Oh, the lovely world of bread! We’ve found some fun bread stories for you from around the world, all of which reveal just how influential bread is wherever you happen to live on our beautiful blue planet. Bread brings us together. Here’s how.

Bread tips online

Novelty breads and bread tips are popping up like mushrooms online: you can make unusual French toast with banana bread, bake honeyed pomegranate bread, maybe create a loaf of cinnamon pear strusel bread, sourmilk bread or sticky sweet monkey bread made with hot cocoa mix. If none of these float your flavour boat, you can always try upgrading shop-bought garlic bread in sixteen innovative ways.

Paul Hollywood banana bread shocker

If you were about to make banana bread, please don’t. According to MSN Paul Hollywood has shocked the world by saying it isn’t bread – it is cake. We particularly like the caption under the photo of Mr Hollywood, which describes him as ‘top view of banana bread with nuts on a wood table’. Reassuringly, it doesn’t actually show the nation’s best-known baker displaying his nuts on a wooden table.

Nostalgic donkey

We love the photo of the ‘famous Chalford donkey’ who, as reported by Stroud News and Journal, used to deliver bread around the village in the 1930s. The photo shows the cheerful-looking little chap delivering to households up Coppice Hill.

Digital love bread

Japan’s oldest bakery, Kimuraya, has collaborated with the electronics brand NEC Corp to make something called ‘AI Romance Bread.’ MSN says it comes in five flavours and ‘captures the essence of the feelings many of us associate with love.’

NEC used its AI technology to analyse conversations from a reality TV dating show and song lyrics, using the data to pin down the ‘five feelings of romance’: first encounter, first date, jealousy, heartbreak, and mutual love. Then the bakers set about transforming the feelings into flavours.

The obvious question is ‘why’, and the answer is quite sad. Growing number of young Japanese say they’re not interested in romantic relationships. The AI love bread is supposed to ‘evoke feelings of being in love when they eat it’, inspiring them to go find a partner in real life.

Filipino double buddy bread

Double buddy bread has several names, also affectionately called yo-yo bread, double body bread, lambingan bread, and buddy-buddy bread. It’s sweeter than the staple pan de sal, more like a snack than a bread roll.

Nobody knows its origin, although some say it might be related to Mexican pesos pan dulce, AKA yo-yo bread, introduced by the Spaniards who invaded South America and also colonised the Philippines.

Why ‘double buddy’? Apparently ‘lambingan’ means ‘affection’ in the local Tagalog language and the small, rounded bread’s two halves – filled with cream or butter – look like they’re hugging each other. Sweet!

Time magazine on Italy’s 1941 bread shortages

In late September 1941, as reported by Time magazine, the British Navy sank 29 ships sailing from Italy to North Africa and damaged 30 more. Thanks to the sinkings, a worse-than-expected wheat crop and the army’s demands for bread, the Italian cabinet announced dramatic rationing. Women and children were only allowed 200 grams of bread a day. Workers were luckier, given 300 grams a day, and ‘heavy labourers’ got 400 grams.

To this day, war and conflict almost always leads to a shortage of bread, one of the surest indicators something has gone very wrong.

Taste our wonderful artisan breads for yourself

We supply hundreds of brilliant companies in the foodservice sector with flash frozen artisan breads, everything from loaves to rolls, frozen dough to viennoiserie.  Join them and see what all the fuss is about – click below for delicious free samples.

PS. Many thanks to MSN for the photo.