Hacker News Reader

Comment by iUsedToCode | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, but American bread (at least on West Coast) is really bad. Maybe you can find something edible somewhere, but most of the shops carry only the worst of worst IMO. In Europe (not including UK) the quality is like night and day. I've noticed bread getting worse as it's produced in bigger batches since couple of years, but american stuff is in its own category of bad.

I hear that East coast has more european style (of cities, buildings and cuisine), so maybe it's better there. OTH, perhaps just missed all the good bakeries.

View on HN

What exactly is "American bread" in this context? Are you saying that bread made by Americans is just worse than if made by a European?

You do realize there are bakeries in the US where you can find handmade bread, right? You don't have to buy mass produced bread.

We're talking about volume here, so your exception to the rule only proves the rule.

What do you find in Albertsons, Krogers, Safeway, Raleys, etc etc. You find a lot of bad-tasting bread. You can't even find fresh organic bread in my local chain supermarkets (Whole foods/TJs are notable exceptions).

Have you tried Tartine, Josey Baker, ACME, Craftsman and Wolves, or Arsicault for bread in San Francisco when you were in the west coast? San Francisco is considered one of the best bread cities in the world, especially when it comes to natural starters and sourdough...

Bi-Rite Market's bread section has a really nice selection. I'm assuming none of those were to your satisfaction? Some French people have told me that Tartine's baguette is better if not equal to French baguettes, so I'm curious to know why it is so distant to European quality in your perspective.

> San Francisco is considered one of the best bread cities in the world...

I've never heard this before. By who?

This is seriously not meant to be a snark at all but I've only ever heard it from people in SF.

By Serious Eats[0], founded by former New York Times food editor Ed Levine. Also by the BBC[1]. Arsicault Bakery in SF was named the best bakery in America by Bon Appetit. Tartine Bakery is a James Beard winner.

[0] http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/08/taste-test-the-best-sourd...

[1] http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20131121-flour-power-in-san-...

They are actually famous for good sourdough bread.

French bakers brought sourdough techniques to Northern California during the California Gold Rush, and it remains a part of the culture of San Francisco today. The nickname remains in "Sourdough Sam", the mascot of the San Francisco 49ers. Sourdough has long been associated with the 1849 gold prospectors, though they were more likely to make bread with commercial yeast or baking soda.[7] The "celebrated"[1] San Francisco sourdough is a white bread characterized by a pronounced sourness, and indeed the strain of lactobacillus in sourdough starters is named Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis, alongside the sourdough yeast Candida milleri found in the same cultures.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourdough

I get that those places you've mentioned have really great bread but outside of the US you don't have to go out of your way to a specialist bakery just to get a reasonable loaf of bread. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the bar for a standard, everyday loaf of bread in the US is really, really low compared to other countries.

You don't have to go really far for good bread in San Francisco or any of the coastal areas of California. Most restaurants in SF, even dingy hole in the walls, serve ACME bread of Berkeley. Whole Foods here carries ACME.

I think the US is large, and to generalize and pigeonhole the US as a whole is unfair to cities like LA, SF, and NYC, because there really is a rich baking scene. I mean, do we expect Oklahoma to have great artisanal breads when the state is suffering on several levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

The US used to be known for terrible beer (and there is plenty of that still) but there are now thousands of microbreweries producing great stuff. I hope there could be a similar awakening for bread. And cheese.

The thing is I can go to Prague and drink great beer for cheap (seriously, it's usually around $2) at restaurants, while the cheap beer you drink in America is just god awful.

My point about the US is that at least the option of good beer is available pretty much everywhere, which is a big improvement over the last few decades.

I left the US for the UK and the beer scene here leaves much to be desired. While better on average, the range of beer is limited.

In the Midwest, microbrew (American) pints are often $3.

I moved to NYC five years ago from London. The bread in most bodegas or smaller stores is usually very bad (tastes like cake, or tastes of nothing). Thankfully there are many dedicated bakeries or farmers markets etc. where you can get bread that has an interesting flavour.

In the UK, most stores have a range of breads from flavourless (plain white, for example) to more expensive but at least flavourful.

Furthermore the pre-packaged bread in the USA has an eerily long life.

Most Eurobread is suitable only for toasting by the second day, and inedible by the third, whereas the loaves we bought in Jewel's and Dominicks were still soft after a week. Bizarre.

Hey, please don't judge American bread based on the cheap stuff in our stores (some of which have improved greatly on their own). Of course its not as good as it could be.

Maybe this is just a Rocky mountain, western thing, but when to you live out in the boonies, you make your own. Sometimes with a machine. Sometimes with just the oven. Sometimes just with camp coals in the ground. Even as a youngster I had sourdough cultures I kept alive for years.

The point is there is some bread in parts of America, not made at the store, that I would put up against anything but German or French. I do admit some of the recipes are learned from the better bread places. EG I have a handful of recipes I learned from the Mennonites (German Americans), Mormons, had a family friend from Ireland who finally shared the best potato bread recipe.

The problem is the cheap bread you find in stores in Europe is miles better than the cheap bread in America.

I think you missed all the good bakeries. America is a big place. Even the West Coast is big enough that I'm gonna come right out and assert that you probably haven't seen it all.

It's best to appreciate a thing for what it is, rather than what it's not. America sucks at being Europe just like an apple is a terrible pen.

But if we talk about the actual article which is what I came to do and got distracted, then I would absolutely expect that government subsidies for wheat, plus economic constraints since 2008, would tend to combine to produce large quantities of shitty bread. I've all but stopped eating it so I don't really know first-hand, but that's how I would theorize.

Dutch Bread: not as bad as US bread but still horrible compared to French or German.

My baker backs once a week on Friday, transports it Saturday mornings and sells it in himself. On Saturday I cut the loafs, pack the loafs in a ziplock and freeze them at -35C. The whole week we enjoy delicious bread and never waste a slice. Sandwiches brought to work that are leftover, we eat the next day and taste good.

You’d be better off not slicing the loafs and storing them properly - freezing bread ruins it.

[1] http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/06/does-refrigeration-really...

Your conclusion is at odds with the conclusion of the linked article:

FTA: So here's my practical advice. In lieu of acts of god and any other kind of divine intervention, the best way to store bread is well wrapped in plastic and/or foil in the freezer, whether sliced or not, then reheated in the oven.

Refrigerating bread ruins it. Freezing does not. (Which the linked article does state.)

So most US grocery stores have huge volume commercial bakery bread in the bread aisle that is squishy, sweet and otherwise flavorless, and then also a selection of other breads in the deli/bakery section of the store, where there are often some decent selections.

Are you lumping all of those together?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com