When Bread Was Central: Paris Made Me Remember About American Childhood

While attending the 2026 Wikimania Conference in Paris, France, I began noticing something that had nothing to do with Wikipedia.

I noticed bread.

Not bread as a luxury. Not bread as something reserved for a special dinner. Bread was simply there.

I would see baguettes being carried through the streets. I would see people stopping at neighborhood bakeries. Bread seemed to have a place in the daily rhythm of Paris.

And because I have always loved French and Italian bread, I naturally paid attention.

But something else happened.

Paris made me remember home.

It made me think about growing up in Parchester Village in Richmond, California, and about the food of my childhood.

It made me think about my family.

And it made me realize that bread was much more central to American childhood than we sometimes remember.

Bread Was Central

When I was growing up, a child didn't need much to make a snack.

You could make a jelly sandwich.

Or peanut butter and jelly.

Two pieces of bread.

Something sweet.

Something filling.

That was it.

I didn't think of it as a particular kind of food culture. It was simply what we ate.

But looking back from the perspective of today, I realize how much that simple sandwich represented.

Bread was affordable.

Bread was available.

Bread could stretch what you had.

And bread gave children a certain independence.

You could go into the kitchen and make yourself something to eat.

You didn't need an adult to prepare a packaged snack for you.

You could make a sandwich.

Growing Up in Parchester Village

When I think about bread now, I don't just think about Paris.

I think about Parchester Village.

Parchester Village was part of my early understanding of community. It was where I grew up, where I watched adults work, families manage households, and children learn how to navigate the world around them.

My father was a cement mason, working in the Santa Clara Valley during the period when so many track homes were being built.

My mother was deeply involved in community life. She was a PTA and community president, and she carried a strong sense of grace and gratitude into our family life.

Food was part of that world.

It wasn't something separated from family and community.

It was part of how people lived.

My Mother's Kitchen and the Meaning of Food

One of the things I remember about my mother's generation was the ability to make use of what was available.

She canned fruit from the Santa Clara Valley.

That memory has stayed with me because canning wasn't simply about preserving food.

It was about understanding food.

You understood where it came from.

You understood the seasons.

You understood that something available today could be saved for later.

There was a kind of knowledge in that.

Today we often think of food knowledge as recipes, nutrition information, or cooking techniques.

But my mother's generation had another kind of knowledge.

They knew how to make things last.

They knew how to use what they had.

They knew how to feed a family.

And bread fit naturally into that way of living.

A Piece of Bread Could Become Something Else

Bread was a foundation.

You could put jelly on it.

Peanut butter and jelly.

Butter.

Cheese.

Leftovers.

Whatever was available.

Bread could turn something simple into something satisfying.

It didn't have to be fancy.

And perhaps that is one of the things that has changed most in American food culture.

We have moved from asking:

“What do we have?”

to constantly asking:

“What do I want?”

Those are very different questions.

“What do we have?” encourages creativity.

“What do I want?” can lead us toward consumption.

I don't think my childhood was perfect, and I'm not trying to romanticize the past.

But there was something valuable about learning how to work with what you had.

The Child Could Make the Sandwich

I also remember the simplicity of making a sandwich.

You didn't need an appliance.

You didn't need a recipe.

You didn't need an adult to supervise you.

You got the bread.

You got the peanut butter.

You got the jelly.

You spread them.

You put the bread together.

And you had food.

There was a little lesson in that.

I can take care of myself.

That may sound like a small thing, but childhood is full of small things that quietly teach us how to become independent.

The sandwich was one of them.

Bread Before the Age of Endless Snacks

When I think about American childhood today, I realize how dramatically the food environment has changed.

There are packaged snacks for almost every imaginable situation.

Snacks designed for school.

Snacks for sports.

Snacks for the car.

Snacks for after school.

Snacks with added protein.

Snacks marketed as healthy.

Snacks marketed as fun.

There is always something to buy.

When I was growing up, the answer to being hungry could be much simpler.

Make a sandwich.

That simplicity is something I appreciate more now than I did as a child.

Paris Brought the Memory Back

That's why my experience in Paris was so interesting.

I wasn't consciously thinking about Parchester Village when I was looking at the baguettes.

But somehow the two experiences connected.

In Paris, I saw bread being treated as an ordinary part of life.

And it reminded me that bread had once been an ordinary part of mine.

The French baguette and the American sandwich are not the same thing.

Their histories are different.

Their traditions are different.

But both demonstrate something about bread:

Bread is adaptable.

It becomes part of whatever culture receives it.

I Still Love French and Italian Bread

I have always loved French and Italian bread.

But since returning from Paris, I have noticed myself eating more French bread as a snack.

And now I understand why it feels so natural.

There is something deeply satisfying about a good piece of bread.

You don't necessarily need to put much on it.

You can tear off a piece and eat it.

The crust.

The texture.

The smell.

The taste.

Sometimes simplicity really is enough.

And perhaps that is another connection between my childhood and my experience in Paris.

The food doesn't have to be complicated to be meaningful.

Food Is More Than Nutrition

Today, we talk about food primarily through nutrition.

How many calories?

How much protein?

How many carbohydrates?

Is it gluten-free?

Is it low-fat?

Is it organic?

Is it processed?

These questions can be useful.

But they don't tell the whole story.

Food also carries memory.

Food carries family.

Food carries geography.

Food carries history.

Food carries economics.

Food carries culture.

A peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich can be nutritionally analyzed.

But that doesn't explain what it means to the child who grew up eating it.

For me, that sandwich is connected to childhood.

It is connected to Parchester Village.

It is connected to a particular period in American life.

And now, unexpectedly, it is connected to Paris.

What Has Happened to Bread?

I find it interesting that bread has become almost complicated in American culture.

For generations, bread was an ordinary household food.

Then it became something people were encouraged to fear or avoid.

Carbohydrates became a major concern.

Bread became associated with dieting.

Gluten became part of everyday conversation.

Again, there are legitimate reasons why some people need to avoid certain foods.

But I'm thinking about the cultural meaning of bread.

What happens when something that was once considered ordinary becomes something people feel guilty about eating?

Perhaps we lose more than a food.

Perhaps we lose part of a memory.

My Parents' Generation Knew Something About Food

When I think about my mother canning fruit and my father working as a cement mason, I think about a generation that understood work and resources differently.

My father's work was physical.

My mother's work in the household and community required its own kind of labor and knowledge.

Food wasn't floating in from somewhere unknown.

There was an awareness of labor behind it.

Someone grew the fruit.

Someone picked it.

Someone canned it.

Someone baked the bread.

Someone brought food home.

Someone prepared it.

Someone sat down and ate it.

Today, much of that chain has become invisible.

We see the package.

We see the price.

We open it.

We eat.

The relationship between food and human labor can disappear.

Bread Connects Generations

Perhaps that is why bread continues to interest me.

It is such an old human food, yet it keeps changing.

The French have their baguettes.

The Italians have their regional breads.

Americans developed an enormous sandwich culture.

African American communities developed their own food traditions within the larger American food system.

Every community takes basic foods and makes them meaningful in its own way.

Bread becomes part of people's lives.

And then it becomes part of their memories.

Paris and Parchester Village

I never expected a trip to Paris for Wikimania to make me think about growing up in Richmond.

But that is what travel sometimes does.

You go somewhere far away and encounter something familiar.

You see yourself from another angle.

Paris gave me that moment.

I saw people buying bread and carrying it home.

And suddenly I was thinking about the child I once was.

A child who could make a jelly sandwich.

A child who could make peanut butter and jelly.

A child who knew that if you were hungry, you could go into the kitchen and find something to eat.

That memory feels very simple.

But simple memories can carry a lot.

Bread Was Central

Perhaps the title says it all.

Bread was central.

It was central to the sandwich.

Central to the snack.

Central to stretching food.

Central to the household.

Central to childhood independence.

And, in a different way, central to community.

Today, I can walk into a bakery in New York and buy a beautiful French loaf.

I can tear off a piece and think about Paris.

But I can also think about Parchester Village.

I can think about my parents.

I can think about my mother's canned fruit.

I can think about my father's working hands.

I can think about childhood.

And I can think about how much American food culture has changed.

Sometimes we travel across the world to discover something about ourselves.

For me, Paris didn't just remind me how much I love French bread.

It reminded me of a time when food could be simple.

A time when a child could make a sandwich and feel satisfied.

A time when bread didn't need to explain itself.

It was simply there.

Bread was central.

And perhaps that is why, even now, a good piece of bread can taste like more than bread.

It can taste like memory.