on bread rolls and heidi
i haven't a clue if these bread rolls i've grown up with are an india-wide phenomenon or really only a home-wide phenomenon, but as a friend asked me to explain what they were the other day, i realized there was once a time when i'd think they were a worldwide phenomenon.
when i was 8 and reading heidi (the book my childhood loved above all others), i was clear as day that i wanted to be heidi in my next birth (this conviction lasted many years). i loved her home, the mountains that were her life, her grandfather, her peter, most of all her love and innocence towards life. i also loved the bread rolls that she loved when she went away to live with the family (names, places forgotten now). i didn't know what hers were like (and i suppose she wouldn't have known about mine), but i still retain my clear image of heidi eating these balls of potatoes wrapped and fried in slices of bread. i could never quite imagine why her bread rolls were white and fluffy (it is why she loved them best), because mine were reddish-brown and toasty. i remember asking someone (my mom or sister) for a clarification then, and being informed of this other kind of bread that existed in this other part of the world.
i haven't ever forgotten that story of the bread rolls. and each time i see something that conforms to the image heidi left behind in my head, i do indeed fill with fondness. it is that one thing that ties us together still, after all these years.
when i was 8 and reading heidi (the book my childhood loved above all others), i was clear as day that i wanted to be heidi in my next birth (this conviction lasted many years). i loved her home, the mountains that were her life, her grandfather, her peter, most of all her love and innocence towards life. i also loved the bread rolls that she loved when she went away to live with the family (names, places forgotten now). i didn't know what hers were like (and i suppose she wouldn't have known about mine), but i still retain my clear image of heidi eating these balls of potatoes wrapped and fried in slices of bread. i could never quite imagine why her bread rolls were white and fluffy (it is why she loved them best), because mine were reddish-brown and toasty. i remember asking someone (my mom or sister) for a clarification then, and being informed of this other kind of bread that existed in this other part of the world.
i haven't ever forgotten that story of the bread rolls. and each time i see something that conforms to the image heidi left behind in my head, i do indeed fill with fondness. it is that one thing that ties us together still, after all these years.
4 comments:
:) :)
heyyy! heidi was my favorite too! :) i also loved the idea of goat milk, goat cheese, melting butter or whatever, the place where heidi used to sleep (on a ha bed) and all that.
but i don't think it was our kind of bread rolls that were mentioned there. it was "soft white rolls". it was what clara's grandmother ate/gave or something of that sort, right? that had driven me so crazy for a while that i used to spread jam on my untoasted slices of bread, and actually "roll" them and eat them, imagining that they were "soft white rolls" (duh!). :D
gosh! heidi and beth from little women were my favortie characters from childhood reads :)...i especially loved the hay bed too :D
adu: :) :)
pv: i know it wasn't our kind of bread rolls, silly :). i mean, i know now :). i know what you mean about trying to make the rolls... i also used to see if that's what the rolls could be. and when the white bread we got was the softest, i'd think maybe it was like that... 'cos that's the image my sis and mom created for me!
aa: hey me too! i loved beth so much i cried for days after reading about her death!
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