Daniel here. Today I want to write about our daily bread, literally. Here, our daily bread is a bolillo, and every bakery, of which there are many, sells them. the bolillo is an elongated rolls you can get from the bakery for five pesos. They make great dinner rolls or a mid-sized sandwich. The recipe is simple, with no preservatives, and they are made to eat the same day. A day-old bolillo is so-so, and a two-day one is something more suitable for a meatloaf or a bread pudding.
Each bolillo is a little different. When you buy a bolillo, it may be a slightly different shape or may be larger or smaller than the next one. And if you get a torta (a sandwich here, but a cake in some Spanish-speaking countries), yours may not look exactly like the next person's, and it may be a little bigger (yay) or smaller (boo).
In the United States, it’s typically not like that, unless maybe at an expensive “artisanal bakery” type place. When people get a Subway sandwich, they expect it to be the exact same size, and it is. Culturally, we expect conformity. And that's exactly what I get every time I buy a loaf of my favorite mass-produced loaf, Grandma Sycamore's*, back in the States.
But handmade rolls aren’t like that, and neither are people. Each of us is a little different, and that’s fine. Just as they all taste good, we don’t all have to be the same. And we shouldn’t get caught up comparing our bolillo with the one the person next to us has. Comparison is the thief of happiness, as someone once said. Just enjoy the blessings you have today, and let tomorrow's bolillo take thought for itself.
* Ironically, in preparing this post, I learned that Grandma Sycamore's is now owned by Bimbo Bakeries USA, the US affiliate of the huge Mexican industrial baking and snack food conglomerate. Since we buy bolillos and fresh pastries and not packaged bread and snack cakes, I won't let this fact stand in the way of my good story!
