What’s your earliest memory of something smelling good? I mean really good? Mine is the now long departed Colonial Bakery in Muncie, Indiana. We took a field trip there in early elementary school, but even driving by, the aroma of plain, soft white bread baking was intoxicating for a pudgy young boy like me! It ministered to my senses and my soul.
The Colonial smell has never been topped, but it has been challenged. As I’ve traveled and lived in various parts of the Muslim world, food in general and bread in particular, has been a consistent component of the joy a place and its people bring.
In northern Jordan, I discovered that fresh baked pita delights whether it holds shawarma or boiled eggs. During a summer in Izmir, Turkey, one of our breakfast chores involved a two minute walk to the local bakery where I traded 50 cents for a loaf so fresh it was nearly too hot to hold!
A short bike ride from our home in Holland, an immigrant bakery introduced me to the rest of the tasty corpus of Turkish bread.
Though I found it in Fresno and it’s at the edge of what many of us might call “bread,” Ethiopian Injera is wonderfully sour and spongy.
Chapatis baked on the inside wall of a tandoor in Pune, India cheered my team after a two hour train ride went pear-shaped and lasted until midnight!
High on the very long list of things that make Malaysia wonderful, Roti Canai is bread at another level and a favorite of my friends who love that land and people fiercely.
Since Jesus called himself the Bread of Life and Paul says his followers are the aroma of Christ, with bread on your mind, I have a two fold challenge today:
1. Bake one of the breads. Smell the smells and pray for the people. (I’m planning for this one. Feel free to join me.) Send me pics so I can pray with you!
2. Go buy one of the breads, smell the smells, share the bread and THE Bread with Muslims in a neighborhood nearby or city far away. (I’m dreaming of a roti spree in a downtown KL street market with the aforementioned!)