seconds,
but the country was inundated with bakeries because that ruler,
the colonizer, brought so many French bakers with him. And
(21:15):
that's how we got bandulse, That's how we got ponchas,
That's how we got grief, that's how we got molios.
Like it just became so popular. So most bakeries were
Spanish or French owned, but ninety percent of the bakers
themselves were native artisans who developed these you know, unique
techniques for pastries based on the European trends, and so
(21:38):
we have more of that in our Bondulse episode. But
I always find it so fascinating and people go, I
love Bandulsa from Mexico. I'm like, well, super influenced by
the French.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, but it also just shows how everybody's influenced by
everybody else. Right. It's it's so rich and everything, and
it makes it better, the food, It makes it better,
and it makes it better, everything better, it really does.
It's all about community. Brett is about community. So I
thought we can't. We should talk about the bake sales
(22:09):
because the community, oh my, to have bake sales, yes, yes,
and it has this rich, rich, rich history. So in
the US they originally in the nineteenth century organized by
church groups and women's groups and temperance society. We talked
about this whole idea when we did our cookbook like This,
(22:30):
when we talked about community cookbooks and how women who
were forced to be in the home, they were you know,
raising writing cookbooks to raise funds. They were making big
good to raise funds for gools, for bake sales.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I grew up on these sales. I remember we were like,
the school needs a new computer. We were like, shall
we have a bake sale? Like that was the big idea.
That's the schools, the church's swimming pool broke. Should we
do a bake sale? Like it was the solution to all.
And it was like yes, and you know, we all
had to bake something and take it to church. I
(23:06):
grew up in bake sales.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, me too, me too. And it's just it's I
don't know, it's just kind of the best solution, you know,
because it's love basically. Yah, you make some muffins, you
make some cookies, you make some bread. It's just here love,
this is me, my heart.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
During World War One and World War Two, bake sales
became vital for war relief efforts. So even though like
for me, I think if it is something really small
and cute and like, oh, we can raise a little money,
you know, these war relief efforts which demonstrated how domestic
labor could contribute to national and community needs, and over
(23:45):
time they became staples of community life. And a modern
example in rural Mexico is the San Antonio in Giappas,
where a group of women built a communal oven to
produce bread to generate income for their families. And so,
I you know, here in La we have Homeboy Industries
(24:08):
and oh yeah, do bake goods for kids for people
that were incarcerated. And it's one of the few places
that will hire a former fell in and h father
father Boyle created this idea to reinvest in these kids
who may have made a mistake. And they sell all
(24:28):
kinds of baked goods. It's beautiful. They make bread, they
make sour no, they make cakes. I mean it's everything.
I love Homeboy Industries bake goods.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
There's also you know, lots of different examples of of
of people of baking, of bake sales as platforms for
these you know, political expressions and social justice. So of
course there's Homeboy Industries. There's Gather for Good which is
also in La, a group of bakers and chefs. They
(25:00):
make pies and cookies to sell funds for various causes,
including Peace for Kids, which supports foster youth. There's Bakers
Against Racism that was initiated in twenty twenty a group
of chefs including Paul la Veles, who's a pastry chef
and activist, that was initiated in response to the George
Floyd murder, and it began as a single event, expanded
(25:25):
into this global movement raising funds for organizations supporting racial
justice and equality, and from their website, they are unofficially
the world's largest bake sale, raising over two point five
million dollars for social causes worldwide. Wow Justice Causes Worldwide.
(25:47):
There's also Planned Parenthood Bakesdale that started in twenty sixteen
following the presidential elections. Pastry chef Natasha Picowitz organizer bakesale
in New York City to support Plan Parenthood and since
then they have raised over two hundred and twenty five thousand,
inspiring similar initiatives nationwide. So it's kind of it's sort
(26:11):
of amazing that this bake sale could be something just
so small and heartfelt to something really big in a
symbol of grassroots activism, but community spirit at its core.
Community spirit.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
We have got a great episode planned for next week's
New Year's Day. We're tackling the Bloody Mary and the
most iconic hair of the Dogs.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Thank you all for joining us today. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays,
and see you all next week.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Bye, see next week. Thanks Hungary for History is a
Hyphene media production in partnership with Iheart's Michael Bura podcast network.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Benepment, the
wo
Hosts And Creators
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