Born & Bread
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By David W. Brown or at least 30,000 years, bread has been the center of human civilization. It
nourishes the body and, across cultures and religions, nourishes the soul. A country’s most fertile soils are called its “bread basket,” and the person who makes the money in a household is the “breadwinner.” The breaking of bread is the first act of solidarity between people. (The word “companion” derives from the Latin com, which means “with,” and panis, which means “bread.” Bread is the thing you eat with your friends.) In the Catholic Church, bread is consecrated as the literal body of Christ. In ancient Egypt, it was a form of currency. In 18th-century France, Voltaire said of his people that they need only “the comic opera and white bread.” If you somehow managed to create the most impressive and dazzling new thing in all the world, it would still only be the greatest thing “since sliced bread.”
Every civilization has independently discovered its own form of bread. It is life, and the reason we have thrived since the dawn of humanity. It is also a hyper-localized product. Regional soils nourish different types of wheat in different ways, and different water goes into the making of bread. This affects taste and texture when the dough rises and is baked. (It is one reason New Orleans po-boys are so distinctive — our water somehow yields a bread both fluffier and crisper. Have you ever ordered a po-boy in New York? It would be a war crime.) And because bread is of the Earth and of the local community, people have very strong opinions about their local brands! In Louisiana, two of the most popular types of bread are Evangeline Maid and Bunny
Bread. The uninitiated think the two are the same, but an enthusiast will tell you in polite, but not uncertain terms, that it is time for you to leave. I will discuss the reason below. Evangeline Maid bread was born over a century ago in the heart of Cajun country: in Youngsville, Louisiana, just outside of Lafayette. A baker named Joseph Huval had learned his trade in the Army during World War I, came home, and opened a little bakery for $50. Evangeline Maid was thus born. Indeed, it is a family affair. The slender maid that’s always been on its logo is a sketch of Joseph’s daughter, Mary. And the logo isn’t the only thing that hasn’t changed. The recipe for the bread and the way it is made is the same as ever, only on a much, much larger scale. It is what the people of Acadiana grew up on, and what their kids will grow up on as well. (When I think back to my childhood, I only remember GIANT bread — I can still see it there, those big blue letters on a yellow bag. But GIANT brand it was not. Rather, it was Evangeline Maid; the large loaves were simply given a giant, well, GIANT label.) Bunny Bread, meanwhile, is not a local bread per se, but everyone sure knows its trademark smiling rabbit on the bag of every loaf sold. The company was founded in 1925 by a trio of brothers — Amos, Arnold and Jack Lewis — who wanted to open a bakery in Illinois. Bunny Bread, as the world now knows it, came along 20 years later, and soon came to be as emblematic of the American Midwest as the wheat fields that yielded it. Here is where it gets interesting, though. Bunny Bread is made fresh in regional bakeries, including — perhaps more famously even than its Illinois birthplace — in the city of New Orleans. Which means, for the discriminating Louisiana sandwich eater, the bread aisle at your local Rouses can be a flavor competition between Lafayette and New Orleans. After all, we take our food pretty seriously here. It is worth recognizing that in addition to being great bakers, the Lewis brothers and Huval family were entrepreneurs. Bread was not always a grocery store staple, sliced perfectly and wrapped in plastic bags with twist ties on the end. A hundred years ago, women baked the bread in most family households. The idea of unburdening mothers of that responsibility was pretty W W W. R O U S E S . C O M 4 3