“Peace goes into the making of a poem, as flour goes into the making of bread.” ~ Pablo Neruda
Franck Dangereux’s Oil Bread via The Food Fox (click for recipe)
The other day, after rereading Lesléa Newman’s, “According to Bread,” one of my favorite poems in The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School(Pomelo Books, 2013), chewy, mouthwatering bread names playfully called to me, each a poem unto itself.
Play with us, they said. Roll, pat, toss us! Slice, butter, dip, fill, break us. We know we smell good. 🙂
Bread is a beautiful thing — venerable, inclusive, eternal, irresistible. Staff of life and a sacrament, it pays our way and is a gift from every culture and ethnicity in the world.
Rosemary Focaccia via My Year Cooking with Chris Kimball (click for recipe)
Just naming these breads makes me happy. I daresay I feel a tad cosmopolitan because I’ve actually tasted all of them and more. What do you reach for when the bread basket is passed around?
” If you have extraordinary bread and extraordinary butter, it’s hard to beat bread and butter.” ~ Jacques Pepin
Ah, butter! Slather it on a slice of warm crusty bread, watch a pat slippy slide down a stack of fluffy pancakes, feel it grease the corners of your mouth as you bite into a cob of corn.
Rich, smooth, creamy yellow — butter kisses your toast and ensures you will rise and shine. Ninety-nine percent of my cookie batters start off with creaming softened butter with sugar, beating till it’s nice and fluffy and ready for vanilla and eggs. There simply is no substitute: butter always promises superior flavor.
(Click for No-Knead City Bread recipe with Brown Butter Spread via Always . . . Leave Room for Dessert!)
Elizabeth Alexander’s soul-nourishing poem, “Butter,” makes me think about my parents. My mother loves butter, but my father won’t touch it. If you dare offer her margarine, be prepared for a haughty, “I want real butter.”
I must say you’re even more good looking today than you were last week. How is that even possible?!
I see by the twinkle in your eye that you’re hungry for good words and good food. You’ve definitely come to the right place. Please help yourself to some freshly brewed Kona coffee and homemade mango bread. 🙂
♥ TODAY’S POEM ♥
Actually, I’m on a mango kick this week. I reviewed the breathtakingly beautiful Moon Mangoes the other day, and today I’m sharing Lesléa Newman’s mouthwatering “Mangoes” from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School,compiled by poetry goddesses Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong (Pomelo Books, 2013).
Though I’m a tad extremely partial to Week 10 (Food) and Week 11 (More Food) in the anthology, I was thrilled when Lesléa’s poem appeared as a delicious surprise in Week 31 (Different Forms) for Seventh Grade (page 165).
“Mangoes” is a ghazal, an Arabic lyric poem that incorporates the repetition of the same ending word in each couplet. When it comes to mangoes, Lesléa is a poet after my own heart, for her chosen end word is “heaven.” What better way to describe that luscious golden fruit personifying the sun-drenched days of summer?
Peel it back, cutie pies, and let those juices drip down your chin.
“Woman with a Mango” by Paul Gauguin (1892)
MANGOES by Lesléa Newman
I’ve got to know before I go,
do mangoes grow in heaven?
Without that treat that tastes so sweet
don’t want no seat in heaven.
If there ain’t none — at least a ton —
won’t be no fun in heaven.
If they substitute another fruit
I’ll give the boot to heaven.
A mango a day like the good doctor say
and I’ll make my way to heaven.
Will a mango slide through my fingers and glide
down my throat as I float up to heaven?
Now say for real, are there mangoes to steal
and peel on the way up to heaven?
If you say no, Lesléa won’t go —
no mangoes isn’t heaven!
Please leave your links with the fun-loving Mr. Linky below. Don’t forget to include the title of your poem or the book you’re reviewing in parentheses after your name. I will add your links manually to this post throughout the day.
Trust me, you need to make this mango bread sometime soon. It’s super moist, not overly sweet (golden raisins!), and is even better the next day.
The recipe calls for diced mango, but I put mine in the food processor because I like even distribution of fruit in my bread. Since my mangoes were medium ripe, the consistency was sort of like grated carrots. Choice of nuts is up to you — unsalted macadamias are divine and add a nice Hawaiian flavor. 🙂
Mmmm Good Mango Bread (makes one loaf)
2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking soda 1-1/2 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons cinnamon 3 eggs 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1-1/2 cups sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 cup golden raisins 1/2 cup chopped nuts 2 cups diced mango 1/4 cup flaked coconut (optional)
1. Grease a one pound loaf pan or a bundt pan.
2. Sift flour, soda, salt and cinnamon into large mixing bowl. Make a well and add the remaining ingredients, mixing thoroughly.
3. Pour into pan and let stand for 20 minutes.
4. Bake in a 350 degree oven for an hour.
(adapted from A TASTE OF ALOHA by the Junior League of Honolulu, 1983)
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P.S. Happy 72nd Birthday to my man Bob Dylan! He’s knock knock knockin’ on heaven’s door — probably checking for mangoes.
Have a fabulous holiday weekend, and thanks for poetry-ing with us. Hello, Summer!
“Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.” ~ M.F.K. Fisher
Mr. Charles Cheddar Ghigna, our own Eminent Cheese Poet
Was it G.K. Chesterton who said, “The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese”?
Clearly he wasn’t up on his Canadian poets, or he would have sung the praises of one James McIntyre of Ingersoll, Ontario, who’s known far and wide as “the cheese poet.” Who could forget (even if they wanted to) McIntyre’s masterpiece, “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing Over 7,000 Pounds”?
If Chesterton had lived long enough, he would have drooled over Donald Hall’s “O Cheese,” which Diane Mayr shared at Random Noodling last year. “Cheeses that dance in the moonlight/cheeses that mingle with sausages” — who could resist such free-spirited, sociable chunks of goodness? And who, among us, could ever turn our backs on the steadfast comfort of homemade mac and cheese, the golden brown delights of a friendly grilled cheese sandwich, the pull-apart-melty-string gooeyness of mozzarella married to pizza crust?
Clearly he wasn’t up on his Canadian poets, or he would have sung the praises of one 
Jama's Alphabet Soup 