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> Bread is sweetened > Bread sucks I spent some months working in Houston a while back, and this drove me crazy! I mean, why on earth would you sweeten bread?!

> Bread is sweetened > Bread sucks I spent some months working in Houston a while back, and this drove me crazy! I mean, why on earth would you sweeten bread?! Another thing that struck me was how many ingredients everything seemed to have - you could pick up just about any item in a grocery store, and it was pretty much guaranteed to contain 10-30 ingredients. Even the bread. > Basic cheese in the US This too - most cheese was of the horrible processed variety, with little flavour and an odd texture. And of course, dozens of ingredients. And of course, there was sugar in it. Another thing - corn syrup. Not content with putting sugar in everything, corn syrup was added too.

metrokoi 6y ago
It's expensive to make good bread. Not in terms of raw materials, but in terms of labor. A machine cannot make a quality loaf of bread, you must gently knead it and let it ride with human hands. There is also a large cost in the right-on-time delivery of "good" bread. There is still quality bread sold at my grocery store, but that kind of bread isn't a staple because people don't want to go to the grocery store every other day when their non-stabilized bread gets eaten, goes stale, or goes moldy. I am defending "bad" bread because no one ever does, and it's really not comparable to "real" bread because the uses are different. It's cheaper, last much longer, and is better suited for sandwiches and toast because of the square shape.
- GordonS 6y ago
  I'm not hating on cheap bread. You can find cheap, basic batch loaves anywhere in the western world - but the crap I found in the US was the worst. It doesn't have to be that bad, it doesn't have to have lot's of sugar and corn syrup in it, and it doesn't have to have 20+ ingredients.
  - mettamage 6y ago
    > It doesn't have to be that bad, it doesn't have to have lot's of sugar and corn syrup in it This is my experience as well.
- reitzensteinm 6y ago
  I haven't tried American bread, but Australian is terrible compared to what you can get for little more than 1€ in Germany. Presumably that's made without human involvement in each loaf.
- tom_mellior 6y ago
  > A machine cannot make a quality loaf of bread, you must gently knead it and let it ride with human hands. Nonsense. There is nothing wrong with machine kneading, many European countries (but not all!) manage to produce quality loaves at an industrial scale. Can a good baker produce even better bread in small batches? Almost certainly yes. But even there I'm not convinced that it's the kneading specifically, as opposed to general attention to the whole process.
vlod 6y ago
As a Brit living in the US, I have a real problem with the sugar in bread. As a bread lover I detest it. Everything I eat DOESN'T have to be sweet. I can't stand it and I avoid it as much as possible. In the last few years, I've started making my own sourdough bread (salt, water, flour, homegrown sourdough yeast) with no chemicals and I'm loving it. I can't remember the last time I've bought bread. (Dutch-oven method) >most cheese was of the horrible processed variety I had this experience as well, but in the last few years, things have massively improved IMHO. Don't go the deli section (where they cut cheese), go to the area where there's brie/english-chedder etc. However Wisconsin has really stepped up to the plate and now creates very reasonable European styles cheeses (of course, more expensive). It's worth trying it again if you've not done recently.
- GordonS 6y ago
  Reading this brought back another memory - cinnamon! Now, I like cinnamon as much as anyone, but why the hell is it added to everything in the US!
  - vlod 6y ago
    Oh my.. don't get me talking about cinnamon! It's now at a point I refuse to anything with it in. The only exception is hot-cross-buns during Easter. :)

metrokoi 6y ago

It's expensive to make good bread. Not in terms of raw materials, but in terms of labor. A machine cannot make a quality loaf of bread, you must gently knead it and let it ride with human hands. There is also a large cost in the right-on-time delivery of "good" bread. There is still quality bread sold at my grocery store, but that kind of bread isn't a staple because people don't want to go to the grocery store every other day when their non-stabilized bread gets eaten, goes stale, or goes moldy. I am defending "bad" bread because no one ever does, and it's really not comparable to "real" bread because the uses are different. It's cheaper, last much longer, and is better suited for sandwiches and toast because of the square shape.

GordonS 6y ago
I'm not hating on cheap bread. You can find cheap, basic batch loaves anywhere in the western world - but the crap I found in the US was the worst. It doesn't have to be that bad, it doesn't have to have lot's of sugar and corn syrup in it, and it doesn't have to have 20+ ingredients.
- mettamage 6y ago
  > It doesn't have to be that bad, it doesn't have to have lot's of sugar and corn syrup in it This is my experience as well.
reitzensteinm 6y ago
I haven't tried American bread, but Australian is terrible compared to what you can get for little more than 1€ in Germany. Presumably that's made without human involvement in each loaf.
tom_mellior 6y ago
> A machine cannot make a quality loaf of bread, you must gently knead it and let it ride with human hands. Nonsense. There is nothing wrong with machine kneading, many European countries (but not all!) manage to produce quality loaves at an industrial scale. Can a good baker produce even better bread in small batches? Almost certainly yes. But even there I'm not convinced that it's the kneading specifically, as opposed to general attention to the whole process.

vlod 6y ago

As a Brit living in the US, I have a real problem with the sugar in bread. As a bread lover I detest it. Everything I eat DOESN'T have to be sweet. I can't stand it and I avoid it as much as possible. In the last few years, I've started making my own sourdough bread (salt, water, flour, homegrown sourdough yeast) with no chemicals and I'm loving it. I can't remember the last time I've bought bread. (Dutch-oven method) >most cheese was of the horrible processed variety I had this experience as well, but in the last few years, things have massively improved IMHO. Don't go the deli section (where they cut cheese), go to the area where there's brie/english-chedder etc. However Wisconsin has really stepped up to the plate and now creates very reasonable European styles cheeses (of course, more expensive). It's worth trying it again if you've not done recently.

GordonS 6y ago
Reading this brought back another memory - cinnamon! Now, I like cinnamon as much as anyone, but why the hell is it added to everything in the US!
- vlod 6y ago
  Oh my.. don't get me talking about cinnamon! It's now at a point I refuse to anything with it in. The only exception is hot-cross-buns during Easter. :)