Edges of bread

[Fishingguy]

So I'm in the kitchen eating bread and Irina tells me - eat the edge of the bread. It will mean your mother-in-law will love you.  I eat both sides of the loaf hahaha.

Is this a real legend or was she showing me some Ukrainian humour?

[Shadow]

According to MrsShadow there is no such saying in Russia. About Ukraine you will have to wait for other opinions.
MrsShadow also wonders why you want your MIL to love you.....

[mendeleyev]

My wife loves the ends, or heel as sometimes called. I am happy to save them for her. 

My guess is that MIL is budget conscious and will love you for not wasting money.   

[Fishingguy]

of course I want my MIL to love me. I'm of the belief that if you marry a girl you marry her family. I'd love her parents nearly as much as I would mine. Her brothers or sisters would be treared with love and respect like my own.

I think having the in laws like or love you helps when you two having problems or disagreements too.

and I really did believe it was a Ukrainian/Russian custom or belief.  Since Irina is not the joking funny hahah kind of girl. Her jokes are not funny.  Beautiful women don't make great lovers and they don't tell funny jokes. Except Jenny McCarthy.

According to MrsShadow there is no such saying in Russia. About Ukraine you will have to wait for other opinions.
MrsShadow also wonders why you want your MIL to love you.....

[GQBlues]

So I'm in the kitchen eating bread and Irina tells me - eat the edge of the bread. It will mean your mother-in-law will love you.  I eat both sides of the loaf hahaha.

Is this a real legend or was she showing me some Ukrainian humour?

Dude-

That was a sham. Your gal just wanted to have the middle (best) part and stooge you to eat the ends. I can't believe you fell for the trick.

 

[Fishingguy]

GQblues..as always..wiser words were not spoken. Damn that girl! But hey even hard bread tastes good with caviar.

Dude-

That was a sham. Your gal just wanted to have the middle (best) part and stooge you to eat the ends. I can't believe you fell for the trick.

 

[Boethius]

I never heard that, but I'll ask my mother. 
 
My Grandmother, God rest her soul, loved bread crusts.  She had a neighbour once visit who pitied her for being so poor, she had to eat the crusts.

[Doll]

I've never heard of it either.

[ML]

I like the ends of the bread loaf or 'heels' as we call it.

The taste is all the same, just a matter of whether it is toasted brown.

When you put butter and jelly on, the heels hold up very nicely rather than having any floppiness as do the center pieces.

[Wayne]

When you buy a new loaf of bread, what happens to the old loaf with a few pieces left. Do you use up all the old loaf before opening the new one? Perhaps you just toss out the old loaf?
 
Does it just make sense when you open a new loaf, that first person takes the end piece and one next piece? Or do you just toss out the end piece?
 
Most people end up with moldy bread at some point.
 
Bread in Ukraine is better than most bread in USA!
 
Stale bread that is completely dried out can be converted to bread crumbs with a roller pin. It can also be used as stuffing. Partially stale bread can be soaked in eggs and made into French toast.
 
French bread makes the best French toast!
 
Who knows how to make their own bread, and not from a mix or frozen dough!

[mendeleyev]

Wayne, perhaps it is only a tradition but my mother always kept the first heel/end piece to put back in the loaf. She thought that it helped maintain freshness.

As to baking bread versus purchase, we do some of both and I'm pleased that most Google searches for Russian bread result in a top 5 ranking for the Mendeleyev Journal's recipe for black Russian bread. Today I typed "bread Russia" and we ranked as #2 on the first page, even higher than Wikipedia for Russian bread. That black bread recipe is responsible for a couple hundred daily page views at the Journal and one of the leading ways that new readers first discover us.

In some Russian/Ukrainian homes the kitchens are so small that there are no ovens, only a gas or electric surface cooktop. Those families obviously purchase bread from local markets.

[SANDRO43]

Perhaps you just toss out the old loaf?

Here housewives used a grattugia to make grated bread...

 

...a fundamental ingredient for a cotoletta alla milanese:

The above is a non-traditional variation known as orecchia d'elefante (elephant's ear), obtained by pounding the veal cutlet to a thickness of about 1/5" .

[Fishingguy]

I will have to agree with bread from Ukraine being better than USA. I dream about the bread. I'm trying to be objective since the caviar was delicious and the company was usually great too.

When you buy a new loaf of bread, what happens to the old loaf with a few pieces left. Do you use up all the old loaf before opening the new one? Perhaps you just toss out the old loaf?
 
Does it just make sense when you open a new loaf, that first person takes the end piece and one next piece? Or do you just toss out the end piece?
 
Most people end up with moldy bread at some point.
 
Bread in Ukraine is better than most bread in USA!
 
Stale bread that is completely dried out can be converted to bread crumbs with a roller pin. It can also be used as stuffing. Partially stale bread can be soaked in eggs and made into French toast.
 
French bread makes the best French toast!
 
Who knows how to make their own bread, and not from a mix or frozen dough!

[GQBlues]

I will have to agree with bread from Ukraine being better than USA. I dream about the bread. I'm trying to be objective since the caviar was delicious and the company was usually great too.

It's typical Slavic bread. They have the same in Russia as they do in Czech, Slovakia, etc...they're too 'tough' for me although they're great to use as home plate, or even a life raft if you got caught in the middle of the ocean. I think you can also use it as a weapon depending on how hard you can throw. Makes for a great fan too during hot days...or  shield on sword fights, a sun shade, a bobsled, etc...

One thing it isn't good for is making those delicious bread pudding. Yum...

[Helen:)]

So I'm in the kitchen eating bread and Irina tells me - eat the edge of the bread. It will mean your mother-in-law will love you.  I eat both sides of the loaf hahaha.

Is this a real legend or was she showing me some Ukrainian humour?

I don't know about MIL but I heard a lot of times from my grandmother and other old people - eat the adge of bread if you want boys/girls to kiss you. - I remember we were fighting for bread's ends in my childhood because everybody wanted to be kissed - girls wanted boys to kiss them, boys wanted girl's kisses.
So maybe they have variation with MIL

[Shadow]

Here housewives used a grattugia to make grated bread...

 

...a fundamental ingredient for a cotoletta alla milanese:

The above is a non-traditional variation known as orecchia d'elefante (elephant's ear), obtained by pounding the veal cutlet to a thickness of about 1/5" .

And of course there is the boneless variant which has been getting more fame by the Austrian name of Wiener Schnitzel. 

[Ooooops]

Never heard of that, but I do love freshly baked loaf's zhopkas.    

[missAmeno]

In Ukraine bread have been symbol of holiness, joy, health and wealth. There have been many traditions involving bread and some of them still common to this day such as welcoming guests into home with bread and salt, parents blessing newlyweds with коровай (special loaf), mothers giving their sons piece of bread to take with them on long journey, etc.
I guess across Ukriane one could hear many different explanations why one should eat crust of the bread but all of them are about that nothing from bread should be wasted. Do not forget that our grandparents lived through Holodomor and from childhood we heard from them all sorts of tales and customs that would encourage us not to waste bread.

[Елена]

In Ukraine bread have been symbol of holiness, joy, health and wealth. There have been many traditions involving bread and some of them still common to this day such as welcoming guests into home with bread and salt, parents blessing newlyweds with коровай (special loaf), mothers giving their sons piece of bread to take with them on long journey, etc.
I guess across Ukriane one could hear many different explanations why one should eat crust of the bread but all of them are about that nothing from bread should be wasted. Do not forget that our grandparents lived through Holodomor and from childhood we heard from them all sorts of tales and customs that would encourage us not to waste bread.

This is very true . It is. In Russia and Ukraine , in the tradition of a very cautious attitude to bread . Since childhood, I remember that you can not brosithleb (do not buy a lot, it has not been damaged ), even dry bread should be used for cooking cutlets, crackers. Or feed the animals , birds ( wild and domestic ) . Children are taught not to leave the remains of pieces. They say that we should eat the whole piece of bread, or will it be for you to run around at night. Throw away the bread was considered a sin . In Russia (Ukraine ) was a lot of hunger.
 mother and grandmother, who were born during the war or after it. They were hungry childhood . There is a saying - bread-and- around the head. This means that the presence of the bread on the table is the most important families in diet. Well there is a lot of fun and frivolous beliefs associated with the various phenomena of life .For example , you can not throw out the water from the bucket when fetching water ,because your husband will be a drunkard . You can not burn the bread - the husband will have freckles and red hair

[Flashback]

See! Now this is a great thread. We learn about culture and the variations without people making accusations or negative comments 

[Daveman]

See! Now this is a great thread. We learn about culture and the variations without people making accusations or negative comments 

Yer mama!! 

[SANDRO43]

Sharing/breaking bread together has been a respected ritual since Old Testament times, and probably much before, since Neolithic times :

A very interesting archeological find was made at Göbekli Tepe ("Potbelly Hill") in southeastern Anatolia, Turkey - first discovered in 1963 then excavated since 1994 by Klaus Schmidt, now of the German Archaeological Institute.

The tell (hillock) includes two settlement phases dating back to the 10th-8th millennium BC. During the first phase (PPNA), circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected. More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6 m (20 ft) and a weight of up to 20 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock. In the second phase (PPNB), the erected pillars are smaller. They stood in rectangular rooms. These rooms had floors of polished lime...It is one of several sites in the vicinity of Karaca Dağ, an area which geneticists suspect may have been the original source of at least some of our cultivated grains. Recent DNA analysis of modern domesticated wheat compared with wild wheat has shown that its DNA is closest in sequence to wild wheat found on Mount Karaca Dağ 20 miles (32 km) away from the site, suggesting that this is where modern wheat was first domesticated. Such scholars suggest that the Neolithic revolution, i.e., the beginnings of grain cultivation, took place here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göbekli_Tepe

The site features some astonishing 'modern-shaped' pillars, with high-relief animal figures.

[Chicagoguy]

Sandro comes through again !  Very interesting.