Since the dawn of time the bread It represented something much more than simple food for man.
The art of bread making accompanied the rise of the first civil societies, in step with the birth of agriculture and the first settled communities. Fruit of man’s hard work, benefited by the Divine with an abundance of crops, bread has always been a sacred and indispensable element on the table of all people.
The ancient Egyptians offered bread and cakes to their gods and when they buried a Pharaoh they brought abundant supplies of them to the tomb, a fundamental part of the rich trousseau, among wonders and treasures, so that the sovereign would never lack them even in the afterlife. Throughout the ancient world, bread was the symbolic food of hospitality.
Greeks and Romans welcomed guests and travellers by offering them bread, salt and oil, in compliance with the divine law that wanted hospitality to be sacred and inviolable. Bread was not missing even on the most famous table of all time, that of Christ and the Apostles at the Last Supper. In a ritual that became the very foundation of Christianity, our daily bread became part of the Divinity itself, offered in communion with men for the remission of their sins. A sacred and very important food, present in everyone’s home.
Wasting it is considered a sin, just as placing it upside down on the table is a bad omen. A meal without bread is not a real meal, the table without bread is incomplete, mutilated. In every self-respecting restaurant, bread and baked goods are brought to guests as soon as they sit down, even before ordering from the menu, in compliance with that sacred tradition of hospitality which is among the founding rules of our civilization.
In Italy, bread is usually included in the cover charge, an item often poorly tolerated in the final bill, especially by foreigners, which has its origins in the Middle Ages.
At that time, travellers and pilgrims could stop at the inns they found along the way and consume the food they brought with them. “to the covered“, sheltered under a roof, in exchange for a modest sum which sometimes, at the discretion of the innkeeper, also included a small loaf of bread. This is just a very brief mention of the thousand-year-old history of bread at the table, whether at home or in a restaurant. It therefore makes you smile thatyet another blunder from the influencer on duty on social media, where ignorance often reigns supreme.
According to a self-styled (but unfortunately very popular) expert in food (and conspiracies), the custom of bringing bread to the table is nothing more than a sneaky trick by restaurateurs, who would thus favor a sudden rise in blood sugar levels in order to increase the appetite of the unaware victims who would then find themselves ordering more to appease a deliberately induced hunger. It is true that those who are most “ignorant” are often those who talk the most nonsense.
I advise this influencer, if she fears being scammed, to stop going to restaurants and instead stay at home and read some books, which I believe could only benefit her.
In the meantime, bread will continue to be brought to every table, just as it has been for millennia.