or: How to eat bread in Mauritius

Mauritius was part of the French empire from 1715 to 1810 and over that time, they were introduced to something the French do particularly well – bread.

Sure, they may have been baking bread prior to then but they weren’t doing it the French way.

Since the English took over followed by the subsequent independence of Mauritius, they have retained the French style of bread.

They also retained French as one of their main languages but this post is about bread, not about French.

After living in Asia for over a decade, non-sugary bread was something that I missed. 

Not any more.

Bread is such a core part of life here that no one would dream of keeping a leftover baguette or roll in the freezer for the following day. Why do that when the bread person comes around in his truck and delivers it fresh to your neighbourhood? Sure, you have to be up at the crack of dawn to get it that fresh so if you can’t make it for whatever reason, there are plenty of bakeries where you can go and buy it too.

The difference in eating the bread is what I have found interesting.

In Australia, it was common (things may have changed since I lived there) for children to eat the inside of the bread and to leave the crusts. It didn’t matter if it was a traditional sandwich loaf, a baguette or even a breadroll. Parents cajoled their kids into eating it saying that it would make their hair curly (clearly I ate a lot of crusts). I’m not sure why that was meant to work and I have no statistics to suggest how often it did.

In Mauritius, it is the exact opposite.

Even with the adults.

When making a breadroll sandwich, it is not uncommon for the store owner / person who is making the roll to pull out a good chunk of the inside of it first so the fillings will fit.

At drinks when eating gadiak or cheese with baguettes, people will break the baguette, take out some of the middle and stuff it with food before eating.

And here I am, like a pig in mud, eating both the inside and outside of the bread (because it would be rude not to of course) and the fillings too.

It would be wasteful not to.

I’m adaptable like that.

Actually, I think I’ve always eaten both parts of the bread so this is a great excuse to continue. Maybe I had a time when I was younger that I didn’t eat crusts too but I don’t remember that so clearly it never happened. 

Thank you France for one of the 974 things I like about Mauritius.

Thanks to Johnny Cash for the title to this post.