Praying for the Bread of Heaven

There is a temptation to butter things up about my current state of dietary affairs, but to hell with that. It has now been nearly two months since it was taken from me, and with another 30 days still to go, I am beginning to doubt my perseverance, stamina and persistence when it comes to surviving without the blessing of a daily piece of bread.

Here’s the story: a simple blood test, a medical consultation, and the cool, authoritative voice of science decreed that, as far as my eating habits are concerned, I should for three months avoid anything containing flour and starch. What began two months ago as an adjusted lifestyle, embraced with bright-eyed enthusiasm and a rather admirable sense of self-discipline, has gradually given way to an irritable hollowness, the jarred, jagged emotions stirred by that quietly gnawing realisation that something in life is missing. Self-diagnosis, assisted by a cursory trawl through a few psychological tomes, has concluded that the world shall all be well again if I could simply get my hands on a piece of warm, crusty, bread.

This craving for something that, prior to that wretched medical diagnosis, was considered entirely ordinary, is taking on rather alarming forms. First, there are the physical symptoms, none of which the medical consultant had the decency to warn me about when proposing this (temporary) breadless existence.

Take two weekends ago, for instance. I find myself in the winged temple of baking that is Knysna’s Île de Pain, in search of a takeaway coffee. With commendable self-restraint, I sidestepped the colourful tarts, biscuits, and chocolate éclairs parading along the counter. But just as my coffee was set down, a staff member deposited an armful of long, slender French loaves – fresh from the oven – onto a nearby shelf. That warm, enveloping aroma of bread, that promise of comfort and fulfilment, coupled with the sight of those golden-brown, crackling baguette crusts, sent my heart into such an unseemly gallop that my coffee hand began to tremble. I even had to decline, with what dignity I could muster, the waiter’s kindly suggestion that I might prefer to sit down somewhere.

Then there are the public displays of tears that afflict the bread-deprived. At a business breakfast, a female banker sits opposite me, slowly and deliberately spreading fresh butter the colour of sunflowers onto a thick slice of sourdough. The craving, combined with memories of my mother’s daily bread-baking and my grandmother’s heroic churning of butter, caused my eyes to well up so profusely that my contact lenses very nearly slipped into my bowl of low-fat yoghurt.

Yet it is the emotional damage of a breadless life that cuts the deepest.

There are nightmares. Such as the one in which two slices of toast, lavishly spread with butter and Bovril and crowned with slices of perfectly ripe orange Cheddar, are placed before you. Just as you reach out to claim that first, soothing bite, the sandwich transforms into a large, cold, green stick of celery. It is harrowing. You wake in a cold sweat, awash with anxiety and grief.

Then there is the dream of the physician who started it all, calmly informing you that the latest report indicates that the three breadless months must, regrettably, now be extended to at least two years. But in this dream, you do not even wake.

Cast your bread upon the waters if you must, doctor: Come day thirty, I shall be piling mine high again, and with feeling and with relish.