SoCultures Magazine 2018 SoCultures Magazine November 2018 | Page 42

SoCultures November 2018 India & Russia Gingerbread It’s stunning and simply heavenly! A loaf worth trying for! And mind it; it’s not only bread it’s a very creative way to make life easier. In fact the Tula Gingerbread is been proposed by the Russian government to be included in the UNESCO intangible heritage list. Its recipes are varied and different from families to families and are kept a secretly guarded passed down to the sons and heirs…decades after decades. It was included in the family meals as a learning resource for young ones. Children would learn alphabets and letters before eating it. It would also act as a match maker in weddings. The groom not sure of being accepted would send loaf of gingerbread to the brides. If she accepts the bread, it would be considered her approval of the proposal. There is giant monument in Tula and the writing on it says, “The Tula gingerbread has been famous since 1685.” Borodinsky 1. Boroninsky By Saboteur [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons 42