Appalachian Word of the Week -- LIGHT BREAD

I can smell it now. Warm LIGHT BREAD, fresh out of the oven. Nothing like it.

Growing up in southeastern Kentucky, we didn't have any of those fancy kinds of bread you can get from the bakery or grocery store now. We only had LIGHT BREAD. Most people refer to it as white bread, but we called it LIGHT BREAD.

The LIGHT BREAD of choice in our family was Bunny Bread.

The Bible says we can't live by bread alone, so we found all kinds of things to put on our LIGHT BREAD.

For breakfast, I loved eating cinnamon toast. It was made by putting chunks of butter in the corners and one in the center, sprinkling sugar on the entire slice, and then topping it with cinnamon. Mom put the slices on a baking sheet and stuck it in the oven until the butter melted and the edges turned golden brown. Yum. Sometimes, she substituted brown sugar for the white sugar. The brown sugar became crunchy as it melted on the toast. Either way, it was a great way to start my day.

LIGHT BREAD played a major role in my lunch menu for the first several years of my school life. I either packed a fried baloney sandwich with mustard or a peanut butter and banana sandwich into my little brown poke or metal lunch box. During the warmer months, without any air conditioning in the school, my sandwich warmed up as it waited in the back of the room. When I opened the lid, the aroma of warmed banana and peanut butter, wrapped in LIGHT BREAD, overwhelmed my senses. I breathed it in long and hard before I devoured it.

Fresh-baked LIGHT BREAD

Nothing topped our visits to the bakery, though. We were blessed to have a bread factory near our house. Sometimes, on Dad's day off, he gathered us all into the car and took us to the bakery in Baxter, Kentucky. Daddy took me inside with him while Mom sat in the car, holding a stick of butter.

We watched the bread make its way from the oven, down a conveyer belt, to where we waited. A worker dressed in white grabbed a loaf of still-unsliced and piping hot bread as it passed and slipped it into a paper poke. Daddy paid his twenty-five cents and handed the hot LIGHT BREAD to me.

Back in the car, Mom ripped the bread open and put the butter inside. As it melted, she tore off chunks and passed them around. We sat there in the parking lot and devoured the entire loaf. Ah! Nothing like it.

LIGHT BREAD, the staple of our diet

LIGHT BREAD filled many roles in our diet. Daddy mixed up honey and butter and slathered it on his LIGHT BREAD. He also used it to dunk in his glass of buttermilk. Toasted was preferred for homemade apple butter and jams and jellies.

In summer, we made 'mater sammiches (tomato sandwiches) with mayo. Meat was not necessary. When we had hot dogs, though, LIGHT BREAD became our bun.

Hot out of the oven, out of the bag, or toasted, LIGHT BREAD served as a staple for our diet. Too bad we are encouraged to avoid bread these days. Especially LIGHT BREAD. Sad, too, that we should now miss out on the pleasure and joy from having it in our daily lives.

Did you call it LIGHT BREAD? Do you still choose LIGHT BREAD over the "healthier" varieties available today? Do you eat bread at all?

I'd love to hear your stories.