I decided to focus this week’s reflection on the Pan de Coco Instagram story from Bryan Ford. I really enjoyed watching him make this bread because you can learn a lot about a person’s heritage or upbringing by the food they enjoy cooking. I especially love it when there is a personal story behind a dish, and as mentioned on Bryan’s blog, he grew up in Honduras where he paints a picture of a dinner table full of various soups and roasted meats, and a little unassuming coconut roll: Pan de Coco.

It’s important for these kinds of recipes to be celebrated in order to give proper representation to heritage foods like Pan de Coco. Traditional baking/cooking is underrepresented in the culinary industry, which tends to favour innovation and exciting new gastronomy techniques – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but respecting and connecting with the kind of cooking that comes from your culture is vital to the preservation of those dishes.

As a side, I also really liked how Bryan did every step of the kneading dividing, and mixing by hand. Hands are the original cooking tool, and in my opinion, the best way to make sure your food will be delicious is by connecting directly with the ingredients!