Have you ever wondered when loaves of bread were sold for the first time in Quy Nhon? And what are the differences of breads between present day and past day? Try to answer and you will find many stories behind a loaf of bread.
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Ngoc Nga bakery’s bread is one of many people’s favourite meals for breakfast. |
Coming to the Thuan Phat bakery in an early morning which is the busiest time of a day, we’ll see bakers quickly finish baking breads to deliver to other bakeries in time. To bake loaves of bread, they have to prepare all ingredients at mid-night.
Today, the bakers’ workload is not as hard as in the past thanks to electronic ovens. However, many bakers said baking bread with e-ovens is more convenient but less quality than baking with firewood or coal.
Bread – present and past
The 74-year old photographer Pham Van Chai, who has lived in Quy Nhon since his childhood, said, “Bread was one of expensive meals for breakfast in Quy Nhon in the 50s of the 20th century. It was quite small and had other ingredients mixed with flour inside before being baked on a brazier. In the early 60s, the shape of a loaf of bread was changed and it has been existed until now.”
Before the liberation day, there were only some bakeries in Quy Nhon and most of them belonged to Chinese people. However, the most well-known one was the Lai My bakery, owned by a Vietnamese woman.
“2-3 rooms were filled with the flour used to make bread and tens of bakers had to work from 5 pm to 4 am,” said Van, who once stayed with Lai My owner. “Bread was then distributed to other retailers and vendors.” After 1975, these bakeries closed. Some of them then coordinated with food companies.
At present, bakeries have mushroomed at every corner of the city. Averagely, more than 40,000 loaves of bread are produced everyday while the city just has over 310,000 people.
“Due to severe competitiveness, some bakeries lower the quality of bread to reduce the price,” said a bakery’s owner in Thi Nai ward.
Competitiveness for quality
Some newly-born bakeries are now dominating the market. Ngoc Nga Co., Ltd is, for example, well known for bread after five years.
“The company applies advanced technologies to produce bread; thus, the quality of our bread is higher than others,” said the company’s director Tran Dinh Dung. “Ngoc Nga averagely produces thousands of bread, meeting the demand of city dwellers, hotels, and restaurants.”
After the Metro Quy Nhon was put into operation in October, 2010, its solid and long bread has attracted many people. The company had to increase the production capacity to meet the consumers’ demand.
Memories of bread
Bread now becomes one of popular meals for breakfast in Quy Nhon and many bakeries have their own features, such as O Vinh, Thuan Phat, and Tan Gia Loi.
Among them, Tan Gia Loi’s bread is often highly valued thanks to its “strange” delicious taste. Nguyen Xuan Thuong, the owner of Tan Gia Loi, said his bakery was set up 10 years ago and his bread has ingredients which were made with a method which is different from other bakeries.
Many people who left Quy Nhon always express the nostalgia for bread when talking about Quy Nhon. According to the owner of Tan Gia Loi, some students leaving Quy Nhon for HCM City sometimes asked their friends to buy tens of loaves of bread at Tan Gia Loi bakery when they travelled to HCM City by air. Also, many overseas Vietnamese always phone them to ask whether or not the bakery opens so that they are able to buy bread there when returning to Vietnam.
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