When flour prices increased several years ago, the size of pan de sal underwent a dramatic decrease. Since bakeries couldn't afford to increase its price from the standard Php 1 (as it would be commercial suicide), the poor pan de sal was reduced to a blip.

And because the sight of it made me lose my appetite for merienda, I stopped having them altogether. One can imagine the laborious process of slicing hors d'oeuvre-sized bread and spreading it with (take your pick)peanut butter, liver spread, pimiento, or if you're feeling galante, kesong puti. I'd rather pop those babies in my mouth like KFC Hot Shots.

Pan de sal made a reappearance in my daily eating fare when I started using it as substitute for rice as a resident of Katipunan. Not coincidentally, this was my way of combating rising rice prices. (I didn't have the time or patience to cook rice for one.) I bought my bread from the nearby Pan de Manila outlet which had those giant pan de sals. At Php 6.50 for the wheat version, it was big enough (sometimes too big) to serve as a siding to my ulam. Let me put it this way - I can fit one Bega cheese single (maybe trim off a centimeter of it) in one pan de sal of theirs.

Spoiled by the giant pan de sals of Pan de Manila, it was thus to my utter shock when I found this on my parents' merienda table the other day:



At first glance, you'd think "There's nothing odd with that. It's an attractive pile of pan de sal" (which, by the way, was from Jericho's Bakery in Grove). But then, take a moment for a little lesson in proportion:



Take a good long guess which of the two belonged to the pile.