Hearing that Jesus had once served five thousand people with just five loaves, Montrose was unimpressed with what was surely the earliest example of stingy nouvelle cuisine. After all, bread was Montrose’s life, and he had always dreamed of opening his own bakery.
He came from Jamaica to England via Spain and France. Spain had given him his surname; so impressed had he been upon seeing a woman reduced to tears by a busking classical guitarist, he decided to adopt the surname of the country’s finest exponent of the art.
France had taught Montrose Segovia that, apparently, rather a lot of European women thought him as sweet as any Brioche he could bake. Having been praised by many a Michelin star chef for his breads, he reckoned his physical commodities were as bankable as whatever culinary ones he possessed.
He moved to London at the turn of the millennium. Never a fan of overt religious displays, Montrose had hoped to open his bakery in secular but affluent Hampstead. But he could not afford the exorbitant leases demanded by the area, so established himself in the rather more devout but, more importantly, only marginally less affluent area of Golder’s Green.
Concentrating on Jewish fare with his considerable culinary flare, Montrose found local fame among the more discerning populace. Indeed, so quickly was he revered for his sensitivity to the Jewish palate; his name above his shop soon lost any musical association. Instead, Montrose was welcomed as a member of the Diaspora on account of the ancient Spanish city, of which he knew nothing, but which apparently had suffered its fair share of anti-Semitic persecution.
Which was exactly what Montrose himself claimed to have suffered, when his courtship of his customers’ daughters reached the stage, which required him to give an account of his condition.
“Tis the greatest persecution a Jew can suffer,” he would claim when being quizzed over his intact foreskin. “Not even allowed a circumcision. It is my noble shame.”
The emollience offered to the afflicted area by his many girls was testament to their piety, and their sympathy for Montrose’s supposed plight.
And so Montrose was happy. He was faithful to his baking and screwing, if only by virtue of their religious persuasion. On Fridays, he would hand Mrs. Oppenheimer her Challah and Mrs. Brecht her Babbka, wish them well for the Shabbat, and assure himself of their attendance at the Synagogue that evening and the following afternoon.
Montrose’s interest in the religious duties of his customers was not as selfless as they believed it to be. For while Mrs. Oppenheimer and Mrs. Brecht were incanting sacred sentiments at the Synagogue, Montrose would be soliciting rather more profane ones from their daughters.
The trouble really started when Montrose began catering to tastes beyond the Jewish community. It had always been an unspoken assumption that Montrose’s bakery was Kosher, but as he began offering the likes of Paska, Penia, Koulourakia, and other breads and pastries anathema to the Jewish menu, he was increasingly pressured into upholding his bakery’s Judaic traditions.
Worried that to blatantly declare the bakery Kosher might scare away some of his new Catholic and Christian patrons, he chose to display a discreet “K” symbol on his shop sign; the devout would know what it meant, the rest wouldn’t care. To supplement this, Montrose hung portraits of Jackie Mason, Saul Bellow and Larry David, forging their signatures in black marker pen to suggest a greater intimacy.
The more orthodox, non-Jewish, customers expressed discomfort with this new affectation. In response to this, Montrose’s added the job of lookout to his cashier’s duties.
“Old Mrs. Giamatti’s coming,” the girl would shout, and Montrose would hurriedly replace the Jewish luminaries with portraits of Robert DeNiro, Pavarotti, and Pope John Paul II.
Of all his cashier’s forewarnings, the most dreaded was the approach of Mrs. Gomes; a nice old Christian woman from Portugal, who always enjoyed the sight of the footballer Christiano Ronaldo hanging behind the counter.
“The boy got more oil in his hair than there is in my whole kitchen.”
And if his professional duplicities were not enough to occupy him, Montrose was juggling plenty of sexual ones. His liaisons were as varied as the religious persuasions which now flavoured them: whereas previously he would have tossed a rag over the Star of David before hustling its follower onto all fours and penetrating her, he now had to contend with crosses of all shapes and sizes, statues of the Virgin, and images of the Crucifixion; none of which was conducive to erection.
Lacking the necessary rise in the bedroom, the affliction soon spread to the kitchen. That Easter was Montrose’s busiest ever, and as he spent ever more time pandering to the various religions, which he claimed to exclusively serve, his baking began to suffer. His Simnel Cake was a thick porridge, and the Challah was a flat shadow of its former self.
Montrose’s problems culminated on the Thursday before Good Friday, when everyone received the wrong order.
“I don’t want this… this drek,” Mrs. Oppenheimer exclaimed, upon being presented with Mrs. Giamatti’s Penia.
“What is this? Are you trying to offend me?” Mrs. Giamatti demanded, holding up Mrs. Brecht’s limp Babbka with one hand, her other hand gesturing quickly between the bread and Montrose.
“Where is my lovely Ronaldo? Who is that old man hanging in Christiano’s place?” Mrs. Gomez inquired; fair enough – there was no mistaking Christiano Ronaldo for Jackie Mason.
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