Bread and salt

When I blipped the torpedo timer on 1st December my eye was caught by another item right next to it in the antiques shop window. It was a battered wooden plate labelled Russian bread plate, with a sheaf of corn carved in the centre and some words around the rim. I've put a photo here.

Now, although my father was from Ukraine he left Russia as a child and by the time I was born over 40 years later he was, to all intents and purposes, thoroughly Anglicised (although naturally he retained his Russian soul.) Russian was not spoken in my home nor did we retain any Russian customs or traditions. Thus I didn't recognise the plate as being the vehicle with which the ancient ritual of welcoming a guest to the house with bread and salt would be effected. Sometimes a whole, decorated loaf is proffered, with salt beside it in a small pot or even within a depression made in the top of the loaf itself.

With the words Khleb da sol!/Bread and salt, the visitor breaks off a morsel of the bread, dips it in the salt and eats - accepting the host's hospitality in a spirit of trust and friendship. Bread stands for prosperity, the staff of life (and in Russia that commodity, life, was never a given) while salt, vital for a mostly landlocked population, was precious and highly taxed. The phrase is still very much alive, used ironically by beggars on the street and symbolically by cosmonauts with crackers and salt tablets in their space capsules. It has featured through the ages as a gesture of loyalty and humility to the imperial family, state rulers and religious leaders - although its roots stretch far back before the arrival of Christianity to the ancient pagan deities of the Slavs.

The motto around the rim of the plate appears to be a Russian version of the Polish saying czym chata bogata tym rada which means roughly 'Whatever the cottage is blessed with, be joyful (or rejoice in)'. I haven't yet found the literal translation (maybe someone could help?) but I'm slightly reminded the mobile butcher's van that used to visit our village when I was a child, with the slogan 'Pleased to meet you, meat to please you'.

There are a number of similar plates to be found on online auction sites if you search for Russian wooden bread plates. Many were made as ornaments only but the one I saw seemed to have been well used, even abused. The carved plough(?) beneath the sheaf is almost erased. Nevertheless I longed to possess it and I went into the shop on Monday naively imagining that I might be able to stump up the price - I was very wrong! Still I was able to handle it (very light, maybe made of alder wood) and then at home I set up my own version of the Russian welcome, with bread made by the quarter-Russian hands of son Huw, sea salt he collected from the Croatian shore last summer and a much simpler wooden platter: Khleb da sol!