I grew up with several holiday traditions. One was my mother (or my Nana when I was very young) making several breads over Thanksgiving and Christmas. Date Nut bread, Banana bread, pumpkin bread…yum! I didn’t know until way later that the pans that those breads were made in were ancient- belonging, at the very earliest, to my great grandmother (known to me as Nana Ollie). They looked like they’d been through a few wars, and were super long.

Over the course of the past 30 (!) years of my life, I’ve begun to notice complaints from my mom. My mom is the “owner” of Nana Ollie’s pans now, but for some reason, she only has one left. She must have brought breads to someone’s house and they never gave the pan back- typical in big families! After a recent bout of complaining, I started doing what I do best- Googling.

And I came across a decent match and realized that it’s more likely that my Nana’s pans are called “Pullman” loaf pans.   I doubt that they will be as strong and durable as Nana Ollie’s industrial strength pans, but my mother will be thrilled. I’m giving her a few for Christmas as well as keeping a few for myself. I had been so confused when registering and bread loaf pans didn’t look how I expected them to. Now, I am searching for a breadmaker that has a longer baking pan. We go through bread so fast here, especially when I make it at home, that I wish the loaves were a more standard size in order that we’d get more than 8-10 slices out of them (or 2, when suitNtie cuts the slices, that man loves his Texas toast slices, oy).