“Most businesses are closed by this time on reaping day, but the black market’s still fairly busy. We easily trade six of the fish for good bread, the other two for salt.”
Does good bread mean bakery bread? I’m assuming yes since she explained the difference between their typical grain ration kind and fine bakery bread a few pages earlier. If it is bakery bread does that mean someone from the bakery is regularly making deliveries to the Hob or that one of the Mellark boys sells there? I’ve totally missed that until this reread.
Arrrrgh I reblogged with all this stuff written and it disappeared. Let’s try this again.
It’s interesting that all of us have just kinda glossed over this tidbit without wondering how. Especially since we were just discussing it the other day and it’s mentioned in @porchwood Toasting Theory. I highly doubt it would be deliveries or them selling there. My guess would be either someone has some kind of trade setup with the bakery or someone is able to make a decent bread by creating other types of flour/possibly mixing with tesserae. This has been widely fanoned in Panem AUs for Peeta.
I could see someone ekeing out a living as a baker with a stall in the Hob, @lovely-tothe-bone. It sounds like a lot of children took tessera rations and not everyone is a baker. (And doesn’t Katniss mention making drop biscuits with the tessera grain at some point?) With all that grain making its way into the district on a monthly basis, it’s easy to see how there’d be demand for a skilled baker (who might have a bigger/better oven at home) to turn it into something tastier, probably by mixing it with better flour. Come to think of it, measures of tessera grain probably became a de facto currency in the barter economy in the Hob.
@lovely-tothe-bone, thank you for the tag!! I haven’t been glossing over it, honest! I in fact have many thoughts on this topic, especially as concerns the beginning of THG! Bread is mentioned several times in an interesting (and ultimately puzzling) progression:
Gale holds up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it… It’s real bakery bread, not the flat, dense loaves we make from our grain rations. […] Fine bread like this is for special occasions. (p.7)
On the way home we swing by the Hob… […] We easily trade six of the fish for good bread… (p.11)
Gale and I divide our spoils, leaving two fish, a couple of loaves of good bread, greens, a quart of strawberries, salt, paraffin, and a bit of money for each. (p.14)
Now, are you ready for your head to split?!?
The fish and greens are already cooking in a stew, but that will be for supper. We decide to save the strawberries and bakery bread for this evening’s meal, to make it special, we say. Instead we drink milk from Prim’s goat, Lady, and eat the rough bread made from the tessera grain, although no one has much appetite anyway. (p. 16)
Does this mean that:
a) There was some “fine” bakery bread leftover from her breakfast with Gale and that’s what they were saving for supper?
b) The “good bread” from the Hob is true (Mellark) bakery bread (day-olds, bakery outlet, etc)? I’m thinking even stale bakery bread might be considered superior to tessera bread…
c) (suggested by @ghtlovesthg when I brought this up with her) Katniss considers any bread not made by her family/at home to be “bakery” bread, so she’s referring here to the “good” bread they bought at the Hob as “bakery bread”?
Help meeeeeeeeee!
Furthermore, if “good flour” is so tricky to get hold of, does this mean their drop biscuits (the baked good representing Twelve in the breadbasket during tribute training) are usually made of tessera flour (hence “ugly”)?? And why are they the characteristic bread for Twelve (when I can’t recall them being referenced except in this scene)? They’re typical miner lunch pail fare?
One day, Peeta empties our breadbasket and points out how they have been careful to include types from the districts along with the refined bread of the Capitol. The fish-shaped loaf tinted green with seaweed from District 4. The crescent moon roll dotted with seeds from District 11. Somehow, although it’s made of the same stuff, it looks a lot more appetizing than the ugly drop biscuits that are the standard fare at home. (p.. 97-98)
And@katamount, I agree on tessera becoming a hot commodity! In the next chapter of Strawberry Time I need to properly introduce the Hob to the Mooniverse, so it got me thinking about what “black market” stalls might be vs “public market” ones. (I’m still perplexed by the latter - is it the “sidewalk sale” for the merchant shops? Is it regulated by the Capitol, so you apply for a booth/table permit at the Justice Building and there are only certain things you can sell there? Is it primarily for Merchant customers and the Hob is more for the Seam - and Merchants looking for stuff like white liquor/moonshine?) To my way of thinking, tessera (grain and oil) would be in particular demand by people too old to qualify for it themselves (from 19-year-old newlyweds to the “elderly,” whatever that looks like in Twelve :/), parents of children too young to qualify for tesserae, and the childless.
I really feel like it’s B.
What if someone once upon a time *tried* to refine current/introduce different flour/grains BUT people were starting to get too well fed or the person somehow got too much attention and the peacekeepers had to put a stop to it. That would make more sense for why it seems that Mellarks is the only bakery and also someone seems to have access to good bread.
I can’t think of any relevant point at all in the story for the drop biscuit rolls to be mentioned other than here. Maybe all these breads look better/taste better because the Capitol used proper ingredients rather than tessera or the tessera is refined. How would Katniss really know whether they are made of the same ingredients? I mean, drop biscuits require butter and milk, how much of that can 12 really have access to in order to make these on a regular basis? Both can be substituted with several things. The milk would be replaced with water and my best guess for the butter would be vegetable oil or something similar. Thus creating a far inferior version for the residents of 12. I’m not well versed in the science of baking to know which specific ingredient would have the most impact on the look. Personal opinion is Katniss is just wrong, she can’t possibly know the exact ingredients the cooks at the training center are using to make the breads.
I got the feeling that the public market is mainly merchant sidewalk sale. The original business permit probably includes an extension to this.
@iliveilaughiloveiread I do believe you were right. It seems as if Mr. Mellark was doing some kind of trading/selling at the Hob. The real question is *how* was he able to do this without a problem from Mrs. Mellark?
@lovely-tothe-bone, thanks for adding this quote! That one stood out to me too, but moreso because of Prim selling in the Hob at age twelve (where eleven-year-old Katniss had initially feared to tread without their father!). Somehow I’d always assumed that Prim’s goat milk/cheese trade was a door-to-door thing (you know, utilizing that toy wagon of hers referenced in Ch 2!), so it’s kind of startling to imagine. And “sells her goat cheeses” rather than “trades her goat cheeses” definitely makes it sound like a regular little business, not just an occasional walk-through with a tray.
(Because yes, I’m totally picturing a cigarette girl and this was the most modestly dressed one i could find - and therefore, the least disturbing to post in the midst of Prim meta!)
As far as Mrs. Mellark - as you guys surely know, I have sooooooooo many thoughts - but I think she was a sound businesswoman and would be willing to try all the avenues available to make a profit off their baked goods. Peeta reveals that the family wasn’t allowed to eat bakery product “unless it’s gone very stale,” so if merchant clientele turned up their noses at day-olds, why not sell them in the Hob at half-price rather than eating them yourself and losing all the profit? (I headcanon that Mrs. Mellark is Rooba’s younger sister - a butcher’s daughter - and has that “make use of every bit” frugality - “everything but the squeal,” if you will!)
