To Goanet - Cecil Pinto wrote: >planning and preparation of the product is very often done by the >women folk (and hired help) how can it still be labelled a 'male >dominated' industry? In many cases the wives and daugters even helped >out with delivering the bread. It was a family enterprise rather than >of just one individual. The male head of the house was often the >figurehead poder but the female component of the industry must never >be underestimated.
This was certainly true of the bakery in St. Inez we grew up with. It is the "Monteiro Bakery" near the cross up the road from Tadmad. The father was the titular head, the boys Rosario, Thom, Philip and Nazareth (our mates at evening football at our Tadmad ground, which is alas a Fire Station today) would help out and serve as delivery boys and then head to school (Don Bosco). But the mother was the centre of the operation. When my wife and I visited them a couple of years back, Philip, who runs the business now, summoned his mother to answer some of the detailed questions my wife had of the breadmaking process (which I photographed in some detail). The other great St Inez bakery today lies in ruins (it is at the fork where the former mayor 'Bashico' Branco lived). In those days we had the pleasure of retrieving piping hot bread from the fornans ourselves if we felt like it. Regards, r