It seems as if a number of persons don't know how to make bulla cakes anymore? Seriously, when did it get to the stage where supermarkets started carrying these round mounds of dough and calling them bulla cakes when some of them are anything but?

Back when I was growing up, I used to look forward to going to the bakery and buying myself a bulla or two, and a cut of cheese. I would then smash the cheese on to the flat surface of the bulla and then, my mouth watering, sank my teeth into the chewy dough and cheese. Man, those were some good times.

The bullas I am talking about were deep brown and had a nice consistency. You could break one and not have crumbs scattered all over the place. I used to buy them warm and the cheese fresh from the can. Together they made for a great snack for a seven-year-old boy and his friends.

These days, you break some of the bullas and it's like you shot them with a pellet gun, crumbs everywhere.

A lot of time has passed since then and clearly, the art of making the bullas that I knew has been lost. Alas, I don't know why but I suspect that either the people who used to make those great bulla cakes have all died and taken their secret recipes with them, or, like everything else in this country, it became too expensive to continue making bullas like they used to and so a much cheaper way was found.

Whatever it is, some of the bulla cakes these days are not worth the plastic bags they come in. They are filled with baking soda and they are a brutal assault on the taste buds. Sometimes you bite into one and all you taste is pure baking soda and unbaked flour. Many times when I find I am craving the taste of a bulla and end up buying a pack of the modern versions in the supermarket, I end up regretting my purchase.

These latest incarnations often taste like really bad pastry that was made by a woman I boarded with while in high school. We used to use her pastry and dumplings to 'stone' the stray dogs in our neighbourhood. Often the dogs would sniff the stuff we threw and would walk away disinterested, and when a dog does that, you know it's bad because they eat anything. Anyone who took a chance at eating any of that woman's cooking would end up not being able to use the bathroom for what seemed like weeks unless they employed the use of laxatives.

Just over a week ago, my wife and I went shopping and again I got a hankering for a bulla. I saw a packet and picked it up and put it in the shopping cart knowing that I was going to be disappointed once I got home and smashed some cheese against it. To be fair, this lot wasn't bad but it wasn't great either, so I continue to suffer.

If anyone knows where I can get some great 'old-school' bulla cakes to buy, let me know because I have just about had it with the fakes they sell under the name bulla cakes these days. A number of the bulla cakes have clearly gone the way of most things in Jamaica today, to the pits. Dem pap dung.

shearer39@gmail.com

These days you break some of the bullas and it's like you shot them with a pellet gun, crumbs everywhere.