All Comments (17)

You might also consider bakng your own, Italian bread -at least if the Portugese bakery is turned Hispanic someday.

Katja-

This is the SACRIFICIAL LAMB:

“And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying... Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a LAMB, according to the house of their fathers, a LAMB for an house....

Your LAMB shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

And they shall take of the BLOOD, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, ROAST with FIRE, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it....

For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.

And the BLOOD shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the BLOOD, I will PASSOVER you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12)

LAMB is eaten at the PASSOVER meal.

The PASSOVER BREAD eaten at the PASSOVER meal is MATZA or unleavened bread.

"He could have ordered steak and had body and blood all in one dish. But he didn’t. Maybe they weren’t steak eaters."

Steak was hugely expensive back then, and not traditional for Passover. As I recall, they did have a Passover lamb, though. But bread was always the staple, and some sort of grain food generally has been since humans developed agriculture (rice, tortillas, bread, oat porridge, whatever).

Yes, transubstantiation indeed -- eat a lot of bread and you wind up with a lot of flesh around your midsection.

Try this: In a big bowl sift 3 cups of King Arthur unbleached bread flour with 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon dry yeast. Pour in 1 1/2 cups of water and mix with a rubber spatula without kneading. Cover the dough closely with plastic wrap, put a dish towel over it and put the bowl in the oven with the light on.

Let rise 18 hours. That's right, 18 hours.

Without kneading, make the dough into a compact package by folding one way, then the other. Make sure the seam is sealed. Work in the bowl or on a board. Flour well.

One hour later, take the bowl OUT of the oven, put the Dutch oven or other heavy iron casserole in the oven and turn the oven on to 550 or as hot as the oven gets. Wait one hour.

Put a handful of corn meal in the Dutch oven, and using the rubber spatula pour out the dough into the oven. You don't want it to stick to the bowl when you are transferring it.

Turn the oven down to 475. Put the lid on the Dutch oven and bake for 45 minutes.

You may find this burns the bread a little. If so, cut back on the time. The baking time depends on the color of the inside of the vessel you bake the bread in.

Try it and experiment with different times and temperatures, but this is the principle.

Having grown up in Rhode Island with a surplus of Portuguese bakeries I understand the appeal of Portuguese bread. I once worked with a woman whose mother-in-law made the most amazing sweet bread, and she would bring warm loaves to the office every so often. She teased me last week by e-mailing to tell me she had a loaf on her desk.

recommend the sweet bread. once you have, you will not forget it. this is a staple with the portuguese.

Consider as well, so many breads but one humanity. So many loaves, but only one Body. May we remember that in the coming year better than we did last year.

Bill Tonelli's reminiscenes about the smell and warmth of just-been-baked bread resonate as I prepare to visit grandchildren with warm homemade Portuguese Easter bread. I placed five colored eggs each imprinted with their names (thanks to Crayola crayons) nested in the twisted braid.
Like Tonelli, I am an Italian-American who visits Rome often. I think I recognize the place where he bought his bread. His description sounds very much like two such places -on the Januculum or possibly in Trastevere. The marvelous part is that its location could be in almost any non-upscale part of Rome.
My childhood memories of growing up in a R.I. Italian neighborhood include the bread man delivering Italian loaves twice weekly to our home. I was allowed to choose some jelly doughnuts on the week-end delivery...the only sweets at our non-sweet-dessert house! Fruit was the after-meal and snack alternative
Italian meals required bread - hence the need for those crusty freshly baked loaves brought into the home. The bread delivery man was like family -walked right into the kitchen back door after announcing his presence with "Permesso".
Bread is the only way to sop up tasty tomato sauce or meat juices. Forget butter - we never used it on bread. If the bread was a little dry and needed dampening, use olive oil. (Only now, some sixty years later. has olive oil replaced butter in American kitchen and restaurants.
Thanks for the article, Bob. "Pane buona, vita bella."

And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.

And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

-- Deuteronomy 8: 2-3 (KJV)

I am Portuguese so do not need introduction to our great bread. I was so happy to read your article, simply because it's true. In Manhattan, where I live, now even the small delicatessens sell Portuguese bread - the big supermarket chains have their own section of Portuguese bread - lots of different varieties. If you go there after 4:00 pm, most of the times it's gone... The new yorkers, like you, love the Portuguese bread and it is all over. The Portuguese bread in Manhattan comes mostly from bakeries in Newark, NJ, where a huge Portuguese community is based.
Eric Mano

Those of us who can't face "store bread" buy flour and have learned to make bread at home. Like most things, practice makes perfect, but the only thing that is sacrificed is the time it takes to make it and it is always hot and ready for butter or jam straight out of the oven, or the bread machine if you have to be a tech head.

"Yeah, but for transubstantiation to work properly you need some Port to go with it."

Actually, Victoria Port works best for the Anglicans and High Churchers.

Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com

"Take This (Portuguese) Bread
As the Portuguese bread I eat becomes my flesh, now I am less what I was before and more Portuguese. Isn’t this how transubstantiation works.

Posted by Bill Tonelli on March 21, 2008 11:31 A"
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Yeah, but for transubstantiation to work properly you need some Port to go with it.

Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com

You folks still don't get it and what they don't tell you is that:

The last supper was a roast of Jesus.

What Jesus really said was "Bite Me".

Everybody cracked up.

I guess all of us Baby Boomers here in American are "Wonder Bread" then, because that's what we all ate, when Bread stopped being something you got at a little neighborhood Bakery, like the one my parents went to in St. Louis, Mo in the 50's, & became something you got at the KROGER supermarket.

Now, I guess we have all become WALMART SuperStore bread. And we are BECOMING Communist Chinese food, I guess, which is contaminated by poisons.

A big change from the little Neighborhood Bakery on Main Street, back in the 50's!

Where did my "AMERICA" disappear to?

And why the more we all eat exactly the same Breads from the big box Superstore, are we more DIVIDED than ever, as a people politically?

And, why would I ever worship a "God" which was Genocidal? Didn't God love the Egyptians, too?

"Christ said that the bread he and his friends ate at dinner becomes his body. He could have ordered steak and had body and blood all in one dish. But he didn’t. Maybe they weren’t steak eaters. But maybe he had other reasons for telling them this: Eat bread."

Bill Tonelli-

During Passover- the blood of the sacrificed lamb is shed. The blood on the door brings salvation as the death angel passes overhead. It is the eve of the Passover and in the Exodus that follows God's covenant people are delivered from the bondage of Egypt.

This is from the book of Exodus- "It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance."

On the eve of Passover- Jesus was crucified. The blood of the Promised Sacrifical Lamb was shed. This is the Redemption of sin. It brings Salvation to the world, delivering us from the bondage of sin and death.

During the Last Supper- Jesus was celebrating the Feast of Passover with His disciples.

In Matthew 26- Jesus says, "As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified."

Then- "On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?" He replied, "Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, 'The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.'" So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover."

"Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body (which is broken for you)." Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. This is my Blood of the Covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

To fully understand the Last Supper you must understand the Feast of the Passover. So- Jesus' body is the unleavened (sinless) Bread of heaven and His Blood is the atoning Blood of the Lamb.

Hope this gives you some help in comprehending the meaning behind the bread and wine..

Blessings to you in this holy season..

"Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us- therefore let us keep the feast."

1 Corinthians 5:7-8