The Invention of Sliced Bread | Hacker News Reader

The Invention of Sliced Bread

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Just to add some perspective from the outside world (I.e. Not America). In Italy sliced bread never really took over common bread. Yes we make toasts, and yes, we have sliced bread, but that's usually some industrial, over-processed bread loaf that you'll never find fresh at a bakery.

Here in Germany, were I live now, it's a mix. Common bread everywhere, but you can slice your own loaf at the supermarket with a terrific automated spring-loaded circular saw machine that's very cool to operate.

I just want to point out that "the best thing since sliced bread" is a sentence culturally linked to the U.S. conception of bread. I point that out because I had conversation with American friends in the past who were surprised by the non-universality of this sentence (as often happens with other cultural references).

Yeah, in Spain sliced bread is not very popular either. Some people use it for breakfast toast. And it is used to make sandwiches. Curiously, we use the word "sandwich" for a sandwich made with sliced bread, and the Spanish word "bocadillo" for a sandwich made with traditional bread. Bocadillos are widely considered superior, with sandwiches used for a cheaper, quick snack, or for easier portability. No one would make a sandwich with things that are appreciated and considered good food (like serrano ham, tomato with olive oil, tortilla, a good cheese, or calamari), they make bocadillos with that. Sandwiches are universally for cheap sliced cheese and cheap ham.

In summary, the phrase "the best thing since sliced bread" sounds very awkward in Spain because sliced bread is not associated with something good. It's associated with something quick that can do if you're in a hurry or if there's nothing better. Kind of as if we said "the best thing since Perl scripts" :)

I was introduced to the glorious bocadillo a few years ago on a couple visits to Barcelona. I've been trying to replicate a certain ham/cheese version of it here in the U.S. since then. It seems so simple and basic in Spain, where the ham and cheeses are unbelievably good, but here in the U.S. they're just different enough that you can't quite do it.

Not to mention getting the right kind/shape of bread is impossible.

French here, sliced bread is like "the worst thing ever".And dont get me started on industrial bread.If your bread isnt like less than 30 min fresh,hot from the oven, you shouldnt eat it.And by the way,we call sliced bread "english bread".

Dutch-near-German-border here. I think your opinion stems from the quality of industrial bread in France. If you look in the Netherlands you'll find a wide variety of very tasty pre-sliced industrial bread, always fresh baked in the morning.

That being said, I always buy unsliced artisan German bread from my local baker who imports it from across the border.

And for fun, let's fan the flames a bit. You can't compare the simple french baguette to the rich flavour of artisan German bread, simply no contest ;)

As a Frenchman who has lived 7 years in France, I can't agree with you.

Is the Dutch industrial sliced-bread better than the French sliced-bread ? Yeah, mostly because it's "freshly" baked every morning.

But it is still industrial bread, which can't be beaten by bread fresh from the bakery.

As for german bread, they do have a wide variety, I give you that, but once again, it's more and more industrial.

My parents in law, who are germans, complain that more and more bakery only bake pre-made bread and don't do their own anymore.

So yeah, if you have the chance to have a "real" baker nearby, it can be quite gorgeous, but in the general case, not so much.

Dutch industrial bread is nice in its own way, but it's not really bread like a baguette is. White Dutch bread has a cake-y character to it, which goes very well together with more 'delicate' toppings like butter & hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), jam, a young dutch cheese or boiled ham, which are common in the Netherlands. Whole wheat sourdough bread, no matter how great, just doesn't mesh with delicate toppings like strawberry jam. That said, a baguette or artisan bread is a far superior base for a good old cheese, Serrano ham or other 'strong' toppings. This is why brown dutch bread is never worth buying IMO -- it's kind of a weird thing like cake made with whole wheat flour that reminds me of antroposophic foods: it's slightly less unhealthy but it tastes like crap. If you're gonna eat something unhealthy it better taste good.

I meant "who has lived 7 years in the Netherlands" of course.

American here. Several years ago, our son was working in the Netherlands (west), and met us for a few days in Paris. He took back a fair bit of bread, not liking the Dutch product. To be sure, I have had good locally baked bread in Lower Saxony.

In my childhood in northern Ohio, there was a local bakery that had its own slicer and would slice the bread on request. I remember the product as quite good (I preferred the rye), but growing boys will eat pretty much anything.

Depends on what kind of bread you're talking about. A good sourdough will last a week and still taste great.

> you can slice your own loaf at the supermarket with a terrific automated spring-loaded circular saw machine that's very cool to operate

sigh... You cannot throw a statement like that without a Youtube link!

For those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JSvmCAwQEE

The first time I encountered one of those machines was in our local Lidl in Ireland. I could easily have stayed all day slicing bread, hugely satisfying to watch.

Of course, the engineer inside me wondered how well the safety lockouts were designed such that there would be no risk of accidentally having ones forearms turned into neat evenly sliced pieces.

Well, it's the different form factor. Soft and brick-sized bread doesn't belong to the Italian tradition. Slicing what we have it's not that difficult and in most cases there is no need to slice anything. We just break it with bare hands and have it.

North Americans can check these pictures to get an idea https://www.google.com/search?q=pane&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=i... Even the form factors that require slicing are quite small and not particularly soft. Slicing them is quick and easy.

Belgian perspective: every bakery has their own cutting machine, and when you buy a bread, it is cut just before it is wrapped. If you tell the baker beforehand that you prefer it uncut, you'll get it uncut. 15 years ago, it used to be the other way round: the baker would ask you if you wanted it cut, and would only cut it if you said 'yes'.

Bread in supermarkets can be pre-cut and pre-packaged (industrial, cheaper, and of inferior taste), but often supermarkets also offer freshly baked, uncut bread and have a cutting machine for you to use when you pack up your bread.

Very few things in this world beat a good sandwich made of roughly cut "civraxiu" [1] loaves, with "salsiccia di Irgoli" [2] and "pecorino" [3] cheese, washed down by a glass or three of "Nepente di Oliena" [4] red wine.

Ok, now I'm really hungry.

[1] http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civraxiu

[2] http://it-pic1.ciao.com/it/7410.jpg

[3] http://www.vinci-alimentarisardi.com/images/formaggi%20siama...

[4] http://www.amazon.com/2001-Gostolai-Cannonau-Nepente-Riserva...

First, that is one of the sloppiest colorized photos I've ever seen.

Now on to the article. Though I had heard bits and pieces of lore behind the invention, this is the first complete history. I'm surprise that he went about building the large-scale automated machine first, rather than evolving it from simpler devices. That the development was delayed and almost lost for good serves as a warning more than his success is an inspiration, I think. But he was persistent which I suppose is the single most important quality an innovator can have.

Not to mention a sense of humor. "Mac-Roh Sales & Manufacturing". And then he ended up selling his business to "Micro-Westco".

I once asked my grand-father "What was the best thing before sliced bread?" Without hesitation he said, "Indoor plumbing."

About the photo: I think it looks fairly representative of a colorized photo of that time. Note that this is not a photoshop job - it was colorized in 1920, probably by the photographer.

I agree, my grandmother has boxes full of photos that look like this.

Here's another example https://www.pinterest.com/pin/465911523921633003/

> I'm surprise that he went about building the > large-scale automated machine first, rather > than evolving it from simpler devices.

Yeah, he never heard of doing the MVP first!

According to the article the best thing before "sliced bread" was "wrapped bread".

It's bread all the way down.

As someone being born in Spain, form me sliced bread means: "The worse thing ever". An industrialized type of food that also requires to use the kind of ugly plastic that ends in the stomachs of turtles, dolphins and whales.

Now the crustless bread is even worse as they need lost of additives for it to stay fresh.

In China and Japan good bread was in the top list of things I missed, so I bought my own bread machine. But getting good flour was not easy.

In the US I could get it but it was expensive.

People from China, Japan or the US loved to come over my house to eat. Most of them have not tasted good bread ever, but they believe they do because of sliced bread.

"Trusting the great potential in his hypothetical invention, he immediately set out to conduct some market research. He put together a brief questionnaire “for the purpose of determining a thickness of slice which would be most nearly universal in acceptance,” and placed it as an ad in several large newspapers. Over the course of a few months, he managed to cull responses from 30,000 housewives.

Armed with this knowledge, he embarked on a long, painful journey to bring his invention to life."

Talk about validating your idea!

I found it amazing this guy was doing what we recently discovered, back in early 1900's

Here's a parallel read, also interesting

http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/good-bread/

I've become a convert to home baking with a bread machine, and the loss of easy slicing is one if the biggest downsides. The purchase of a slicing guide and electric knife has offset this somewhat, but it's still easy to get wrong. What I'd like is a compact home bread slicing machine.

You might consider just getting a nice long, sharp bread knife. There's something fun about a great knife.

Absolutely agreed on the great knife bit. As for the bread... I think ditching the expectation of perfectly even slices is a good start. Cut a piece and cut it in half; there, half a sandwich (assuming your bread maker spits out loaves with a square cross section). Want another half? It may not be the same thickness as the first one, but as long as you're a little bit careful, your pieces should at least be consistent with themselves, so there you go.

I'm old enough to remember buying your basic sandwich bread at the grocery store and taking it to the bread slicing machine. I guess the idea was that it would keep the bread better until slicing it, after which it would quickly be turned into all the lunch sandwiches for 3 or 4 kids for the week. I think the presliced bread cost a little more since it had shorter shelf-life or something.

These days, even my local grocery sells fantastic artisinal breads. Which you can either keep in the loaf and cut at home, or take it to a similar machine and have it pre-sliced for you. You can of course get the old basic sandwich bread in cheap loaves...$2-$3. But even the "fancy" breads are usually under $4 a loaf.

Interesting to see the early wrapper for Wonder Bread, where it's quite clearly labelled as "Wonder-Cut Bread". Obviously the "-Cut" became superfluous and was dropped over time.

related to me by a drunk baker some evening many moons ago -

'sliced bread has more surface area, so goes stale faster; companies loved it because their bean counters found out that people ended up buying more bread for the perceived convenience. By the time they started crazy additives for longer life, people were convinced that sliced bread is better. Throughout, people were eating less and less bread ... as a slice with your meal so its usage has changed quite a bit as well.' As the evening wore on, he probably had a point, but I missed it.

Now I do not know the veracity of the above ... what is clear to me is that (like many things in the western world) bread is no longer bread (that strange sliced white loaf is probably full of sugar, etc) ... having lived in countries for 20 years where I slice my bread I've not noticed the incredibly time consuming act of slicing bread.

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