Memories and Aromas

No all summers are the same. Only, one summer you are nine.
There was only one summer I remember with strong aromas of fresh wheat and omelets galore a summer never to be left on its own, I am still nine.
First communions are part of life events that one remembers in detail. I do remember some details. Specially, the unlimited gluttony of ice cream at my first communion in May of 1968 is one that makes the rounds at family events. Memories are a funny thing. Sometimes appear clear like a reflection on a pond, other times as a taste of joyous saltiness or pungent aroma of fresh basil. The summer of 1968 was a special summer for my memories. It was bundle around aromas of flowers, wheat fields ready to harvest, immortalized views of golden twigs swinging in the horizon. Many times dreamed by creators as imaginary tempests in canvasses, my sensations of those fields, it reminds me of the succulent aroma of fresh bake loaves of “pain de guerre” competing with an old wheel-barrel full of homemade sausages coming to be stored in the centuries old cabana to dry and age. During hot days in July, this image continues to appear year over year.

Walk thru a shadowed stoned street, walled by houses build hundreds of years ago, with unseen signs, but smelling the direction of wood burning, carry a 30 pound bag of freshly harvested hulled wheat on a makeshift cart, with purpose and unlimited expectations to see the holy grail of baked bread. As will get near my destiny, an artistically carved, very old dark looking door entrance will appear. I would feel the sweetness of my destination, in a hot summer date. A thick wood poorly carved door sign reads “Tahona,” it was the symbol of my finish line, as the old baker home was called, still a reminiscent name of medieval times. I fancy going back in memories of this wonderful time. I realize how many centuries one travels in a single life. I always thought “the beauty of this baker is his accommodative stance to my schedule.” The truth was this baker did follow a rigorous schedule. The same way his father did, and his grandfather, his great-grandfather, as far I could tell he was baking bread since the Genesis. The reality of his reality was, he baked the bread to be ready at early sun break time, later at lunch time, usually at one thirty in the afternoon, and baked again for dinner usually he will be finish by eight thirty at night.
The baker’s door also was the symbol of its status. The baker in the village was trusted and adored as a healer of sad hearts. The three hundred or so people living in the village granted him its due respect. The baker always had a chair at the center of the domino’s table, with Don Ramon skinny cranky and well meaning priest and Mr. Lopez “The Major” a lawyer by training and descendant of prominent stock of the village. The two were guardians at left and right of the baker’s game.

What really interested me was how the baker baked.
How to create the aroma of heavenly bread as the oven gave a golden crisp crust, and how the different mixes of the same four ingredients would yield such disparity of dreamful loaves.

Time taught me the hard way, no all bakers are trained equally, no all bakeries operate at the same hours, not all ingredients are the same, no all operations cared as much as my summer baker, no all bread were Dionosio’s bread.

You might think I am exaggerating, not I am not, I continue to have dreams of aromas flowing thru my window during siesta, the wood burning oven heat mix with yeasty bread aromas filling the town plaza.

I will be back!