posted
I remember when I was a kid my Dad used to always eat the ends of the bread loaf. I always thought it odd that he would prefer these while my sisters and I greedily ate up the rest of a loaf. Now that I'm Dad I find that I often eat the heels as well. As I was making my sandwich to bring for lunch today I was using up these last pieces and my daughter asked why I ate those yucky parts of the loaf. Well, the truth of the matter is that I simply did not want them to go to waste. I actually prefer the soft middle, but bread costs money. It finally dawnwed on me that my Dad ate them for the same reason. Duh.
Posts: 514 | Registered: May 2005
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Is the first part of your post meant to be positioned quite where it is relative to the second part . . .?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I preferentially eat them cuz the heels are somewhat like real bread made by a real baker in texture and taste, unlike the hyper-aerated&soggy flour in the middle produced by industial bakeries. The only way I'll use the middle slices of supermarket bread is after I toast them, preferably by frying.
Sad fact is I am spoiled by the places I've lived in and visited, grew up within easy access of (usually ethnic*) family-owned bakeries, and the occasional homemade loaf from one (usually ethnic) friend or another. And so my expectation of bread is that it should be preferable to all but the most lovingly-made desserts.
* By 'ethnic', I am not refering to race or even nationality, but rather someone who is so proud of the specific "where I come from" that they retain&use words&slang (with the appropriate accent), speech patterns, and mannerisms of their "region that I love" as part of their identity. Occasionally, that ethnicity is adopted: eg a "Chicagoan bred, born, and raised" who decided to become authentic Cajun.
posted
So why not make your own bread? I agree that most store-bought loaves are pretty bad, although Orowheat is okay. But with a bread machine, making bread at home is trivially easy.
posted
Crust is great. Whenever I eat sliced bread that I buy in the store, I always eat the bottom part of the crust first, then the middle, then the top part of the crust. It's the order of yumminess.
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
My dad is also a loaf-heel person, especially when we're talking about French or Italian loaves.... and MOST especially when it's still warm and yummy!
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Orowheat useta be okay, back when the same-weight loaf filled about half of the present-day volume.
And the problem with breadmakers is that they cook Japanese-style bread. Which is good only for drying then crumbling for use in panko recipes.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Crust is great. Whenever I eat sliced bread that I buy in the store, I always eat the bottom part of the crust first, then the middle, then the top part of the crust. It's the order of yumminess.
posted
What I think of as Japanese-style is a bread with a mouth-feel somewhere between cake and WonderBread. Maybe not quite, but I subconciously recognize the common distinguishing characteristic(s?): somewhat like supermarket white bread, supermarket whole wheat bread, supermarket potato bread, etc feels like I'm eating the same type of bread, only with a different flavoring added. I very much suspect that Japan commonly had industrial bread well before homemade or even neighborhood-bakery bread. And when Japanese neighborhood bakeries and homemakers started making bread, the bakers -- without a long tradition of breadmaking -- thought that bread should taste&feel like industrial bread. I was overly critical of Japanese-style bread, it's often better than most US supermarket bread. But still not approaching the goodness of homemade or neighborhood-bakery bread made from recipes developed in regions with a long bread-making tradition.
It's not the bread recipe mixture, theCrow'sWife, it's the way that the Japanese-invented breadmachines cook that recipe into something which resembles Japanese-style. Yeah, good European/etc-recipe breads cooked in breadmachines usually taste a lot better than supermarket breads, but they still don't inspire a "I'd rather eat bread instead of dessert" feeling.
Like I said, I've been spoiled. Even homemade, I prefer bread baked in antique pre-1943 stoves over bread baked in newer stoves. Similarly, I prefer neighborhood bakeries which use antique (antique-mimicking) commercial ovens over newer-design commercial ovens.
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