The Sophian

Issue date: 9/20/07 Section: Features

Media Credit: Alex Davis The Hungry Ghost, at 62 State Street, is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The smell of baking bread permeates the air surrounding the Hungry Ghost, enticing the residents of Northampton to enter the small, intimate setting of this local bakery and discover the pleasures of freshly baked bread. It is hard to resist such a delectable scent; I realized this for myself the other day when walking past the bakery on my way into town.

The Hungry Ghost, a small, locally run bakery located at 62 State St., right next to Baldwin and Albright houses, is an unassuming building - if not for the delicious smells that emanate from it daily, many people would not realize what it is. The name Hungry Ghost is unusual, so armed with a desire to learn more about the origins of the bakery and the bread that they make, I pushed through the screen door and entered another world.

The first thing I noticed when entering the Hungry Ghost was a huge stove that dominates the space; this stove is where all of the baking happens. When I asked Jonathan Stevens and Cheryl Maffei, the owners, about the stove, they kindly showed me the inside and explained its background to me. The stove with which they cook their breads is a hybrid; the main chamber is lined with clay bricks from Franc while the other is wood fired. I was enchanted by the colorful tiles that ran across the middle and learned that they were made by children at the campus school to illustrate the story of the little red hen. Each time they fire up the stove, they can fit about four to five bakes, or between 200 and 250 loaves of bread in a firing! Surprised, I asked Cheryl if they always needed that much bread, and she replied that on Saturdays they often need twice that amount. I was glad to hear that local residents are so supportive of their business.

The next thing I wanted to know about was the name: who and what is the hungry ghost? As he shaped the bread for the day in quick, efficient motions, Jonathan explained to me that it is a concept from Buddhist theology that he learned about at a Japanese Buddhist order. In Buddhism there is this concept of a "hungry ghost," a spirit that has been punished for insatiable greed during life and is now cursed with an insatiable hunger. The monks with whom Jonathan learned would always set an empty place at the table for the hungry ghost. This tradition represents a way for people to be aware of who and what it is they are eating, to realize why they are eating and to recognize what goes into the food that they are eating.

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