The photo of the field you see is not from Ukraine. This photo was taken a few years ago in a wheat field in Tarragona (in eastern Spain).

We see the same infinite blue sky, the same ocean of cereal. Actually, it could be so many other places, bathed in the same sun and blessed by the same bread.

I am convinced that civilizations that used cereal share the same language – that of bread, which is like sharing the same roof: bread, хліб. The deep sadness that wars produce is a black hole of inexhaustible despair.

Just a year ago these days the Ukrainian translation of the book “Homemade Bread” (Домашній хліб, in Ukrainian) came out. I remember the emotion and illusion when the Vivat Publishing House printed it. Those days were incredible!

I was amazed for weeks by the beautiful spelling of the title in Ukrainian, the magic of the letters, the distance and the friendly bread community. The feeling of being able to share bread with people from such distant lands. Feeling united by the same idea of bread, is incomparable.

Without going any further, not long ago I had a great surprise when I discovered through Instagram a reader from there, Natalia Palianuchka. Seeing that she made in her house, in the distant Ukraine, breads from this book was one of those things that touched me.

A few days later, our Ukrainian editor, Nataliya Miroshnik, told us that the bombs had woken her up in Kharkiv. That’s where the headquarters of the Vivat Publishing House was.

I leave here a message of bread, of fellowship (in the original sense of the word), for all of us who live under this same sky. Все буде паляниця! (All will be palianytsia!)**

* “palianytsia” is a traditional bread produced by POLYANY (Polans) – an ancient tribe of Eastern Slavs.

** It has been widely popular in Ukraine to use a phrase “All will be Ukraine” when one wants to say “All will be ok”. In this case Ibán interpreted this famous phrase even further, saying “All will be palianytsia”.

Ibán Yarza – baker, recognized for his dissemination of home baking and bread culture in Spain. Journalist and interpreter and author of books about bread:
«100 Recetas de pan de pueblo» (2019) – 100 Recipes of Village Bread
«Pan de pueblo» (2017) – People’s Bread
«¿Hacemos pan?» (2015) – Let’t Make Bread!
«Pan casero» (2013) – Homemade Bread