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B
read is a staple food made by baking dough
composed of flour of cereal origin, water,
yeast (occasionally) and other ingredients.
This is the technical definition of bread in most
dictionaries, at least. It is how bread is under-
stood by billions of people across the planet,
but not by those who visit the decorated bread
museum,
To Ploumisto Psomi
, in Lemesos.
Those privileged enough to visit the museum
learn bread wasn’t always something people
would purchase daily at the local bakery or
the supermarket, and that its role was far from
limited to that of a nutritional item. Visitors to
To Ploumisto Psomi
become acquainted with
the history of bread making and bread eating,
which goes back at least thirty thousand years:
astonishingly enough, similarities are identi-
fied between ancient versions of bread and
some contemporary breads, whilst numerous
recipes and cooking methods have remained
relatively unchanged for the last three thousand
years. Visitors to the museum familiarise them-
selves with the ethnographic and sociological
characteristics of bread – they come to know
there were times when wheat and flour were
so precious and respected that they were state-
controlled commodities, even handled as mon-
etary units. Most importantly, however, visitors
to
To Ploumisto Psomi
come to appreciate the
respect local society had for bread and the spir-
itual and cultural meanings it embodied.
Bread and Religion
Bread has been a part of many religious cer-
emonies and has long been offered to various
gods, but in the Christian world its role and
symbolic meaning were drastically upgraded.
Museum visitors are reminded that the Lord’s
Prayer pleads for daily bread, and that this re-
fers to more than just daily nutritional needs
– in Christianity, bread symbolises both our
spiritual and our corporeal needs. At the Last
Supper, Jesus distributed bread to his disciples,
to whom he said, “This is my body”. Bread
thereafter served as an offering to God in most
Christian religious ceremonies, particularly in
To Ploumisto Psomi – A Look Back
on the History of Cypriot Bread
(Photos by Vassos Stylianou)
Bread-decorated gourd
Finely-decorated wedding bread