Crumpets

I would love a hot buttered crumpet with strawberry jam right now. The delight of a crumpet is the slightly spongy, internal cellular structure. The butter melts into the little cells, like a sponge, producing a delightfully-oozing sensation when you chew it. The strawberry jam is pressed against the palate, intensifying its flavour. Crumpets: their invention (or discovery?) must surely mark one of the high points of global civilisation.



A hot buttered crumpet
(Image by LoopZilla, Wikimedia Commons)

The Paradoxes of Buying Bread in Italy

Even if you find a baker's open on Sunday in Italy, they won't have any bread. They'll have cakes, biscuits, whatever - but no bread. Ditto specialist cake shops (pasticceria, easily mistaken for bakers, especially if you are looking for bread).

Today (Sant'Ambrogio, a holiday in Milan), I found a baker's open and bought some bread, but the shop assistant told another customer that although the shop is open tomorrow (the Feast of the Immaculate Conception), they won't have any bread.

Big supermarkets sometimes have bread on Sundays, but if they've sold out you have to get "friselli", a kind of rock-hard granary bagel that you have to soak in olive oil before it's soft enough to eat.