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I feel like this article somewhat undersells brødskriver. They can be delicious. Most important is good bread, which is super common here, despite it being tot

I feel like this article somewhat undersells brødskriver. They can be delicious. Most important is good bread, which is super common here, despite it being totally unavailable in most other countries. All ordinary grocery stores get freshly baked bread every day, whole in paper bags of course. For example - with a thick slice of butter, then some oven-baked liver paste and two slices of gherkin on top and boom - you have something delicious in a single minute.

Symbiote 7y ago
> Most important is good bread, which is super common here, despite it being totally unavailable in most other countries. I think the rest of Europe will argue with this.
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  I think a lot of America will argue with this.
  - thawaway1837 7y ago
    The majority of Americans get their bread from the grocery store, and by the time they eat it it’s probably several days if not weeks old. It is true that you can get extremely high quality fresh bread from a bakery (or even bakeries inside grocery stores) but that isn’t really part of the culture and good quality bread is usually considered an occasional treat.
    - lazyasciiart 7y ago
      “People don’t usually buy it” is a different claim to “it is totally unavailable”.
      - shantly 7y ago
        A baguette in my Midwestern city close to as good as a standard Parisian corner store baguette is like $6. You can get some that are "good" but in fact way worse than the real deal for $4-5. Approach the 2 Euro baguette in price and we're talking something that's so much worse it's unrecognizable. Pastries have a similar ~2x markup and are still usually not quite as good as the norm there even at the high end of the price range. IDK what it is that makes decent baked goods so expensive here. We grow all the wheat, FFS. Apparently kinda halfway knowing how to produce a plain-ass croissant that is somewhat reminiscent of an actual croissant is rare and expensive knowledge around here. We flat-out cannot produce affordable baked goods & bread that aren't fairly bad, it seems—simply not-bad is luxury priced here, and you may have to drive a ways to get it. [EDIT] and this bleeds over into anything requiring bread, like a sandwich. If you buy one out and it's not quite expensive, it will for sure be using pretty bad bread and there'll be a fairly low cap on how good it might be. [EDIT EDIT] toss in the fact that decent or better cheese is more expensive here, and the sandwich situation is downright dire.
    - com2kid 7y ago
      > The majority of Americans get their bread from the grocery store, and by the time they eat it it’s probably several days if not weeks old. Every grocery store near me has giant signs advertising fresh baked bread. Buying bread in plastic bags isn't necessary. Heck when I was a poor college student I'd buy fresh baked 6 inch sandwich rolls, IIRC they were 6 for $2 or $3.
      - Moru 7y ago
        Is it bake-off or real bread baked at the store?
        chipotle_coyote 7y ago
        While I'm sure that depends on the store, many supermarkets I'm aware of -- including Safeway out here in Silicon Valley and Publix in Florida, where I grew up -- have in-store bakeries.
        reaperducer 7y ago
        One of the chain supermarkets I go to has a big sign announcing the time the next batch of fresh bread will come out of the oven. So, yes, in spite of the typical HN US-bashing, fresh bread is available in America.
        com2kid 7y ago
        This isn't even mentioning: 1. The chain of Brazilian bakeries around me 2. The fresh bread loaves baked at multiple larger Asian grocery stores. 3. The awesome Vietnamese bakery that sends out fresh baguettes daily. 4. The multiple dedicated Japanese bakeries making fresh bread. 5. The multiple dedicated Chinese bakeries making fresh loaves of bread. 6. The multiple local American bakeries that deliver fresh bread to area grocery stores every day. Actually, after making that list, I am kind of shocked at how large the market is for fresh baked bread...
        7y ago
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    The bread in America is garbage compared to Europe.
    - shawnlower2 7y ago
      Best not to conflate all bread in America with Wonder Bread. We have bakeries that actually choose to make a quality product, and it's available in (edit: grocery stores in) most cities. Many Americans simply choose to optimize for cost. The bread in Copenhagen was fantastic, though.
      - naravara 7y ago
        Having to go to speciality bakeries to get good bread is a different thing than just having it available in every corner market and whatever the bodega equivalent is.
        chipotle_coyote 7y ago
        But you don't have to go to a specialty bakery to get good fresh bread. I can get Acme Bread at nearly any grocery store in the San Francisco Bay Area -- and lest someone (fairly) say, "Yes, but that's the Bay Area," anyone who grew up in the southern US probably knows Publix, the biggest grocery store in that region, is justifiably famous for their in-store baked breads. I think there's sometimes a tendency among Europeans in particular to write off all American food as being essentially the same as the most iconically awful brands we have over here: Wonder bread, Velveeta cheese, Hershey's milk chocolate, Bud Light beer. And that's just not true. I'm sort of inspired by Vox's article on the "boring lunch" here to start packing simple sandwiches again, which I haven't done in years. If I do, I'm probably going to be able to get pretty good bread, butter, cheese, and meats -- they're just not that hard to get here.
        naravara 7y ago
        The difference is that when I lived in Florida I was going grocery shopping at Publix once a week or so. I tended to buy in bulk and prioritized shelf life. I now live in the downtown part of a walkable city and I tend to buy staples every other day or every 3 days because I can just drop in on my way home from work. Having the good stuff suffusing your daily life rather than being a specific thing you need to go get makes a difference in your relationship to the food. It’s just easier. It’s not a decision you make, it becomes a default thing you get.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - atombender 7y ago
    Norwegian living the U.S. here. It's pretty different when you consider the average supermarket. The breads you get in your average American supermarket (Giant, Safeway, Shoprite and so on) are either the pre-sliced, packaged kind, which are largely flavourless and full of preservatives and sugar, or the stuff in the bakery section, which tend to be Italian-style white bread rolls, bagels and so on. You can find better bread — and sometimes very, very good bread — in many bakeries, or in high-end grocery stores like Whole Food, at farmer's markets, and so on. But it's not the norm. Scandinavian supermarkets generally don't have separate bread and bakery sections. There's just a bread section [1], where you'll find all freshly made bread. The whole grain content is very high, and the breads feel rustic and wholesome overall. You'll be able to find plain wheat bread and French baguettes, but these are the exception. You'll also find some pre-packaged breads, but they are typically sold specifically for their longevity. While I can get great bread in the U.S. if I seek it out, I still miss the easy availability of good bread, and I feel bad for all those who think that pre-sliced package bread is all there is. [1] https://bdn-norge.no/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/grovhet.png https://bdn-norge.no/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/grovhet.png [2] https://www.polarbrod.se/no/vare-brod/havre/ https://www.polarbrod.se/no/vare-brod/havre/
    - tallanvor 7y ago
      I just want to point out that you can get very horrible bread in Norway as well. In the image you link to, you have Loff at the bottom left of the screen. That stuff is even more tasteless than the average American bread. It also gets more prominent placement, at least from what I've seen in Oslo grocery stores.
      - kristofferR 7y ago
        To be fair, the point of loaf is exactly that, to be unhealthy, white and tasteless. It's great for pan-fried toast with cheese and kids who only want to taste the jam.
      - atombender 7y ago
        "Loff" is terrible! I didn't even like it as a kid. To be sure, not all Norwegian bread is great, I was really speaking about the general difference in the availability of good bread.
wincy 7y ago
You can get good bread in the USA, it’s just that it’s $6 a loaf instead of the $0.87 bread loaf of white bread from Aldi or Walmart. Most people just don’t see the point in spending more money on food than is absolutely necessary (likely to our detriment). My mother-in-law criticized me and my wife for buying fresh salmon as being “too expensive” despite her being a millionaire, and it being quite affordable for us. She thinks tuna in a can is “good enough”.
davidweir 7y ago
> Most important is good bread Having lived in Norway for two years, and resorted to deep frozen baguettes from Meny (an upscale supermarket chain) because the fresh bread was so bad, I'm... not sure about this. Glad to be back in Finland where the bread is good (seriously!) and the lunches are substantial, healthy, warm and filling.
- l0b0 7y ago
  IMO you can't get good bread in grocery stores in any Western country, Norway included. Good bread has about 2-3 times the density of store bread, for one thing, which would make it 2-3 times more expensive to make (2-3 times more raw ingredients + more time & energy in the oven). That takes the price into ridiculous territory, so it's just not reasonable for supermarkets to stock them. My recommendation: get a decent bread baking machine. What's decent? One where the bread, container and rotor all come out of the machine after baking, so they can be easily washed. It takes about 2 minutes to mix in everything, and the quality is honestly pretty indistinguishable from hand made (as long as I remember to put the rotor back in after cleaning it :). Dwarf bread refined over decades: 400g wheat flour (coarse if you can get a hold of it), 300ml water, 1ts salt, 50ml olive oil and ½ts dry yeast, which goes in a separate compartment in the machine to be dropped in when ready. To this you can add up to 200g or so of goodies - pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, walnuts or grated carrot.
  - jotm 7y ago
    The built in bakeries in Lidl and other stores have great bread imo.
dagw 7y ago
Most important is good bread, which is super common here That must be a new development. I lived in Norway until 2002 and have eaten my fair share of matpacker and the bread with definitely very mediocre unless you where willing to pay ~$10 at a decent bakery. Otherwise it was Kneip, Loff or frozen baguettes , neither which can really be called "good". But in general I agree with you. Good bread with lots of butter is amazing.

Symbiote 7y ago

> Most important is good bread, which is super common here, despite it being totally unavailable in most other countries. I think the rest of Europe will argue with this.

chipotle_coyote 7y ago
I think a lot of America will argue with this.
- thawaway1837 7y ago
  The majority of Americans get their bread from the grocery store, and by the time they eat it it’s probably several days if not weeks old. It is true that you can get extremely high quality fresh bread from a bakery (or even bakeries inside grocery stores) but that isn’t really part of the culture and good quality bread is usually considered an occasional treat.
  - lazyasciiart 7y ago
    “People don’t usually buy it” is a different claim to “it is totally unavailable”.
    - shantly 7y ago
      A baguette in my Midwestern city close to as good as a standard Parisian corner store baguette is like $6. You can get some that are "good" but in fact way worse than the real deal for $4-5. Approach the 2 Euro baguette in price and we're talking something that's so much worse it's unrecognizable. Pastries have a similar ~2x markup and are still usually not quite as good as the norm there even at the high end of the price range. IDK what it is that makes decent baked goods so expensive here. We grow all the wheat, FFS. Apparently kinda halfway knowing how to produce a plain-ass croissant that is somewhat reminiscent of an actual croissant is rare and expensive knowledge around here. We flat-out cannot produce affordable baked goods & bread that aren't fairly bad, it seems—simply not-bad is luxury priced here, and you may have to drive a ways to get it. [EDIT] and this bleeds over into anything requiring bread, like a sandwich. If you buy one out and it's not quite expensive, it will for sure be using pretty bad bread and there'll be a fairly low cap on how good it might be. [EDIT EDIT] toss in the fact that decent or better cheese is more expensive here, and the sandwich situation is downright dire.
  - com2kid 7y ago
    > The majority of Americans get their bread from the grocery store, and by the time they eat it it’s probably several days if not weeks old. Every grocery store near me has giant signs advertising fresh baked bread. Buying bread in plastic bags isn't necessary. Heck when I was a poor college student I'd buy fresh baked 6 inch sandwich rolls, IIRC they were 6 for $2 or $3.
    - Moru 7y ago
      Is it bake-off or real bread baked at the store?
      - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
        While I'm sure that depends on the store, many supermarkets I'm aware of -- including Safeway out here in Silicon Valley and Publix in Florida, where I grew up -- have in-store bakeries.
        reaperducer 7y ago
        One of the chain supermarkets I go to has a big sign announcing the time the next batch of fresh bread will come out of the oven. So, yes, in spite of the typical HN US-bashing, fresh bread is available in America.
        com2kid 7y ago
        This isn't even mentioning: 1. The chain of Brazilian bakeries around me 2. The fresh bread loaves baked at multiple larger Asian grocery stores. 3. The awesome Vietnamese bakery that sends out fresh baguettes daily. 4. The multiple dedicated Japanese bakeries making fresh bread. 5. The multiple dedicated Chinese bakeries making fresh loaves of bread. 6. The multiple local American bakeries that deliver fresh bread to area grocery stores every day. Actually, after making that list, I am kind of shocked at how large the market is for fresh baked bread...
        7y ago
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The bread in America is garbage compared to Europe.
  - shawnlower2 7y ago
    Best not to conflate all bread in America with Wonder Bread. We have bakeries that actually choose to make a quality product, and it's available in (edit: grocery stores in) most cities. Many Americans simply choose to optimize for cost. The bread in Copenhagen was fantastic, though.
    - naravara 7y ago
      Having to go to speciality bakeries to get good bread is a different thing than just having it available in every corner market and whatever the bodega equivalent is.
      - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
        But you don't have to go to a specialty bakery to get good fresh bread. I can get Acme Bread at nearly any grocery store in the San Francisco Bay Area -- and lest someone (fairly) say, "Yes, but that's the Bay Area," anyone who grew up in the southern US probably knows Publix, the biggest grocery store in that region, is justifiably famous for their in-store baked breads. I think there's sometimes a tendency among Europeans in particular to write off all American food as being essentially the same as the most iconically awful brands we have over here: Wonder bread, Velveeta cheese, Hershey's milk chocolate, Bud Light beer. And that's just not true. I'm sort of inspired by Vox's article on the "boring lunch" here to start packing simple sandwiches again, which I haven't done in years. If I do, I'm probably going to be able to get pretty good bread, butter, cheese, and meats -- they're just not that hard to get here.
        naravara 7y ago
        The difference is that when I lived in Florida I was going grocery shopping at Publix once a week or so. I tended to buy in bulk and prioritized shelf life. I now live in the downtown part of a walkable city and I tend to buy staples every other day or every 3 days because I can just drop in on my way home from work. Having the good stuff suffusing your daily life rather than being a specific thing you need to go get makes a difference in your relationship to the food. It’s just easier. It’s not a decision you make, it becomes a default thing you get.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- atombender 7y ago
  Norwegian living the U.S. here. It's pretty different when you consider the average supermarket. The breads you get in your average American supermarket (Giant, Safeway, Shoprite and so on) are either the pre-sliced, packaged kind, which are largely flavourless and full of preservatives and sugar, or the stuff in the bakery section, which tend to be Italian-style white bread rolls, bagels and so on. You can find better bread — and sometimes very, very good bread — in many bakeries, or in high-end grocery stores like Whole Food, at farmer's markets, and so on. But it's not the norm. Scandinavian supermarkets generally don't have separate bread and bakery sections. There's just a bread section [1], where you'll find all freshly made bread. The whole grain content is very high, and the breads feel rustic and wholesome overall. You'll be able to find plain wheat bread and French baguettes, but these are the exception. You'll also find some pre-packaged breads, but they are typically sold specifically for their longevity. While I can get great bread in the U.S. if I seek it out, I still miss the easy availability of good bread, and I feel bad for all those who think that pre-sliced package bread is all there is. [1] https://bdn-norge.no/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/grovhet.png https://bdn-norge.no/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/grovhet.png [2] https://www.polarbrod.se/no/vare-brod/havre/ https://www.polarbrod.se/no/vare-brod/havre/
  - tallanvor 7y ago
    I just want to point out that you can get very horrible bread in Norway as well. In the image you link to, you have Loff at the bottom left of the screen. That stuff is even more tasteless than the average American bread. It also gets more prominent placement, at least from what I've seen in Oslo grocery stores.
    - kristofferR 7y ago
      To be fair, the point of loaf is exactly that, to be unhealthy, white and tasteless. It's great for pan-fried toast with cheese and kids who only want to taste the jam.
    - atombender 7y ago
      "Loff" is terrible! I didn't even like it as a kid. To be sure, not all Norwegian bread is great, I was really speaking about the general difference in the availability of good bread.

wincy 7y ago

You can get good bread in the USA, it’s just that it’s $6 a loaf instead of the $0.87 bread loaf of white bread from Aldi or Walmart. Most people just don’t see the point in spending more money on food than is absolutely necessary (likely to our detriment). My mother-in-law criticized me and my wife for buying fresh salmon as being “too expensive” despite her being a millionaire, and it being quite affordable for us. She thinks tuna in a can is “good enough”.

davidweir 7y ago

> Most important is good bread Having lived in Norway for two years, and resorted to deep frozen baguettes from Meny (an upscale supermarket chain) because the fresh bread was so bad, I'm... not sure about this. Glad to be back in Finland where the bread is good (seriously!) and the lunches are substantial, healthy, warm and filling.

l0b0 7y ago
IMO you can't get good bread in grocery stores in any Western country, Norway included. Good bread has about 2-3 times the density of store bread, for one thing, which would make it 2-3 times more expensive to make (2-3 times more raw ingredients + more time & energy in the oven). That takes the price into ridiculous territory, so it's just not reasonable for supermarkets to stock them. My recommendation: get a decent bread baking machine. What's decent? One where the bread, container and rotor all come out of the machine after baking, so they can be easily washed. It takes about 2 minutes to mix in everything, and the quality is honestly pretty indistinguishable from hand made (as long as I remember to put the rotor back in after cleaning it :). Dwarf bread refined over decades: 400g wheat flour (coarse if you can get a hold of it), 300ml water, 1ts salt, 50ml olive oil and ½ts dry yeast, which goes in a separate compartment in the machine to be dropped in when ready. To this you can add up to 200g or so of goodies - pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, walnuts or grated carrot.
- jotm 7y ago
  The built in bakeries in Lidl and other stores have great bread imo.

dagw 7y ago

Most important is good bread, which is super common here That must be a new development. I lived in Norway until 2002 and have eaten my fair share of matpacker and the bread with definitely very mediocre unless you where willing to pay ~$10 at a decent bakery. Otherwise it was Kneip, Loff or frozen baguettes , neither which can really be called "good". But in general I agree with you. Good bread with lots of butter is amazing.