There is no disputing the lure and lusciousness of bread smeared with rich creamy butter… sometimes melting, settling deeply into the crumb, depending on the warmth of the bread – toasted or fresh from the oven. Caught in the right light at just the right angle, the surface glistens. You smile and sink your teeth into the buttered bread, tasting the flavour of the butter mixed with the softness of the bread. It is comforting and satisfying.
Bread with butter such as our beloved Butterflap is another way to enjoy bread with butter. However, there are other breads which, when had with butter, are amazing and just as comforting. And why would they not be? They are made from the same main ingredients – water, flour, and salt. The differences are in the methods of preparation and cooking technique employed but all are made from kneaded dough. With the leavening agent (baking powder, yeast) being the other difference, they are all types of bread.
While we are accustomed to eating certain accompaniments with loaf breads, roti(s) and fried Bakes, there is no law that says it is the only way. Often times, less is more, and all you need is a lil buttah wid yuh roti or Bake and it hits the spot! Washing it down with a hot beverage of choice is to cloak yourself in comfort, and sometimes, nostalgia.
Any type of roti, fried Bakes, or bread that I make is only available when I have a hankering for it. The other morning I returned from exercising, ravenous, craving Sada roti with butter. I quickly set about making the dough letting it rest as I showered and changed. In less than an hour I had soft Sada roti that had puffed up during the cooking process as the heat intensified and the flames licked the edges of the roti as I turned it with the tawah askew (part over the burner and part off the burner). This is known as saykay-ing the roti; a term I’d heard my mother and aunt use often when making Sada roti.
I had available to me in the refrigerator from my weekend cooking – Baingan (eggplant) choka and coconut chutney but the only thing I wanted to have with the Sada roti was butter. I cut the roti opening it up, leaving it partially attached. Dipping a knife into butter, I slathered it all over the roti, getting it into all the nooks and crannies. I whispered to myself, this is gonna be so good! And hear this, I buttered both sides of the roti, not just one side! Eh eh. I wanted to eat Sada roti and butter and that is what it will be. Grabbing my large cup of tea I headed to the verandah where the morning sun was bright and the birds chirping (yes, they would soon come for some of the roti).
Halving the roti, I folded it onto itself and took my first bite. As I chewed, filled with happiness and contentment of the moment, I marvelled, not for the first time, at the delicious simplicity of any type of bread with butter. Often when we eat various breads they are accompanied with other things for which the bread is a vessel of delivery, but when served on its own with butter, it has an opportunity to really be the main focus; its texture and flavour fully appreciated and enhanced by good quality butter (I am not talking margarine here).
As I continued my reverie, I recalled how wickedly good a Guyanese paratha roti is with butter, layers of soft folds of roti with butter playfully captured beneath and between the layers… ah, my heart be still, metaphorically speaking of course. LOL. And then there is that other bread, the one that’s fried: Bakes, Floats, call them what you will. Puffy, their insides a web of softness filled with valleys for the butter to rest and sink into… such indulgence. Oh man, I want a warm Bake or two with butter right now. For me Bakes and butter go well in the evenings for dinner with a cup of Cocoa or Ovaltine.
My craving for and eventual fulfillment of Sada roti with butter is yet another of those examples of an appreciation of our food and the simplicity of such things. Don’t be afraid to eat what you want or like. Everything in moderation. Bakes are not only for eating with salt fish and roti is not only to be had with curry or Sada roti with a Choka. And bread, well, you know that it is not only for sandwiches.
Have any of the bread you like with some butter!
Cynthia
