3 ms·

I agree with you, but I'm curious as to why french bread in stores is universally less good than french bread from dedicated bakers (places like ACME, a Berkele

by entee 7y ago

I agree with you, but I'm curious as to why french bread in stores is universally less good than french bread from dedicated bakers (places like ACME, a Berkeley based bread producer, that sell to larger stores such as Safeway I would classify as dedicated bakers). Maybe something about the volume of dough required to make bread on a truly industrial scale means it's not feasible to knead the dough properly? I was reading that you actually knead a baguette relatively little, but I can see that with a large volume of dough, it would be hard to achieve a uniform dough with very little kneading.

ska 7y ago
There is nothing specific about french bread there - basically any bread produced at an industrial scale is noticeably inferior to the equivalent "human scaled" version if that exists (not always true). Sometimes shockingly so. I suspect if anything was as elementary as "it's the kneading" they would have figured out a way to mimic the better technique. It's more likely that the logic of the industrial scale process itself is inimical to some of the finer points of producing top-shelf breads.
- dgacmu 7y ago
  Which could be economics: at industrial scale, the relative cost of the ingredients is much higher than the cost of labor. at smaller scale, the labor cost starts to outweigh. so an industrial manufacturer is more tempted to cut costs on ingredient quality. Even if that quality reduction is primarily in service of variance reduction (i.e., going with a wheat supplier who can guarantee availability in large quantities year round, instead of continuously needing to tweak recipes to work with different wheats). In many cases, the extra delay between production and consumption of a large industrial manufacturer also leads them to pursue solutions that improve shelf-stability.
Haga 7y ago
Factorys Arena antagonistic processes. Theire Target mantra is forever: faster,cheaper,expandieren core audience.. that Kind oft System reduces any Kind oft Qualität target to american Toast with caramel(color) and some high speed cultures(tastelicios). It requires constant aktive resistance to prevent imprudecay.

by entee 7y ago

ska 7y ago

There is nothing specific about french bread there - basically any bread produced at an industrial scale is noticeably inferior to the equivalent "human scaled" version if that exists (not always true). Sometimes shockingly so. I suspect if anything was as elementary as "it's the kneading" they would have figured out a way to mimic the better technique. It's more likely that the logic of the industrial scale process itself is inimical to some of the finer points of producing top-shelf breads.

dgacmu 7y ago
Which could be economics: at industrial scale, the relative cost of the ingredients is much higher than the cost of labor. at smaller scale, the labor cost starts to outweigh. so an industrial manufacturer is more tempted to cut costs on ingredient quality. Even if that quality reduction is primarily in service of variance reduction (i.e., going with a wheat supplier who can guarantee availability in large quantities year round, instead of continuously needing to tweak recipes to work with different wheats). In many cases, the extra delay between production and consumption of a large industrial manufacturer also leads them to pursue solutions that improve shelf-stability.

Haga 7y ago

Factorys Arena antagonistic processes. Theire Target mantra is forever: faster,cheaper,expandieren core audience.. that Kind oft System reduces any Kind oft Qualität target to american Toast with caramel(color) and some high speed cultures(tastelicios). It requires constant aktive resistance to prevent imprudecay.