Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns
I had recently been to one of the Co-Operative Store situated on Evington road, Leicester. Being a big fan of sweets (especially baked ones), I was browsing through the freshly baked food items put on display near the bake place. I came across a pack of "Hot Cross Buns", which took me back to my childhood memories. Immediately the above displayed nursery rhyme rhymed in me and it felt simply beautiful.
When i was a small kid, my dad had bought this cassette which had many nursery rhymes recorded in them. My brother, sister and I used to listen to this cassette quite often. We even sung together a couple of these rhymes. I had always wondered what hot cross buns would taste like and why it had such a fancy name. Now it was time to answer those childhood questions. I took a pack of 4 and examined the bun. It was shiny with raisins filled in it. Well, it did really have a white cross on the top of the bun, although the bun wasn't hot. By examining the pack i could make out why it had a fancy name. I decided to get a pack so that I can get to know its taste. It was not a penny per bun, but 15 pence a bun. Along with other stuff I bought a pack of hot cross buns and went home. I could hardly wait to get home and have a bite off the so called hot cross buns. Finally I reached home, opened the pack and had a reasonable bite off the bun. Initially it tasted like the usual fruit buns, but after some time I felt that it had some spices in them that gave a different taste. I might have felt it different cause its been a while since i had a fruit bun or may be cause it really was different from other buns. The white cross on top had nothing to do with the taste, more over I felt it was taste less.
I tried to understand what was the significance of the white cross on the bun. I am sure we all can find this information on the internet. Yes I did try the internet for answers to this. Wikipedia was helpful. It gave lots of information on this, you should look into it. But why not think of its significance yourself. After some analysis I think (all are assumptions, this is not the actual information) that, in the olden days buns were an important part of humans diet. So as this business became competitive, a baker came up with an idea to produce a bun with a difference (in marketing terms it is know as differential advantage) which would improve his market share and bring him more profit. So he would have come up with an idea to have a noticeable cross on the bun. His product not only had a differential advantage but it appealed much to Christians.
Anyways, this post is not to analyse the history of hot cross buns, but to pen down the feel of warmth and happiness felt when I came across an object with which I was associated during my childhood. It took me back to those days which were no more than memories now. It feels so good to retrieve these memories from our human archival system and relish it to the maximum.
What do you have to say about this????
