In the USA, Bakery Bread Is Under-Utilized
Why I’m bringing bread variety into my kitchen
When someone says, “I’m going to the store for bread,” what kind of bread comes to mind? If you’re American, like me, odds are you’re thinking of the mass-produced, pre-sliced variety. It’s squishy-soft, with a golden-brown crust.
In college, my friends and I accompanied two study abroad students from Germany on their first trip to the grocery store in Pennsylvania. After locating the biggest jar of Nutella available (because, they said, the US sizes are massive compared to Europe), we went to the bread aisle to pick up ingredients for sandwiches.
When the full aisle came into view, the students looked disappointed.
“All of your bread is toast,” one said. The other agreed.
It took us Americans a moment to understand what they were saying. To the German students, mass-produced, pre-sliced bread was its own category: “toast.” What I’ve come to consider bakery bread — the more sophisticated options I only consumed at restaurants and on special occasions — was their baseline for real bread.
The line stuck with me as a particularly memorable cultural difference and linguistic distinction. (To my former classmates, if you ever read this, thank you for pointing it out!) Calling mass-produced sliced bread “toast” implies that sliced bread is best served toasted, and not ideal for other purposes.
I disagreed at the time, but I’ve had a change of heart.
That store in Pennsylvania didn’t have any bakery bread options in the “bread” aisle. What the students wanted lived in another part of the store at its own counter. At my local store in New Jersey, the bakery bread is found in the “bread aisle,” but it’s not baked on-site, and shares space with cookies and other sweet baked goods.
The fresh-baked selections in the US are nowhere near as densely packed as the “toast.” There aren’t 10 kinds of ciabatta to choose from, but there are easily that many brands of white bread.
It’s not that we lack alternatives to sliced bread in a typical American grocery store. It’s that our culture has labeled sliced bread as standard, and fresh baked bread as “other,” or even “luxury.”
The main draws of sliced bread are convenience and consistency. The machinery to produce it was invented in the US, and sliced bread quickly rose in popularity. A brief ban on sliced bread during World War II was described in Time magazine as:
Almost as bad as gas rationing — and a whale of a lot more trouble.
Our shopping habits may be to blame for our bread preferences. According to data from 2011, the most common reason North Americans visit a grocery store is to stock up for the week. We’re less likely than people in other places to make a quick trip to the store for a few things.
This explains our penchant for large quantities. We want big loaves of bread that will last until our next weekly grocery run. (And giant jars of Nutella).
Loaves of fresh-baked bread are often smaller than the mass-produced kind. With fewer preservatives, bakery bread doesn’t stay fresh for as many days without needing to be frozen, and it’s less convenient to have to cut it ourselves, making crooked slices of inconsistent size.
But the taste and experience of bakery bread is far superior to that of mass-produced loaves.
We know this. Just look at American restaurants. We love fresh baked bread when we aren’t at home. How many American restaurants are known for their bread? Even chain restaurants.
It’s a meme to overindulge on breadsticks at Olive Garden. Could it be in part because at home, we’re limiting ourselves to “toast?”
We’ve sacrificed our everyday enjoyment of bread at the altar of convenience, and when we get the chance to try something different, we can’t stop eating.
After college, my husband and I got our own place, and we stopped buying cold cuts for sandwiches. The meats kept sitting in our refrigerator, going bad. Frankly, the sandwiches we made with them weren’t particularly appealing. At the time, we used pre-sliced bread exclusively.
Over time, I noticed whenever we bought hot dog and hamburger rolls, my husband and I would find creative ways to eat them. Peanut butter and jelly on a hot dog roll. Egg sandwich on a hamburger roll. Then, I’d make hamburgers and discover we had no rolls left. How disheartening! A hamburger or hot dog is far less appealing without the bun.
I found myself reaching for sliced bread while feeling let down. “Gosh,” I thought, “all of our bread is toast.” For the first time, I had to acknowledge that I felt disappointed by sliced bread.
I thought back to sandwiches I’d been excited to eat, usually from restaurants. When I order a Reuben on rye or a ham and cheese sub, the bread has a big impact on the experience. I wouldn’t pay that much for the same sandwich on “toast.” What was I doing skipping out on bakery bread?
I had never questioned the expression, “the best thing since sliced bread,” but honestly, apart from convenience, what does sliced bread have that bakery bread doesn’t?
Presentation is part of what makes food exciting, and it takes very little effort to take a fluffy sandwich roll and fill it with the same stuff. Bakery bread also has structure, something chewy pre-sliced bread lacks, making it easier to really stuff a sandwich with more than just meat or spreads.
If you’re looking for permission to buy pumpernickel instead of whole wheat sliced bread, this is your sign. Try sourdough or rye. Ciabatta or kaiser rolls.
While not the cheapest choice, using bakery bread for homemade sandwiches is less expensive than going out to eat.
Where I live, I can easily spend 12 to 15 dollars or more on lunch if I pick it up myself. Even more if I splurge for delivery.
For half that price, I can buy a pack of rolls, or an entire loaf of bakery bread, and use it in multiple meals.
It doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing approach either. If you don’t want to shop more frequently, don’t. Just buy bakery bread to use at the beginning of the week, and let “toast” or other foods tide you over until your next trip.
I used to buy lunch a lot more before I made this switch. Now, my husband and I still go for our hamburger and hot dog rolls, but not until the bakery bread is finished.
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