Four Secret Bread

by Anna Packham

It starts as just a little sketch-book of Dad's: Mum's feet pencilled as she slept, a pine cone sketched over and over again, the waves at Biarritz. The cartoons of the stray cat they called Dash because that was where she slept in the van, eventually finding bravery--or just other things to be scared of--so they woke to find her biting their toes. She lived to be twelve. The covers of the book are battered, the green of a bruised pear, the edges worn. It's matted with foreign stamps, apple labels, charity badges, football stickers--you can mark my family by it.

Ten pages into the book there is a note from Mum, "I woke and decided to record our recipes, I think I dreamt it," and so they start. The first ones use canned food--fish pie, bean casserole--marking a time when there was no money and no fridge. Dad has drawn a sketch of all their cans, ripping off Warhol, making Mum laugh. The only way you would know Mum was upset was when Dad went to hold her; he did it with us, too--you didn't know you were sad until he took it away. He didn't even know he was doing it. He made great bread, with a nutty, soul-healing smell. When I was ill, he'd make me blue cheese dumplings, the recipe is in there. The note says that they were invented by Mum, for those cold winters when he worked outside.

The book keeps recipes safe--Bjorn the Swede's teas--Spice Chai, ginger, thyme, lime flowers, all written in his wild script with notes; "Add Snail's bunions, mouse eyelash." They were simple recipes, never needed recording. Sam's yoghurt cake is there. He was their best friend and it was the only thing he cooked; you put yoghurt in a bowl then use the pot to measure the rest--two pots of flour and so on. He was so proud of that cake, his recipe has a list of different yoghurt combinations--pear yoghurt, nut yoghurt; a list carried on in our kids' scrawl, not exactly sure where you buy "poo yoghurt" but we were obviously fond of it.

There are ten recipes for gem essence and its uses. Mum wrote that, "Essential to the making are the thoughts you think and the feelings you feel, true of all cooking." I remember how she'd tell me to be calm and to think about what I loved. I would whisper under my breath, "Teddy bears, Sam Harris, Mum, Dad, Nancy, red shoes," while I poured water in a bowl, covering the crystal. It could be Jade, Smokey Quartz or my favourite--Tiger Eye. You left the bowl outside with a glass lid to protect the essence from insects. Me and Nancy, we'd sit there watching it, imagining the pure distilled magic of the sun dissolving the glittering molecules of gem we'd take later as drops. Tiger Eye essence tasted sweet, like soil.

The entire back section of my family recipe book, is devoted to foraged foods: the rarities of Rock Samphire, Chanterelles, Chequerberries, and the ordinary stuff, Dandelions, Nettles. I remember the day some kids pushed me into a nettle patch. It was April, it was just getting warm again and I was wearing shorts. The stings were bee showers. Nancy pulled me out and rubbed fragile shredded dock leaves up my legs but the sting stayed. I shouted at Mum that other kids didn't make gem essence, live in vans or wear charity clothes. She didn't say a word, just marched back to that nettle patch and pulled on her blue gloves. Dad made Four Secret Bread. We ate it with nettle soup, a bright hopeful green that tasted vivid and clean. Dad's hands were square and strong and he was smiling as he cut the bread. There was a four leaf clover in my slice.

The Author

Anna Packham taught herself to hold a pen, which is why her handwriting is so unique (though it might also be because she's always in a hurry to get things down--her current writing speed is 1000 words an hour). She lives in Brighton, England but dreams of owning an eco-chalet in the mountains.