“Let them eat cake!”

That arrogant statement could never have been uttered even if we had a woman that pompous (was it really Marie Antoinette?) during the Spanish era. To begin with, we didn’t have cake.

Maybe she could have said: “Let them eat ‘kakanin’ (rice cake)!” “With ‘budbod’ (topping).” Or perhaps: “With ‘niyog’ (grated coconut).”

Although cake had been served in European royal courts for about a thousand years, that baked product didn’t get to be popular in this archipelago until the American period. If we ever had cakes in the ancient times, those would have been mooncakes since our islands were already doing trade with China even before the arrival of the Spaniards.

But bread had been around for a long time. Historians always say the Spanish colonizers brought with them the sword and the cross. They forgot to mention bread.

Since we are not a wheat-producing country, bread had always been for snacks. While some Filipinos eat bread for breakfast, nothing beats the good, old sinangag (fried rice) for most Pinoys.

Filipinos, however, should appreciate bread more. It is a handy meal – for picnics or if one is hungry and in a hurry.

In the 1970s, the Philippine government (with aid from the United States) started distributing “nutri-bun” in public elementary schools to combat child malnutrition. Nutri-bun was a bread fortified with Vitamin A that proved essential, especially for children with dietary deficiencies.

When I was doing a game show with Arnell Ignacio, Alessandra de Rossi and the late Joy Viado, we got to talk about nutri-bun during a break in the shoot. I had heard about nutri-bun, but never got to have a taste of it. But Arnell and Joy had and they said nutri-bun served as a nutritious snack during recess for a lot of school children.

According to them, nutri-bun was a compact bread that was so heavy, it felt like one swallowed a paper weight after consuming the entire bread. It tasted good, too, so they claimed.

Nutri-bun, incidentally, was never sold in the market. It was distributed only in public schools — for free.

While nutri-bun was being given away as part of a government program, there was a new bread variety that was being sold by enterprising businessmen who were cashing in (actually exploiting) on the popularity of a rising star who also came from the ranks of the underprivileged. The name of the singer-actress was Nora Aunor.

Nora had become so popular that she became the top endorser of the early 1970s. She appeared in a Coca-cola commercial and sang its jingle. She also endorsed Dial soap and was actually shown taking a shower in the TV commercial. Of course, the shot was only from shoulder up.

Those who couldn’t afford her services decided to make money off her anyway. Bakery owners started coming up with their own versions of pan de Nora. How was it different from other breads? Pan de Nora was baked to a brownish hue (Nora was a famous “kayumanggi”) and had a single raisin on it strategically placed on the lower right side of the bread. That raisin was supposed to be Nora’s famous mole.

There were different varieties of pan de Nora — depending on the bakery. Some were soft, but dry. There were also those that were on the coarser side. The only common denominator was the ever-present raisin. Without the raisin, it wouldn’t be pan de Nora anymore.