Sage Bakehouse – Santa Fe, New Mexico
Bread. We’ve been told it’s bad for our health, that it’s loaded with carbs and gluten. Western doctors admonish caloric-overachievers to reduce our consumption of bread. These dispensers of dietary information are at a loss to explain Emma Tillman. When she passed away in 2007, the daughter of former slaves was an American supercentenarian and, for a few days, the world’s oldest living person. She passed away at the young age of 114 years and 67 days. Emma Tillman ran her own baking and catering service for about sixty years. She prepared the staff of life for dignitaries in the state of North Carolina which proclaimed an “Emma Tillman Day” to commemorate her 110th birthday. Eleven years after Emma Tillman went to her eternal reward, a 115-year-old US woman from Iowa died less than two weeks after inheriting the title of world’s oldest person. Dina Manfredini was known as a great cook who baked Italian bread every Sunday for her family, and meticulously made pasta by hand. One of the commonalities between these venerable women was their love of bread. That’s something they shared from five specific areas of the world where residents live the longest. Those residents live in…