Tuesday, January 19, 2010

83 ~ Bread Delivery

bread on door close Photo taken in La Vera, Tenerife

When I was small and living in Canada, the bread man came to the door to deliver fresh bread about once a week. We had a little wooden box nailed to the outside wall near the back door of the house. My mom would buy coloured bread tickets from the bread man; purple was for brown bread and green was for white. There were only two kinds of bread to choose from. When, for example, she wanted two loaves of brown bread, she would leave two purple tickets inside the little box and when the bread man came he would open the door, remove the tickets and replace them with two loaves of brown bread. From time to time she would buy more tickets and the system worked well as bread was always delivered and paid for even when she wasn't home. There was no sliced bread then. The loaves were whole and wrapped in brown paper.

Milk was another item that was delivered to the front door in glass bottles. Before milk was homogenized, a quart of milk came with a precious head of full cream on top and one was supposed to shake the bottle well to distribute the cream before opening. But we loved that cream on our morning cereal so there was a rush to see who could reach the front door first to steal a little of it before mom rescued the bottle. At first money, and later green plastic tokens were left inside the empty glass bottles on the doorstep for the milkman to take away and replace with full bottles.

Other things that came to the door: the eggs, delivered by Mr. Chase, a chicken farmer who wore what looked like a beige bowler hat; the groceries, which were ordered by telephone and delivered by Jock McKay, son of the Scottish grocer; the meat was also ordered by phone from the butcher, the dry cleaning and dad's white shirts from the laundry as well as the daily newspaper.

And there was the Watkins man who came from time to time selling tinned spices and cleaning products. We did rely a lot on home delivery then even though we lived in a town and not out in the countryside. However there were no supermarkets and so small enterprises made their business by delivering to homes.

Bread rolls are still delivered and attached to a wall or doorknob here in Tenerife. I've never heard of anyone stealing someone's bread. Here you can see this bread roll has been left on the door handle of a house on a narrow sidewalk bordering a main road in what is a busy shopping area.

street La Vera
Another bread roll hung on the protruding nail of a No Parking sign on a busy Tenerife street.

no parking bread
I used to have bread delivery but now prefer to buy it as needed from one of the German bakeries here who produce healthy whole grain loaves and rolls made from an assortment of flours.

bread rolls
While out walking I came upon a long wall covered in flame vine (Pyrostegia Venusta) in full bloom.
I never cease to be impressed by this beautiful climber.

pyrostegia
Thanks for the visit and ¡Hasta La Vista!

sig

8 comments:

Yan said...

A lovely trip down memory and Tenerife lanes. How wonderful that the bread rolls can be left in full view and never stolen. Things seem to be coming full circle now with people shopping on line and groceries delivered to the door again.

Real Tenerife said...

What a lovely blog. It brought back memories of my childhood when home delveries were the norm.

But it also jogged a memory of when we used to stay with an aunt who had a farm in the middle of nowhere and a grocery van would come around once a week.It was always a great thrill to see what it had on its sweet trays.

I love the fact that they still leave the bread hanging from the doorknobs here.

debsgarden said...

I enjoyed reading about the bread delivery system of your childhood, and all the bread photos made me hungry. Actually, i was already hungry, the pics just made it worse! I really enjoy your delightful blog!

nimenos said...

Y que bueno el pan de Tenerife, que bueno... con su anís.

Besos

Canarybird said...

Yan....yes the bread was never stolen when I was having it delivered. It's been a custom here for as long as I remember to have the little bread vans stopping and leaving the daily baguettes or rolls on a nail or doorknob.

Andrea...Yes I can imagine that it was much more exciting as a child to have sweet trays brought to your door.

Deb...actually I remember that a horse-drawn milk wagon delivered at my grandmother's house. I would climb on and have a short ride up the hill, and that was so exciting!

Nimenos...ah si el pan de anis es otro buen pan!

Luisa said...

La imagen del pan en la puerta por las mañanas es muy frecuente verla por las carreteras de los barrios y pueblos de las islas....Me gusta mucho...y la enrdadera cubriendo los muros...Es fantástico...y tienes una sensibilidad que plasmas muy bien en tus blogs.
Saludos

Ashleigh said...

My family would think the bread delivery system was pure heaven...my husband might even be willing to move somewhere simply for that reason! Love it!

Canarybird said...

Hola Luisa...es verdad que yo tambien veo los bollos colgados en las puertas en muchos sitios aqui en la isla. Me encanta este costumbre.
Gracias para tu comentario. Saludos.

Ashleigh...yes and the weather here is better than that up on the mainland. Well most of the time. Today it's also chilly and raining.
Hope you got my email. Cheers.

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