Memory.

Ari Weinzweig on bridges to the past ...

In my case, the rye bread isn’t just a random selection. It gives me a small but meaningful way to hold on to a positive piece of my past, and strengthens my connection with my mother, her parents, grandparents, and though I’ll never know, probably many more generations before them too. While I can’t re-cross the bridge, I can still put this amazing rye bread in my toaster and on my table every day, and think about her and the world she and my grandparents came from.

I certainly grew up with it. It’s clearly been a low-key connection, solidly if silently in place, between my mother and me. Unlike many things that caused conflict, rye was a culinary link that we both liked, one without hugely difficult emotional baggage, no philosophical controversy over which we needed to disagree. It’s obviously much bigger than just bread. In a way, this is a culinary unveiling—the Jewish ceremony that takes place a year after the death when the tombstone is placed on the grave that had been, until then, unmarked. By putting this down on paper I guess I’m likely committing to mind and memory what I think of whenever I eat rye bread.