Bread, Memory, and the Price of Enough

There were five of us—three girls and two boys—and we were poor. The kind of poor that leaves fingerprints on your adulthood. Back when “food stamps” weren’t digital cards but booklets you tore from and handed to the cashier like confessions. We weren’t the only ones, though it sometimes felt that way. Poverty has a way of isolating you, even when the whole block is living on the same prayer.

Back then, families were closer. Sunday dinners were sacred, not just for the food but for the ritual of it. You could smell a neighborhood coming alive—collard greens wilting slowly on one stove, beans softening on another, cornbread baking somewhere down the street. These weren’t meals for show. They were meals that stuck to your ribs—food that held you up when money couldn’t. The kind of food that whispered, You’ll make it another week.

Now, everything feels fragile. Groceries cost more than rent used to. People work two jobs and still stand in lines that stretch around food banks. The price of “enough” keeps climbing, and somehow, we’re supposed to just keep smiling through it.

  And with this government shutdown—when paychecks stop, and benefits are frozen—it’s hard not to feel that same hollow echo in the stomach that so many of us grew up with. You start to realize how close the edge really is, and how many are already there.

We have celebrity chefs and cooking competitions, but fewer people know how to create something from almost nothing. Food has become entertainment instead of education. We scroll past videos of perfectly plated dishes while families debate whether to buy milk or gas. Somewhere between delivery apps and drive-thrus, we forgot how to feed ourselves.

Maybe the answer isn’t some new system or trend. Perhaps it’s about remembering what our grandparents knew—the art of stretching a dollar, of savoring time itself, and learning to make the basics again. Bread. Beans. Rice. The things that built us.

Because bread isn’t just flour, salt, yeast, and water, it’s patience. It’s a skill born from necessity. It’s history kneaded into muscle memory. Once you have the supplies, it’s cheaper than store-bought—and better for you, body and spirit alike. I’ve found that unfortified flour—the kind left untouched by additives—makes a difference. It’s raw, honest, and stripped down to its true essence.

That’s what we need more of now.

Less enrichment, more essence.

Less spectacle, more survival.

Learning to make the basics again might not fix everything, but it’s a start—a quiet way of reclaiming control in a world that continually raises the price of dignity. Because the table, when it’s full of simple food and shared stories, still has a kind of wealth that can’t be counted.

And maybe that’s what it really means to eat something that sticks to your ribs.

If you want to start anywhere, start with bread. The most basic bread is humble—just flour, salt, yeast, and water: no milk, no butter, no sugar. You stir, you wait, you fold. You give it time to rise, and it teaches you patience in return. Baked until golden and stiff on the outside, soft and honest on the inside. Tear it apart while it’s still warm, and you’ll understand why people around the world have made it for centuries. It’s not about luxury—it’s about survival, about care, about transforming the simplest things into something that sustains.

  And in moments like this—when uncertainty feels like the new normal—maybe that kind of bread, bare and honest, isn’t just food. Perhaps it’s a reminder that we’ve been here before and we made it through.

Kyle J. Hayes

kylehayesblog.com

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Note from the Author:

If this reflection stirred something in you — that quiet urge to create, to remember, to feed — you can start where I did: with bread.

I’ve shared the simplest recipe I know, one that costs little and teaches much.

👉 The Most Basic Bread Recipe

Four ingredients. A little patience.

And a reminder that even in hard times, we can still make enough.

Resources for Hard Times

If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

👉 Resources for Hard Times