The phrase “bread and circuses” is defined on the website dictionary. com as “something, as extravagant entertainment, offered as an expedient means of pacifying discontent or diverting attention from a source of grievance.” The phrase is derived from the Latin, panem et circenses, which is found in a paragraph in Satire 10 of the Roman poet’s Juvenal’s Satires. Juvenal was making a comment on how the Romans then (early 2nd century- ish) didn’t care for political involvement, and instead only cared about entertainment and cheap food and drink.

I could attempt to write a big doctoral thesis as to why this phrase aptly fits our modern world today, but unfortunately I’m typing this column at such a late hour and my eyelids are threatening to betray me so I’ll just pivot to talking about bread as a concept before I fall asleep.

My favorite type of bread of all time is pandebono, which is a kind of Colombian cheese bread traditionally eaten around Christmas, which is probably why I like it so much. I also enjoy Cuban bread (though it can be a bit messy), croissants, and pita bread.

I polled my coworkers and sourdough was the favorite between the both of them, which makes sense because sourdough bread is such a classic; five years ago, in the midst of the COVID-19 lockdowns I kept making sourdough bread in my parents’ home as an excuse to ignore my usual college responsibilities like studying for an ecology exam (in my defense, it was only an elective and I still got a B). One of the very few positives of such a calamitous period of time was how so many folks discovered a love of baking.

Here’s a poem about bread to cap off this column.

Readers: what’s your favorite type of bread to eat and/or bake?

Bread, Richard Levine 

Each night, in a space he’d make between waking and purpose, my grandfather donned his one suit, in our still dark house, and drove through Brooklyn’s deserted streets following trolley tracks to the bakery.

There he’d change into white linen work clothes and cap, and in the absence of women, his hands were both loving, well into dawn and throughout the day— kneading, rolling out, shaping each astonishing moment of yeasty predictability in that windowless world lit by slightly swaying naked bulbs, where the shadows staggered, woozy with the aromatic warmth of the work.

Then, the suit and drive, again.

At our table, graced by a loaf that steamed when we sliced it, softened the butter and leavened the very air we’d breathe, he’d count us blessed.

Andrea Gutierrez is the editor of the Bryan County News.