OMITTED Live and learn.
I chanced to read one of those “Today in History listings just this morning and I was surprised to find that on this date in 1943, Americans were forbidden to have any sliced bread in the house.
Those of us under “duration plus six months”contract with any of the military services missed a great many things happening “back home”. It was many years after the war before I actually saw and held a ration book in my hands. We were, now that I look back at it all, we members of the armed forces were the ones who were being ‘deprived” - not the people at home. The U.S.O. Was created to provide some of those little things we were missing which made life at home so much easier. Other groups worked with the same thing in mind; to provide “needed” items for G.I’.s living away from home minus the important little things so important to fulsome living.
I assume the prohibition on sliced bread was considered to be an economic measure. If such a ban on sliced bread was set up to save money doubt if it could have been worthwhile. Or,it could have been that someone saw the term as a symbol of wastefulness. “Best thing since sliced bread!” is still used to say something is new and good to have.
At the time, I did wish for white bread, I remember. We lived on brown bread ,baked and moved about like a stack of bricks. No paper wrappers. The rough texture of the bread itself had a bran husk barrier which opposed the cutting process of any average knife blade. It was best eaten in chunks torn from the main loaf by finger power. Some good-toothed individuals could bite into it like sunlight consuming an iceberg.
I have asked around today and, thus far, I have not found one person who remembers the day when sliced bread was banned. Many think I'm silly to even ask. Most seem to think bread has always been sold sliced. Few realize that bread used to be marketed by the chunk or a family-styled twin-chunk or double loaf.
I wonder what measures we have on the books right now as “security measures” which may strike people in the future as being on the silly side?
A.L.M. January 19, 2006 [c411wds]
