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Not fair to compare processed store bought shitty bread to any old bakery anywhere. Just compare American bakery with any French bakery and we can keep it fair
If bread in France is a religious thing then for sure in Greece has reached out of this world levels. Actually do you know that bread made out of white wheat isn't beneficial at all for humans. And Ancient Greeks fed their horses with it. All of this after Hippocrates father of medicine discovered after completing autopsies to people's brains that the gluten from the white wheat stuck in the lower part of the brain to amygdale and hypothalamus? Affecting the ingenuity and creative thinking of people? Instead of bread he suggested cultivating the cereal of zea which is the dark equivalent of wheat which doesn't contain gluten. There is a whole region in the port of Athens (Pireas) which used to be fields cultivated with it. Till the 1900 it was cultivated and suddenly it was banned. But today has returned and again it benefits people's life's. White wheat is prime suspect of cancers cardiovascular diseases autoimmune disorders and cerebral strokes.
@@sambistabeautyAs a German I can promise you American bakeries are not good. A standard German bakeries has 100 different bread types. Even France hasn’t such a variety. France is only second at baking good bread in Europe. Why should he even compare it? When most of the American population don’t even have access to a bakeries. A standard American bakeries can’t learn the skills to make good bread. Also they can’t have a big variety because there is no demand. Sorry for my bad English ❤
My pet theory is that the rise in zoning, suburbs, etc, encouraged people to shop once per week by car, requiring bread pumped full of preservatives to last that week and beyond. Unlike Europe, many in the US don't have a corner shop (a convenience store surrounded by housing, serving a small neighbourhood that doesn't warrant a full strip mall, nor require that amount of space or population) that they can walk to to get fresh bread several times a week that will go stale after a day or two, so we instead get a lot of abominations pretending to offer the same experience. The zoning/housing/lack of pedestrianisation and local stores issue has a lot of knock-on effects on America's health and quality of food (it also diminishes the demand for local produce, quality farmer's ingredients, etc).
im more anoyed that he used france as an example for a bread loving nation, when we are litarly across the border making 300+ variants of bread. smh...
@@NETIERRAS Probably didn't have a buddy there. And if you tell your partner "Wanna go to Paris with me for a video?" I imagine the response will be slightly more enthusiastic than "Wanna go to Berlin?" 😄 But yeah, an opportunity was missed.
@@RedHair651 But how many people who haven't experienced both know that? ;) I was speaking purely from a prestige point of view, and Paris has Berlin beat there.
As a German I was first triggered by taking France as point of reference. Yes, France has great baguettes and pastries, but it is mainly wheat bread. Germany has a much larger variety of types of grains, doughs, shapes and colors. This has geographical reasons being in a transition zone where not only wheat grows, but also rye, oats and barley. I give it to the French: they are sometime better in presentation of baked goods.
Don't forget, we don't have lots of independent bakeries anymore. The variety of breads in a single bakery is often obtained by using baking mixtures, which contain additives (even small bakeries often use it).
Here in Barcelona I don't eat wheat but brown bread made of barley, but I can buy other cereals like buckwheat... I don't know in Germany but here is getting a tendency to eat other kind of cereals than wheat. Is been there and old traditions?
@@alexandrejuve1305 yes, it is, because traditionally wheat doesn't grow well everywhere in Germany. Okay nowadays it could be different with warmer weather and artificial fertiliser.
Just a heads up - it's extremely easy to make your own bread. Here is how: 225 g of water 3 g of live yeast or 1 g of instant yeast 9 g of salt 350 g of flour (should be fine grind and have around 12 g of protein, the more the better) parchment paper iron cast post with a lid or a pot you can safely bake in oven 1) Mix yeast and salt into the water until dissolved, add all of the flour at once and mix/mash with wet hand until you get rid of all the dry bits in the dough and it feels evenly wet throughout. 2) Cover the bowl with a lid so the dough doesn't dry out and wait 30 minutes. 3) Stretch and fold the dough a couple of times and make a somewhat smooth ball out of it. (Technique is called stretch and fold, it's an easy replacement of kneading). Cover it again. 4) You can wait another 15-30 mins and repeat the stretch and fold, or skip this step if you're lazy. 5) Let it sit covered until the dough doubled in size and starts to smell with a hint of alcohol. This should take about 4-12 hours depending on the room temperature and amount of yeast you put. 6) Open the bowl and sprinkle with flour, prepare parchment paper and GENEROUSLY sprinkle it with flour. Plop the dough out of the bowl onto the parchment and try to not flatten it too much - we want the gases to stay in it. Ideally you want the top of the dough from the bowl end up facing upwards on the parchment - basically bottom of dough when it was in the bowl will be touching the parchment paper. 7) Put the iron cast pot with a lid into oven at maximum temperature (I use 240°C, which is 464°F) and preheat until both the pot and the oven are hot. 8) Get rid of all the excess flour around the dough and transfer the parchment paper together with the dough into the hot iron pot. You can use scissors to score / cut open the top surface of the dough. CLOSE the iron pot with THE LID and put to bake (top and bottom) for about 45 mins. Again the exact time will vary depending on your oven. It may seem complicated, but takes about 15 mins to make the dough and you have to plan to come back to it couple of times. Putting it to bake is like 5 mins. This bread is on par with any artisan bread I ever had. Btw this is basically 65% hydration pizza dough.
Fun Fact: Here in Ireland, Subways bread has actually been legally stripped of actually being classed as bread due to the additives and ridiculously high sugar content.
Actually, it not caused by subway breads ridiculously high sugar content, its caused by Irelands extremely low standard of sugar in bread. This might seem pedantic/non sensical, but Irelands law concerning sugar content in bread is extremely low compared to most other countries (including European countries). By the standard of Ireland, most breads aren't bread. It also should be noted that certain sweet breads (milk bread) has been given an exception to this. Subway bread does have more sugar than some other breads, but its not ridiculously high like what Irelands ruling seems to imply
@@nashbellow5430 Well Ireland used to be notorious for the childhood obesity epidemic so its understandable why they want to regulate the daily sugar intake, especially in goods accessible to children much more than other countries.
So im from Germany... it stings a bit, that you chose France for the "Culture of Bread" video, but I get it. The thing that struck me most was the detail Nathaniel mentioned: The "checking in on each other on your almost daily visits to the boulangerie". When I was spending a year at university in Paris, the two ladies that ran the boulangerie on my street were the first genuine connections I made in France. They remembered, when I told them I had scary exams comming up the next day and asked me the next day over how it went. They noticed I wasn't doing well, when I was missing my long distance girlfriend and cheered me up almost every morning. I know my current neighbourhood baker on a firstname basis. But I sometimes miss Margot et Hélène. It was truly special. Probably not despite but more so because Paris is a big city where you can sometimes feel lost. I still try to visit them when I get the chance to go to Paris and they still remember too.
100%. German bakers bake the best bread, no question. I feel like there is more bread variety in German bakeries, too. Sorry, France. I ♥ Bretzel Brotchen. Which you cannot even get here in the USA. "Pretzel" bread is an insulting imitation. I will give it up to French patisseries though. Unfortunately German bakers do not understand the importance of sugar. German desserts are covered in some barely flavored, unsweetened, whipped cream filling (sahne) in place of icing/frosting/glaze 😢. Nein danke.
Fun fact, that was just a way for Ireland to tax Subway a little more by categorizing their bread as a pastry. In a whole footlong loaf from Subway there's about 10g of sugar--as much as a single banana.
I stopped eating fresh bread about 10 years ago because i fell into the conceive trap of buying bread from the supermarket, and using a toaster at home. My parents didn't like it, never even tried it, they were still old school and prefer to buy bread from the bakery. 10 years later I'm now a mother who still buys bread from the supermarket and i give it to my son as well, he loves it. I watched this video last year when it first came out and you managed to change my whole attitude towards bread, i no longer felt keen to buy it from the supermarket, so i learned how to make it at home instead, i now make my own bread once a week, i make a big loaf of bread, cut it into 4 quarters and freeze and thaw on demand, every week i make a new one, it tastes much better than supermarket ones, and we've also saved alot of money in the process. I can't thank you enough for making this video, while I'm not American and our supermarket bread here is still much healthier and doesn't have all those ingredients that you have in America, i felt like i should give my son something that is more traditional.
When talking about fresh bread in the US, I was surprised you didn’t mention the COST. Here in Atlanta, I can go to a fancy stand-alone bakery and get fresh bread, but it averages $7-9 per loaf. Meanwhile a baguette in France is usually under €2, and industrial bread in the US costs about $2-3. Most bakeries I’ve seen in the US market fresh bread like it’s a luxury artisan product and you’ve got to pay a specialized artisan for the arcane knowledge they’ve acquire to make the bread
May I suggest a middle ground? Here in Austria we have local bakeries supply the supermarkets of their region with bread. That way real bread can still be sold relatively cheap, not everybody has to do the extra trip to the bakery - which still exists, and offers more veriety. If I drive for an hour, the same supermarket chain will sell different bread from different bakery.
The softness of our bread is because consumers equate softness with freshness When bread gets stale it goes hard There's nothing better than French bread though, the soft inside and crispy crust is perfect
@@dustinjames1268 Not specifically *french* bread per se, ANY KIND of hand-made bread is better than that mass-produced trash, no matter the country (but matter the baker)
I am a home baker in the US and I bake bread for like everyone I meet because no one in my life has ever had fresh bread! I didn't understand how bad the US does bread until I traveled to Europe and was able to have amazing bread every single day. I was so inspired by their bread that I decided to learn to bake my own. We really suck at bread.
And not just at bread. The grocery store in the US is like a battlefield. GMO mutants, chemicals (that are banned in 160 countries) in goods everywhere... Do you like Sriracha sauce? Yeap, it's made with the use of xanthan gum, a poop of pathogenic bacteria 😱💔🤦♀️ "Xanthan gum really doesn't sound that appetizing: The food additive is excreted by a strain of bacteria, Xanthomonas campestris, that is also responsible for the black slime that forms on broccoli and cauliflower when you leave them in the fridge too long." *"The love of money is the root of all evil."*
Can you help me bake bread? Like is the flour we use in our country is it good? I heard somewhere that the flour we use is stripped of some of the kernel of the wheat
Fun fact: France does have industrial sliced loaf bread sold in plastic bags... One of the most common brands in supermarkets is "Harris"😅 - (But since it's more expensive than a regular fresh bread from the bakery, french people only buy it occasionally)
@@ad3l547 Perso je prends du Harris que pour les tartines de nutella des gosses ou pour faire des croques-monsieur Je considère pas ça comme du pain. Et de toute façon le pain acheté en grande surface c'est souvent de la merde (même les baguettes tout ça), on peut pas comparer ça avec du pain sorti d'une bonne boulangerie xD
Ce genre de pain, c'est bien pour les croque monsieur ou pour faire du pain grillé le matin (je trouve pas de toaster conçu pour avaler des tranches de baguette coupé en deux, ça me rend triste) mais oui, ça vaut pas un pain acheté à la boulangerie... ça vaut même pas le pain que tu trouves en rayon boulangerie de ton supermarché
fun fact: American bread is called Toast in Germany (regardless of whether it’s toasted or not)…because it’s considered to be only edible in it’s toasted form so we figure it was toast all along 💁♀️
Exactly American bread was only imported in Germany after ww2 and a lot of the packaging had American flags which caused a lot of anger. Also a Jewish baker who survived a ghetto in Lithuania tried to poison former SS officers that were in a American POW camp in 1946. This is why most of the Germans are banging there fists screaming with rage that German bread is superior to all other breads and don’t even believe American bread is bread even though it’s obviously bread. Scary stuff when you think about the fact Germany is building up their army
A Danish friend came for an extended stay in NJ. I remember her asking, “why don’t you Americans have bread?” Real bread with substance and bulk that you have to bite into and chew using your jaws and molars. She didn’t didn’t consider the soft, spongy loaves that pass for it here as any sort of bread. This was in 1986.
Fellow dane here. The struggle is real. When i travel, i always take some danish ryebread with me because everywhere i go, it just doesnt compare. Ryebread, even in other well established bread nations, is still some kind of bland dark bread with no seeds in it.
I recently saw an Australian baker respond on youtube to some American millennial "influencer" on vacation here in Australia, who was whining about the quality of our local bread, asking her audience "why does the bread here taste sooo different from the bread we have back home (in the US). The Aussie baker gave a succinct, two sentence reply to her enquiry in his broad Aussie accent; "It's because we don't load it up with sugar like you guys do. It's BREAD, not cake!!!"
Had the same experience in Spain with my English friends. They said the bread is Spain is too bland and lacks sugar. Btw English people are puzzled with how Americans eat dessert and cakes for breakfast. So I guess there are different levels of sugar expectation between countries. US > England > France > Spain.
@@doodeedah6409 "English people are puzzled with how Americans eat dessert and cakes for breakfast." That is strange because traditionally they spread jam on their toast, which is sweet.
@@riproar11 thats like saying swedish people eat dessert and cakes for dinner and lunch (and braekfast) just because we eat jam with our beef an potatoes!! there is a HUGE difference between eating: pankakes made out of sugar or syrup for breakfast (or even just sugary cereal) to eating oatmeal and egg with a spoonful of jam on the oatmeal
A simple Italian Ciabatta recipe: Pre-dough: 100g flour 100ml water (room temperature) 3g yeast (1g dry yeast) Mix and let it rest for at least 4 h up to 24 h or even 48 h Main dough: 200g flour 100ml water (room temperature) 3-5g yeast ( 1- 1,5g dry yeast) 8 g salt ½-1 teaspoon honey 10 g olive oil You can use the pot/container from the pre-dough to mix it all together. Knead the dough at least 5 min and let it rest for ½ h. Now stretch and fold the dough a couple of times and let it rest again for at least ½ h. Meanwhile heat up the oven to 220-230°C. (I always use a pizza stone, but the oven tray will work as well.) After about 25min in the oven you can do the "knocking-test", if it sounds "hollow", it's done, additional 5 min if you want the bread little bit darker. Best bread for Antipasti like Bruschetta or Salmoriglio!
@whyparkjiminnotridejimin I forgot to list ~10 g olive oil, scusami! It's just too normal for me, almost every Italian meal/dish includes olive oil 😅😘 Buon appetito compà!
When I moved to Spain from Brazil, I read a bad review of a restaurant. One of the reasons was “bad bread”. I thought to myself “what? How can that matter?” Then I went to a restaurant with good bread and understood it.
@@jungi001 oh, it’s a big country, I can’t speak for all regions, but the most common bread is called “French bread” or “marraqueta” in soanish speaking South American countries. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t come close to the breads in Europe.
@@jungi001 In Brazil the most common bread is called "pão francês" (literally "french bread") BUT it's actually a "portuguese bread" that is called "Cacetinho" or "Cacete" in Portugal. Some states in Brazil, Porto Alegre for example, actually call that bread as "Cacetinho", but it's mostly known as "french bread" and it has nothing french about it. That being said, there is the "sliced and packed bread from the US" as well, and there are bakeries making baguettes and other types, but this "portuguese bread" (cacete or cacetinho) is the main bread in Brazil and it's usually called "pão francês" (french bread). Fun fact: Even tho Portugal and Brazil speak portuguese there are many words that do not mean the same. As I said, "cacete" is just a bread in Portugal, but in Brazil "cacete" is a "bad word", used sometimes as a slang for penis, but mostly as a simple swear and emphasys, like you would say in english "F#ck, I forgot to buy the milk", you could say in brazilian portuguese "Cacete, eu esqueci de comprar o leite". It can also be used as a slang to beat someone (as I will win a competition, a bet and/or a fight), you would say "I will beat you", you could say in brazilian portuguese in an informal way "Eu vou te dar um cacete" (I will give you a "cacete").
Adding insult to injury, every EU country has its local, traditional type of bread. You could literally tour the European countries and eat each day a different, tasty, traditional type of bread.
@@DaviRenania yeah at least in my region of germany I could cycle an hour and find literally 30 differnt kinds of bread that I couldn't get where I live lol
I think another thing is that the urban planning of the US contributes to this. Its pretty hard to get fresh food often whenever your cities are made into a sprawling mess of highways that is not walkable or bikeable, and you live in a completely different section of the city than where all the restaurants are.
You can thank Ebeneezer Howard and Robert Moses for that one. At the turn of the 20th century, Ebeneezer Howard, a postman from England, designed this concept called "The Garden City," it contained a centre circle for recreation and entertainment, then it had eight concentric circles all around it that were for housing or industry, connected by long passageways. Then, in the 1950s, former mayor of New York Robert Moses saw this and said "yes!" He dedicated his life to creating the era of the automobile, believing that we need to view things from the perspective of a hawk high above the city. He took Howard's idea for the garden city and created the suburbs and spent millions connecting them to New York via massive highways, tearing down historic neighbourhoods in the process.
Well no because In the UK most superstores bake fresh bread on site so this is not really an excuse well for bread anyway. American stores could bake bread in store just like they do In the UK and Europe.
And also, getting people sick is a big money spinner. The US caters to one person becoming a bread billionaire, not tens of thousands of people making a good honest living
This is why I bake my own bread. It has 4 ingredients: flour, water, salt, and yeast. When I share it with people, they go absolutely wild for it. You are absolutely right about the fact that this kind of bread is only really available to people in large urban areas in the US, and at an unfortunately inflated price due to its rarity even in those urban places. I live in a rural area and love to stop and grab some amazing bread while in one of these urban areas, but I am otherwise forced to bake my own bread, which is quite time consuming, if I want to have any semblance of decent bread. It is incredibly unfortunate that nearly everyone is left to eat the trash heap of overly sweetened, processed breads which are the only breads really available on a mass scale.
I live in Ireland, it was disgusting when moved from Germany. The Bread wasn't really tasty. Now I do bake my own bread too, preferably Sourdough rye bread (Water, Flour Salt) sometimes rye-spelt, (Water, flour, yeast and salt). I did not buy bread for over two years now. The Benefit of sourdough bread is, you put it into the fridge overnight or longer and bake it the next day. I bake three of them, slice it and put it into the freezer. If needed, take slices straight into the toaster.
@@IPMan-me6lo I used to bake sourdough, but now I prefer just making poolish. Basically making a quick sourdough starter overnight using just a small pinch of yeast with flour and water.
@@anthonyantoine9232 Ah, okay, I heard about poolish but never tried. I have two types of sourdough, one from wheat and another from rye, kept in the fridge as long as you like. Sourdough is life, I'll be buried with my sourdough. 😆
@@IPMan-me6lo If you love the sour flavor, then poolish won't do it for you. If you don't mind missing the sour flavor but want all of the other good flavors, then poolish does it all. Even when I made sourdough, I made it pretty mild because my wife doesn't like the sourness, so poolish makes a lot of sense for me.
@@anthonyantoine9232 Yeah, wives makes the life a bit more complicated than usual.🙃 But if my taste sense is right, the sourness fade away if it is toasted after freeze.
I grew up in Switzerland, and I call these spongy loafs "toast bread", and for me it's just the kind of thing you put into the toaster. But the term "bread" refers to actual bread for me, not "toast bread". I was so shook figuring out that in America, this is called bread lol
As if we don't have bakeries in the US. lol. This guy fooled you thinking that processed bread is the only way in the US. Now, I live in downtown Juneau, Alaska. It's like the Hallstatt of Alaska. We have a good amount of small businesses and restaurants that do good. No McDonalds, BK's, none of the fast food. Just straight up fresh sea foods, and baked goods.
No, no. Don't worry. Americans think like that too. Store bread is not remotely the same thing as homemade bread. Not everyone makes their own bread, but everyone is mostly aware that what you buy at the store is like...jet puffed bread- affiliate. It's for uniforn and even sandwiches and toast. I personally dont consider it robust enough to warrant jam as well as butter, but that's a matter of personal preference. We may not have separate words for bread, but we're aware of the difference. If you ever come to the USA, there's all kinds of wonderful food that is mostly inaccessible if you try to get it at a big chain store. Many things you need to make friends with someone who cooks and get an invite to dinner to really taste. Many of us cook and cook well, but the food we make is not found in grocery store shelves. So much of that is either raw materials or straight up for convenience.
@@alaska8429 he’s saying the majority of people do not have good bread nearly as accessible as non-Americans. Not all. Not counting, say, Publix or Whole Foods (whose bread is meh at best), I couldn’t tell you where a local bakery near me is. They’re also typically more expensive than store bought pre-sliced bread. The outro addressed that….
Americans call that type "sandwich bread", which is typically what we use for quick sandwiches. Our grocery stores have Bakery sections where you can buy different types of traditional breads. This guy decided not to show that for some reason.
There's really two main reasons for that: fat and cost Decades ago, the medical community began producing scientific studies showing that excess sugar was causing increased likelihood of negative health impacts like obesity and cancers. The sugar manufacturers didn't like this, so they pumped a ton of funding into diet research on fat. There was suddenly an influx of almost certainly biased studies that showed excess fats caused obesity and other negative health impacts. The sugar manufacturers then began making marketing and lobbying efforts to further convince the public, and it worked spectacularly. By the late 80s-early 90s, food manufacturers responded to the popular outcry against fat by offering tons of low-fat foods. But there was a problem, fat = flavor. So to make up for the lack of flavor, they began adding sugar. Food manufacturers loved this outcome a lot. Higher-fat foods often spoil faster and are more expensive to manufacture. Higher quality ingredients that taste better are also more expensive. Sugar is shockingly cheap and heavily subsidized through corn subsidies (why do you think high-fructose corn syrup is so ubiquitous?) Sugar is also very good at hiding poor quality ingredients. Your brain is evolutionarily wired to strongly desire high-carb foods for survival purposes. Even if what you're eating doesn't have the best flavor on its own, the added sugar still fills that subconscious desire. So food manufacturers can make their consumers happy by selling them "healthier" low-fat foods and can produce, ship, and store their products at much lower cost.
@@rawwrrob9395bread has never been "high-fat" food. The video mentioned the induastrialization of bread production as the main cause why these changes were made.
my entire extended family has adverse health reactions to bread, and i thought it was just bread, however, once i started baking in school and making actual bread, all those issues had ceased completely if i ate the home made bread instead, long story short i bake for my extended family now
@@Robert-ug5hx It's criminally bad for our health. You almost can't avoid dangerous food in the USA. Nearly all of it has some form of highly processed and artificial junk in it, and a lot of the natural healthy stuff is banned here like raw milk and raw cheese. The American economy/government is basically just designed to maximize profits from food that purposely makes everyone sick so they can then maximize profits off of their illnesses with the massive medical industry.
Austrian here. People make their own sourdough but even the simplest bread you can get here is just good quality. Just dont buy already packaged bread. I now make sourdough since 2020 and its just such a nice feeling eating own bread. Sometimes changing flour. Adding seeds or nuts. Adding greek yoghurt or carrots. So much to try out.
Some grocery stores in the US are starting to offer artisanal breads that baked fresh every day. I grew up in fifties and sixties. We still had neighborhood bakeries, but they focused on cakes and pastries. It wasn’t until I was a newlywed that I discovered neighborhood bakeries that had good bread.
As a Brit living in a town with a French bakery five houses down on the corner I am so happy. Freshly baked everyday deli and a French couple who own it. If they ever move I’ll move with them.
In Italy, they’ve already found a way to preserve bread centuries ago. They have many different bread that I baked hard, such as friselle, taralloni, pane biscottato, etc. You can eat it hard, or to re-soften it, you only have to dunk it in some water. This twice-baked bread, lightly dampened, with a little bit of good-quality oil, accompanied by some anchovy, octopus, cuttlefish salad, or tomato mozzarella di bufala, or whatever some grilled eggplant and zucchine, will make you die and go to heaven. Who needs preservatives when this delicious bread already exists.
We have this kind of american bread in Europe as well (I mean, it's still better but the idea is the same), but we rarely consider it to be real bread. In Poland we just call it "Toast bread" and it is a cheap type of food that university students feast on because of it's price and convinience. Also, nearly nobody eats it straight out of the package. We need to toast it to make it edible lmao.
Thank you. I come from Europe in 1985 and you sir are bringing back wonderful memories of a long time ago, together with a pleasant smell. I just bought a wheat berry mill and several tons of organic berries that are all vacuum sealed now. Planning to go back to the old ways once again.
@lofiboy hs "that kind convenance" seriously ?? Discute un peu avec un boulanger, t'auras pas le même discours ! Je pourrais aussi te répondre violemment en disant que personne aux Etats Unis n'a les co**lles de devenir boulanger.
@de la Broise Vincent the USA has bakeries with French ot Italian bakers. It just costs more . They also have restaurants with fresh baked breads . It just depends.
In Australia all our major fast food places have soft cakey burger buns. Some fancy burger places started using super sweet brioche buns. So disgusting. I like crusty burger buns aka bread rolls. Luckily we have a local farmers market that sells incredible sour dough loaves, it can't be beat for making toast and toasted sandwiches.
I recall back in the day when that was news. While that was the official and true story, and if that were the story spread would have been okay, the humor everyone talked about said Ireland classified the bread as a form of inedible foam (like memory foam or styrofoam) product. At least cake is still a food product.
I'm a baker in Australia. We have a sort of mixed bag. If you buy bread from any bakery, it's bound to be fresh and have very few ingredients. If you buy it from the supermarket, it will have a similar long list of ingredients as American bread. However it doesn't contain sugar. Regular bread isn't supposed to be sweet.
@@etuanno Depends on the dough. We mainly produce white bread because it's the most popular. We do make quite a bit of wholegrain bread. It's my preferred bread and the healthier option. Our sour doughs come in two options: White and half-white. They tend to be the healthiest option due to the long fermentation process.
@@leonardodtc1493 saying flour is sugar is exactly like saying toilet paper is sugar. flour is a complex carbohydrate and sugar is a simple carbohydrate, but flour is not sugar. The molecular structure of starches does generally contain chains of sugars though and both are processed into Glucose. In Biochemistry, carbohydrates and sugars are grouped into one category called Sacharrides, with many subcategories. However, cellulose is also a saccharide, and also can be digested into forms of glucose. So if flour is sugar, so is toilet paper.
Where I live (not America) there's practically a bakery on every block. They're everywhere, selling fresh-baked loaves that are also so much more inexpensive than the store-bought stuff (which we have too). It's wonderful and people love it. I do. The best bakeries will sometimes have lines out the door as people buy their loaves and pastries for dinner at home.
Live in a city of 3k and you can go and get a traditional loaf of bread at most supermarkets including Walmart, most people in the US just don't care what they put into their bodies
Actually, hate to break it to you but I'm French and these past years, journalists investigated and found that the flour used in most boulangeries is already filles with additives. It's sold that way from the manufacturer. The only baguette that apparently still has all natural ingredients is the baguette "tradition". Yep, even our good old French bread isn't our good old French bread anymore.
Or maybe additives are not as bad as people make them out to be? If the bread tastes just as good but is cheaper and doesnt hurt your health then what is the issue. There are certain things that within a certain dosage are not harmful to you but in bigger dosages are. That does not mean you should not consume said things, just that you should consume them at a certain rate or at least be aware of their impact on your health. sugar is bad for you and you require no more sugar than what u can get from eating a fruit a day yet we do not recommend anyone completely cuts off all sweat goods.
@@yang8244 bad or not bad for your health, eat freshly baked bread out of the oven with only natural ingredients and you will understand the difference.
I live in Eastern Europe and I was shocked to see American bread. Here we have quite a lot of bakeries and even regular supermarkets and grocery stores have little bakery sections where they make their own bread. Sometimes you can even buy some which was made just a few hours ago and it's still warm :)
But it doesn't last on the shelf so they have to throw away whatever they don't sell that day. That's the problem America solved at the expense of American health. It caused obesity, diabetes and many other diseases. But companies making Wonder bread made their money so that was more important to them. Only educated people stopped buying it.
I lived in England for a few years and in terms of bread, the small independent Eastern European supermarkets where my saving grace. They were the only places I could get good bread and cold cuts/sausages for an affordable price. Loved them and discovered some delicious food along the way.
I used to live near a small boulangerie in a town in southern France. I would regularly see guys stopping by on their way home, on bikes, and grab two baguettes. One would go in the basket for dinner at home... and the other? Eaten as the guy rode away. I can still smell that fresh bread. I've never experienced anything like that in the US.
Americans love saying that about everything they're not good at. Then they just hope and pray none of it's citizens ever looks it up and realizes the truth. This country is a disgrace.
@@taylorbug9 Kind of fitting that he went to France then, because looking at the US saying something's impossible and going "I'll take that as a challenge" is pretty much what France does as a country.
I’m not sure they do, at least not in the way I understand “commercial scale.” The US reaches commercial scale by making one company grow (at the expense of other small companies). When this is done, all the processes Johnny is describing happen (mechanization, industrialization, etc.) along with all those negative side effects. But it seems that the “economic scale” in Europe (for bread at least) is achieved by having loads and loads of small businesses that don’t gobble up each other. They achieve the same level of “commercial scale” but in a much different (better) way.
You have forgotten something quite important since 1997 in France the term "bakery" is reserved for bakers who work with the raw materials they have chosen and selected; carry out the kneading, fermentation and shaping of the dough themselves as well as the baking of the bread; carry out all the bread-making steps at the point of sale; do not freeze or freeze dough or bread at any stage of production.
regulation works! something the ultra-capitalist US needs to recognise. but i think its too deeply rooted that regulation is bad to be able to change it (think of reagan and his "im from the government and here to help" line)
Once you get out of the US, you realize how these old professions are, well, professions. A baker, a butcher, even a produce vendor, are as professional as say, a pharmacist.
This point about urban design is so worth emphasizing. What I see as a big difference between Europe and the US is that in the US, people drive in their cars to the grocery store and buy food for the week to keep in the refrigerator whereas, in Europe, people walk out the door and find a nearby bakery and buy food for what they're going to eat that day.
Most people in Europe don't actually do that because it isn't really practical when you're working everyday. What I will say is that even in supermarkets it's not hard to find fresh baked bread because most of them have a bakery
This is generalizing. Not everyone in US buy bread from a grocery, some buy from a bakery, that’s why we still have bakeries and butcher shops. I haven’t bought wonder bread for 10 years and only bought it once.
@@dylanporter8105 leave it to Harris to lie. I searched up the data where he got 3k bakeries in US, and did not found a source. What I did find was that US had 23k bakeries according to safegraph. It had 168k bakers according to statista. That’s the numbers but what about irl? They are plenty of bakeries near my house. And they don’t make one bread according to Johnny but plenty of them. Most of them are German, France, and Italian bakeries. I seen other videos of you tubers, who live in southern states, that showed them going to a bakery. This is another anti-American video which dumb statistics. I am so sick of it.
My uncle visited us from Latvia. He said our bread could be stuffed in the ear. And, it wasn't even wonder bread. Wonder how they're allowed to call it bread.
Yet they still sell crap in NL. There’s like a ton of spongy stuff everywhere. It’s not that easy in many places to buy as good bread as it is in Germany, Poland or France. I’m not counting buns like kaiser one or baguette. Those are the same everywhere.
@@TilmanBaumann baking something that showed up as a frozen wad of dough isn't making it fresh on site. I've worked in plenty of pizza places. And subway is the Only sub place I spend my money at.
As a German my first thought was France is an odd choice to go for bread, however for for the social aspect it makes sense. For the taste of bread Germans are usually the happiest at home or in Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg... you get the point.
The French are known for their bread, and they do it well. The Germans, however, have the most types of bread and a direct insistence that bread is integral to their culture.
Germany? When I travel there I am always shocked by the fact that a decent loaf of bread is crazy expensive and not always readily available in supermarkets. The quality of bread in Dutch supermarkets has spoiled me I guess.
@@ipm123456789 Most supermarkets these days have their own "bakery", where they have fresh bread. Not the one in the bread section, but a completely different place where you get fresh cheese, meat, and bread. Although I agree, it is not as good as the one I get from the corner shop
The biggest difference you left out is price. You can get a baguette from independent bakeries all over France for €1.20 or less, which is basically the same converted to USD now. In the U.S. that same baguette baked in the same way with identical ingredients is more like $5-$7 from an independent bakery. On top of that, the proximity is much different. I'd be surprised if most people in the U.S. live within 10-15 minutes of a bakery, so going so far out of your way is prohibitive as well.
I’m Irish and worked in Bavaria during Covid on an Engineering Project….one of the things I loved was having a bakery a 5min walk from my apartment and being able to buy from a selection of fantastic freshly baked breads each morning. We have good bread in Ireland…but the German bakery on the corner was next level
The point you've missed is that - according to movies anyway - if anyone every arrives home with a brown bag of groceries including a French loaf, they will be attacked or murdered within 15 seconds by the criminals waiting for them.
I grew up on Wonderbread and loved it. Until I got to college and I visited my aunt who made me a sandwich with homemade bread that she had baked that day. I was blown away with how amazing it was. So much flavor and texture! I didn’t realize that this is what bread is supposed to be. I literally couldn’t go back to Wonderbread after that. 😂😂😂
I hate wonder bread and it's weird because I'm not a picky eater or a bread connoisseur. I easily prefer the cheap store brand bread, even though it's basically the same except a few minor things like texture or something.
The best bread is the bread you make yourself. Once you learn how to bake your own bread, you can just continue to grow your skills. The first loaf I ever baked was a brick. But I learned.
"Paris is one of the more bikeable cities I've ever been in". As a French person, watching Not Just Bikes makes me want so much more than what we have in France :(
An anecdote on how complicated real bread is: I worked in a bakery in Munich called Hofpfisterei (have fun pronouncing that :P). And they are the worlds biggest CO2 neutral, all-organic bakery. For their breads they only use wheat, water and some special ingredients like kummel or in one special case hops (it's bavaria what can you do...). They still make the bread by hand, but they don't just have shops in munich and the area, but even in Berlin, Hamburg and other big cities that are hours away. And they discovered a problem: If they make the same bread in Berlin for example, it goes to shit. Same people, same ingredients - except for one: water. Turns out the water in munich (which btw is edible without chlorine as is all tap water in germany) is so different than the water in berlin that their whole recipe doesn't work. So now they make the bread in munich and bake it half before transporting it to Berlin during the night before finishing the process in Berlin...
The quality of water is really important when cooking. Here where I live in italy we get water from a dam the problem is it's full of limestone which is not an health hazard but really make pasta taste bad.
@@keyjohnjo194 I just returned from Rome and the hard water killed my skin. I don't see how people can live there without a water softening showerhead.
Absolutely! water quality and type is so important! I'm a tea drinker, but for some reason tea always tastes horrible in the US, and I tried it all over the country! Could it be cause they add fluorine instead of chlorine to water? Calcium, salts and other minerals are probably not the reason, as tea tastes good in various European and Asian countries(even from a source which is high in fluorine naturally)! On the other hand, the French baguette machines are producing French bread all over Europe, and they they tastes different to the stuff in France! Just like the same beer brand manufactured at a different location.
@@reitmanigor8560 In the US we chlorinate our water for sanitation. Fluoride is added as a preventive dental health measure. I'm not sure the amount of fluoride affects water flavor, but chlorine sure does! You can get a water filter that removes the chlorine at the tap. I have one for the shower and it makes a huge difference. The problem may also be that we boil water in stovetop kettles usually, instead of an electric kettle. Electric kettles never caught on here because we don't drink as much tea, and our home electricity is weaker so an electric kettle takes longer. The problem may also be that our bagged tea sucks because Americans are less-discerning tea drinkers. Compared to Italy I noticed a marked difference in the freshness of produce, and of course the quality of the bread. I think that speaks less to the ability of a supply chain to deliver a good product, and more that the supply chain is directed to deliver a product of the lowest quality people will buy.
@@googiegress We have an electric kettle (in Canada, same 120v outlets as the USA). I use it for noodles and coffee and tea. Anyways, it may be slower than in the eu, but it's still much faster than the stovetop kettle I used to have. 4-5min and I have 1.75L of boiling water.
Being an austrian, bread was the biggest cultural shock i experienced being in the US for a few weeks. It felt like bread was just a housing for any toppings. At home we sometimes eat just flat bread because it is delicious enough how it is without any toppings.
toast just tastes like nothing there is no actual flavor to it you have to add things for it to be edible and you technically dont even have to chew toast it just dissolves
Yes, I'm from the US. I'm lucky to be from an area with a heavy Italian heritage and also the hometown of Panera before it expanded and did away with many of its most-loved menu items and more traditional processes, so I grew up with a lot of excellent bread around me. However, Austria just has the best bakery culture out of all the countries I have lived in, and that's what I miss the most about Austria when I am in the US.
Is Wisconsin unique or something, because all the supermarkets have bakeries that make fresh bread every day, and I can get some great flatbreads locally
In Australia, i doubt you get regular wonderbread and eat it flat without anything LOL. You would normally go to your walmart/tesco or whaetver, and go to the bakery section.
The funny thing is that traditionally made bread like "Bauernbrot" in Germany also lasts up to a week, without any preservatives. So I guess why change the method of making it like that
@@HelloOnepiece the crust is the best part, these heathens. I like bread that's soft and spongy inside too, but if it doesn't have a nice crispy crust it's just not good
We have the same one in CZ! I actually love it so much, you can literally just have butter and salt on it and it's delicious! I live in the UK though and unfortunately the UK is quite like the US. The other day this guy, originally from Nigeria, came up to me in the bread aisle asking which brand I like best. I was holding the cheapest ASDA branded one and was like "eh, it literally does not matter, they all taste the same, may as well just save your money and get the cheaper one..." Love the UK for so many reasons but really wish bread/bakeries were more like mainland Europe rather than copying the crap they have from across the pond.
Enjoyed this. There's one aspect of the French bread story that you missed (unless I missed it) and that is that the quality of French bread is actually protected by law. For example, a baguette can't have more than four ingredients, needs to weigh a particular amount, etc. This would actually have been interesting to include because it does say something about the protection/regulation of food quality that seems strong in France and very weak in the U.S. (I grew up on Wonder bread but now know even calling it "bread" seems like a joke.)
I dont see anything wrong with US bread. Sure its bad to eat by itself, but its really convenient, and is good with sandwiches. Go to safeway. They have good bread usually. In Canada, we have Superstore thats basically Walmart, but has this cool bakery section that has good bread for sale aswell. Americans complain about their shit being generic too much, and dont appreciate the qualities in their generic shit. If you want good quality bread, go get some from your local bakery. Not a hard thing to do LOL. Especially if you live in the west coast in SanFrancisco, which has legendary sourdough.
True but you are talking about the "baguette tradition" the other type of baguette that is more popular, and sold in french bakeries called "baguette blanche" has like 14 additives industrialisation still makes its way
@@honkhonk8009 You are used to eating shit. So you think quality food is "wrong". The thing that fascinated me about American bread was it faked a crust but was soft tasteless doughy crap. And like most fake American food it is "improved" with pointless flavours to give you "choice" but in fact is used to hide the poor quality ingredients especially the chemical additives.
As an architect part of the team who is building the bike lanes in Paris, I wasn't expecting your nice words about Paris' urbanism but I'm glad you noticed the changes ! 😊
If you ever come to Chile, make sure to check the supermarkets. While there's a lot of sliced, industrial bread, we also have whole sections dedicated to traditional bread, including the French baguette. We are one of the most bread-consuming countries in the world, after all.
We have this american bread in Germany as well and it's funny how almost every single one of them is marketed as "American Bread" with packaging full of american flags and such. Also, people don't really buy it. I buy it rarely when I want to make sandwiches in my sandwich maker. Usually I just go around the corner and get bread from my neighbourhood baker.
@@ronlentjes2739 That's a lie. The "poisons" are throughout the batter. The crust just dried more than rest of the batter that's inside. In reality, the crust can help slow down digestion. But Americans love to twist a lie and make it a "convenient narrative". So you stick with your baseless theory about accumulating poison.
Fun fact for you Johnny: In France, there's a type of bread that is regulated by LAW (Baguette Tradition, lit. Traditional Baguette). The ingredients are vastly restricted, and essentially, it can only contain wheat, water and certain rising agents (also regulated). I saw you were eating a "normal" baguette. You're missing out IMO. Try Tradition next time you're at a bakery.
Yes, you also find 'industrial' bread (I might have mis-spelt it) which is kind of quick and dirty bread, compared to the 'traditional' which is fermented overnight. It's more expensive, but it's just better
I'm one of the few Americans whom can bake proper bread. Regulation, especially in terms of bread, is incredibly lame. The French government regulates bread making? That is incredibly stupid... I'm glad we aren't dumb enough to regulate something as menial as bread making... That being said, we only have shitty bread in the U.S. because Americans, including Johnny, are incredibly lazy... We all eat this shitty bread because we are too lazy to bake it. I can make baguettes like this on a daily basis. This loser is literally shilling "therapy" in his video... Johnny is not to be taken seriously.
My goal this next year is to learn how to make bread at home. Watching someone make bread makes me so happy. I'm nervous to try doing it myself. But I'm ready to learn!
I remember my first tour as a European in the US, I couldn’t believe how sweet the bread was. Like sugar loaded, that even a savory sandwich was impossible to make.
yeah so that's actually by design essentially, "sandwich bread" is an entirely different food product than bakery bread. sugar is used a key ingredient to help bond the bread together, improve the test from its non-traditional ingredients, and if I recall correctly, change how quickly it can be baked as well as how well the bread withstands spoilage-- which is critical in a food product that might spend up to five weeks before being consumed. If you pop down to your bakery every morning, of course your bread doesn't need to be long-lasting; it spoils in a week but you eat it within a couple days. But in the US, you go to the grocery once a week or two weeks, and that bread has to sit there the entire time. Sandwich bread is *designed* to be spongey, have a very long shelf life, be resistant to spoilage (bakery bread can go bad in less than a week, especially if it's left out overnight; sandwich bread can be left out for much longer and still be safe to eat), soak up juices but not rip, tear, or flake, etc. etc. Sandwich bread is designed to be able to deal with a knife covered in peanut butter scraping over it without falling apart or dropping crumbs every, without... well, there's a long list of "features" that sandwich bread is *designed* to have. All for a couple dollars that you can pick up *anywhere.* It's not a bakery bread. It's a convenience food item designed to support a whole host of other foods.
I feel like one of the biggest issues with this sort of thing is comparing legitimate bread with sandwich bread-- they are, in essence, *completely* different food products that are only similar because one is the original and the other is an entirely new product that shares the same ingredients.
@UCyXvI2qWCuEP7Er9_u6VA2Q Not just by immigrants. There are plenty of us Americans that make our own bread. It isn't rocket science. The chief difference is that "sandwich bread" has to last a long time without sprouting mold. The other major difference is that it is made quickly instead of a prolonged ferment. A lot of "sour dough" has acid added to yield the sourness. It is not made any differently than the white typical sandwich loaf otherwise. Most Americans are too busy to spend time making bread, but there are bakeries with good, traditional bread all over the country. Some even deliver their products to supermarkets.
I just made my first loaf of bread in 10 years a couple days ago. It's way easier than I remember, and even more delicious. If you can't get to a good bakery, just bake your own bread people. You can watch a movie while your dough rises and the kneading is a pretty good workout.
but where are you getting your flour? it must be ground whole and used fresh - the industry standards have ruined every package of flour on every shelf in every supermarket with bleaching, removal of bran and germ, and the chemical preservatives added.
I'm French and I agree making our own bread is so much better in USA(that's a great country I'm sure) the food is really not treated as it should(the most(or no))
@@jollyrodgers7272 I use King Arthur unbleached flour mixed with whole wheat flour. Not ideal, but it's what I've got and it's better than what I can get at the supermarket bakery.
I bought a bread maker (invented in Japan). I make fresh bread every other day. I love my machine because I know I would not do all the steps to make fresh bread every other day. Yesterday I made French style, today is a mix of whole wheat and white flour. No additives in any bread.
About the bread in France, he missed an amazing point, the french bread recipe (more specifically traditionnal bread) is regulated by the law since 1993 under the Décret n°93-107 also know as "Décret pain". And this law goes deeper than the EU restriction on additive, like, this law tell the maximum pH of the "levain" (leaven or dough in english).
I've spoken with several people who say they have to eat gluten free bread in the U.S. but in France they can buy bread in the shops and tolerate it so I wonder if it isn't so much gluten sensitivity issues many people are suffering but the commercial yeasts and all the additives to make U.S. breads cheap and have a long shelf life.
Maybe, but, even if in France there is also a trend to eat gluten-free product, however bread, at least where I live, is a big exception in this trend.
I had a bakery which made traditional bread and included a gluten free option but you have to reserve it in advance as they don't want to cross contaminate this bread with other gluten flours.
Hello, german guy here! Great Video, I'm always missing proper bread whenever I'm traveling far! 😱 One thing I wanted to mention is, that in Germany we do not consider American Bread (or "Toast-Brot" as we call it here) to be real bread (Brot). It is its own category of baking goods. For example, at a normal family breakfast, we would often discuss whether we want to eat bread (Brot), (american sandwich-) bread (Toast-Brot) or rolls. So we also have both kinds. Freshly made bread in local bakery's and industrialized, preserved and packaged sandwich bread (Toast-Brot) from the convenience store :) Thanks for the great videos! Love the Channel :)
My mom’s comment in an American grocery store “Die haben hier nur Toastbrot” (they only have bread that needs to be put into the toaster) pretty much explains the German opinion of US American bread 😅
So true! But I would go even further, and say that a baguette is not really considered to be a bread in Germany! If you would ask someone for bread they wouldn’t bring you a baguette in Germany. They would bring you a sourdough bread with a hard crust! That’s the real bread! Ar least that’s what most of the Germans would call bread!
When some americans sailed to my city and stayed for a while( it's a harbor city) they were amazed by bread and said that in USA bread is sweet and tastes nothing like this, as well by quality of most foods. Fun fact US organic food is just called food in the most of the world
We had visitors from Germany who wanted to know why we served our burgers on cake. I can't imagine their reaction to that awful King Hawaiian crap. I grew up in NYC with excellent bakeries. Now I live in the Midwest and the bread sucks. Bonus is that I learned to bake.
In Italy we have American bread but we barely consider it bread. It's used either to make sandwiches for trips/picnics or toasted, but it's not "table" bread to eat at lunch or dinner. Often it's not even sold in the same Isle of the supermarket as regular bread.
But that's what Americans do with their American-style bread. It's not like people are putting a loaf of wonderbread out in the middle of the table. There are plenty of bakeries in the US making great dinner loafs.
When we (germans) first visited Rome some 15 yrs ago, my mum searched the city for two days (!), found a very small organic specialty’s shop and for the first time got us kids to eat some bread (and no sweet baked goods) for breakfast. How… memorable italian bread was, is a joke in our house to this day. There was a lot of really, really good food in Rome (Pizza did tasted better, the pasta was divine, ice cream - how do you do even do it, the sweet (and non greasy, for me (: ) goods were excellent…) but italian bread? No thank you. 😅 Man, I miss Rome.
@@sini234 Italy has a very regional structure, if you were in the northern provinces you would have found fresh bakeries that have great bread and small treats called "salatini" that are, basically, speck, peppers or anchovies inside crispy bread. Italy is not really defined by Rome and Italian food (and other things) varies immensely from a city to another, next time you visit us try to search what is local and good before! :)
wode diannao this is such a weird video... you can literally buy fresh bagels, baguettes, sour doughs...etc in most supermarket... cheap and mass produced "toasts" are definitely not the only "bread" in the US lol
@@KaienFEMC Exactly! There's usually a "commercial bread" section and a "bakery" section. I quit watching when he started talking about how terrible it is that American bread is made with white wheat while celebrating a French baguette.
Exactly why I started baking all the bread that we eat. Our normal bread, not the "dessert style breads like Japanese Milk Bread, etc.", has only three ingredients - unbleached organic wheat flour, homemade starter, and water - and, of course, time to let the ingredients work with each other to make their magic. Will never eat industrial bread again.
I'm from Czech Republic and i was really intrigued when the whole "sourdough bread" wave came on all social media, americans were obsessed by it, so i looked into it to see what is it about, and i found out, its just bread, our normal classic bread that you can buy in any supermarket. That was a weird experience, thats for sure.
Sour dough you actually make with a 'starter' rather than "Fresh" Yeast. Traditionally most bread was made with a starter culture (it's basically a big pot of yeast and flour and water you keep feeding and alive for years if you want). But the flavour difference with a really good starter or Mother yeast can be night and day from making bread from say packet yeast. I'm not sure if it's the flavours coming from the basically fermented starter or what but you can taste the difference when you baked them at home.
@Deerheart Uh as someone that's made sour cream, and butter, and therefore buttermilk. Both of those statements are a touch misleading. Yes our store bought sour cream has been pasterurized but sour cream is a very different product from both yogurt and kefir.
Here in Canada the Bread is basically like in the US you know considering how we are almost similar to our neighbours down south we just get used to it anyway.
@@jayplay8140 Have you ever been to the US and have chocolate before we agv many efferent flavours of chocolate I really like our chocolate although our Bread is Kinda Bland.
I'm French. We often forget how lucky we are. Thanks for remembering me. You motivated me to rush to the best bakery in my surrounding, not the closest, the best one. I have lots choices. A 5 minutes walk allow me to choose between douzains of artisan bakers, who cook bread slightly differently, most of them delicious.
@@jerryleo7963 sorry but no....German bread sucks bad compared to French boulangeries. and this is coming from a guy from a German-French family.... tut mir leid!
My favorite bread is when I grid wheat kernels, then make a loaf in my bread maker with that. It has such an earthy flavor to it, and I only need one or two slices of it to filled me up for hours. A slice of that toasted with a fried egg on top is incredible. I should do that more after watching this video.
I grew up in Georgia with traditional southern American traits, except my grandmother and mother always baked fresh bread, banana bread, raisin bread, and even cinnamon and sugar toast. They always called store bread chemical loafs.
Very unusual for the south, ngl. The south has ALWAYS been anti-regulation, "gimme chemicals, guns, and god" country. Like NGL the best food I ever had in Texas was the worst food in Washington.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 IF the south has a propensity for fake bread it's because of the higher rates of poverty here, but the south has always been poor and IMO some of the best cooks in the country, so it doesn't surprise me that there are people down here making real breads and cursing the industries that poison our products. Moreover if you ever lived in the south you'd know that cultural distrust of government and economic institutions means that we tend to be very aware and critical of added chemicals into things.
When you say that manufactured bread is rare in France, get this : I'm french. I was born and grew up in France. When I was young, what we call "pain de mie" (your manufactured bread) was so rare my sister and I asked our parents to buy some instead of bread because we saw it a a treat!
Yup, I do agree on that. And my father would criticize me for asking to buy that shitty "pain de mie" rather than getting proper and real bread at the boulangerie.
we actually do have long bread that is like what he is holding often baked in the deli of some stores its a full bread that is more like what yall have and I do think the delis bake it fresh its only in some stores though ones that have a deli
As a Norwegian I'm no stranger to industrialised bread, it's just done completely different from how it's done in US and Canada. Industrialised bread in Norway is made in a more traditional way, with traditional ingredients, but at a much larger scale. Even if the bread in the grocery store comes from a centralized bakery, it is distributed to the grocery stores the same day that it was made.
@@anewliberalismI'd say that depends entirely on which store you go to, a fresh bakery in the US might be better than a Norwegian supermarket but a Norwegian supermarket is probably going to outpace an American one if only due to sheer quality regulations.
@@anewliberalism I would really like to know where you do your shopping, because that is not my experience at all. Even what they call "fresh" bread in the grocery stores here are more than a day old, while back in Norway I could get bread baked same day at any grocery store and often store baked and only a few hours old. It's not that it's impossible to get fresh bread here, but it's definitely not the same selection and abundance that I'm used to. The situation did however encourage me to start baking my own breads :)
Oavsett så har både Tyskland och Frankrike en mycket mer diversifierad, lokal och hantverksmässig kultur av bröd. Både Sverige och Norge är ganska kassa på bröd i jämförelse.
French here: and you know what? Even the bread you get in french bakeries is generally NOT the best bread we used to have in the past. Most bakeries use synthetic yeast because it's cheaper. If you look for the best bread, look for sourdough bread or "pain au levain". It has a distinctive acidic taste that makes it far more digestible.
I've been baking my own bread for 50 years (I just turned 70), with a starter, and the basic ingredients. I bake, usually, once a week, and have probably baked 3,000 loaves in my life so far. Making one's own bread is simple, and quite satisfying. Not living near a bakery doesn't keep one from good quality bread.
you get the ingredients home delivered or buy those locally so you pretty much live near a Bakery. Now you've got 50 years experience . You should open your own *Les petits pains de Chérie Tata Sue. Est.. 1972* Bakery.
If you sah Adam Raguseas Video you know that now you just have to get rid of American flour so that most of the " gluten-intolerant" are able to eat it, too. American flour causes severe bloating for some reason, which european doesnt.
As a European, the thing that shocked me the most when I went to the US was the fact that it was pretty much impossible to find 'real' bread. Everything you could find was industrialized and it all had added sugars in it. That's right, added sugar in bread... I'm glad to hear there is (at least in the big cities) a new direction some people are taking!
As an American it shocks me how judgmental and close minded most Europeans are. I hear so much negativity about America from Europeans but ask anyone trying to migrate from a 3rd world country and they will take America every time.
added sugar in bread is absolutely normal. It's used to feed yeast. It doesn't even make any difference in the finished product, the percentage of sugar will be about the same.
@@Ubeogesh *extra* added sugar, and then *extra* added salt and a plethora of other ingredients to balance the flavour, resulting in an addictive product the likes of which honestly made food can't compete.
I was really surprised there was no talk in your video of the US government essentially pushing Wonderbread during WW2 as this is probably one of the biggest reasons bread culture here is so different than in Europe. There were a lot of nutrition deficiencies in the US population before and during WW2 that were causing disease like pellagra and so the government asked companies to start enriching their products, which for Wonderbread meant enriching their flour (they almost called it restored flour, but didn't want to give the game away). Wonderbread advertised their product as essential for building strong bodies until they were brought to court over it in the 70s because their claims were not based in fact.
@@zaraalawi4660 yes but the US government is the reason why American "bread" has persisted to this day. The highly processed bread Americans eat has been become a staple and a lot of people don't anything different.
@@thoticcusprime9309 to prevent confusion, in europe you usually buy american bread only to toast it, so (in germany atleast) you usually call it toast bread, and everyone tried one time un-toasted american bread, so we do know how it tastes.
Just a comment here from a Swiss/French person….It’s not so much that we “care” about the bread and bakeries but more so that it’s just a fact of life and how society is. Of course we care about our breads and stuff but there’s not strong conscious effort by most to ensure the culture stays alive, it’s just how things are
Yeah, bakeries just exist because there are people who knows and wants to bake. It is your choice if you want to buy bread in a supermarket or in a bakery. I am bothered with showing the name of the store-brought bread and shaming it the rest of the whole video. And many people and animals are hungry, why throw it? Is this a sign of entitlement? I mean food crisis is a real problem. Hey sir, I would love to visit Switzerland or France.
@@francefrancisco7906 Of course we got the "choice" to chose between a delicious inexpensive artisan bread available in all the streets and a supermarket bun filled with chemicals
I think you care more than you think. What would happen if those bakeries were to just disappear, and you are stuck with American "bread"? I think this is a classic case of taking things for granted.
Exactly same in the US with our shitty bread, it’s basically all people know and have access to it’s not like we consciously choose shitty bread over good quality bread
As a Dutch man with severe GERD, who’s diet consists for a large part of whole grain bread; I was really surprised and disappointed at the choice of bread during my trip to the US: sugary, extremely sour or other weird types of bread that seemed more like cake. Was really difficult dealing with my reflux, so I really feel for people who permanently live in the US with GERD
GERD plus USA bread makes for celiac disease so bad the guts will leak into the body cavity risking infection. Plus chronic yeast infections for humans and pets. And massive bloating. And sluggishness.
@@CS-uc2oh Not quite true. GERD is a very complicated sickness. A person with GERD can eat one day old white bread made in Europe no problem. But sweat, sour bread from the US will increase acid production, especially since it includes unnecessary chemicals. And its not just bread that can be a problem. Living with GERD in Europe I can't eat almost no fruits cause they all increase acid production.
I grew up in the US but my parents are from Europe. When I moved to Spain as an adult, all of my GERD and other Gastrointestinal problems literally disappeared overnight. I just went for a visit and felt 10 years younger while in Spain.
Funny that in Australia (I'm not sure about other countries), Subway was sued for their bread - the sugar content was too high to be legally classified bread so it was legally cake. As such, they had to pay goods and services tax on them.
Early 90s I first tried Subway in Florida. The bread they used then was actually really good bread, unlike that chemical waste they call bread now. They have truly ruined their original product that helped make them who they are. The fact that people still eat makes me believe that most people do not have any taste buds.
I am a bread baker professionally in the US. So glad and thankful to not only be able to make my own bread but bring it home fresh from work whenever I want.
That is great, but what if the bread you're making contains poverty wheat? The things sprayed on the wheat nowadays is ruining the bread, too. I hope you have a reliable source for your flours! Even the water and salt quality matters to me.
The food value of bagged bread and what the hybridized wheat varieties do to our North American bodies is probably on par with a chocolate bar. Making bread at home is soooo inexpensive and joy-giving...because when it comes out of the oven, hot and fresh, you can just lean into the wonder and "look what I made" feeling of it all.
I’ve spent some time deployed on a US aircraft carrier. One time while working with the French it came up that we don’t have fresh baked bread aboard the ship and they were appalled.
@@britishneko3906 They do bake bread on the subs.... at least on the Toledo. Subs rule! So do sub mariners! (They are just as special as Special Forces.) When the Toledo was in its home port, the sub mariners didn't want to eat Navy chow... they wanted their own.
@@bonnyd.5334 I don't see why they wouldn't. Subs have limited space. Flour keeps forever, and bread is perishable. Flour takes up very little space compared to bread. They also have an unlimited supply of water from desalination.
I lived in Germany for about 18 years. I truly miss great bread. In Germany, there are more than 3,000 registered sorts of bread. France may be known for its baguette;Germany, however, has every other country beat.
I guess it depends on taste. I am from Spain and I like the bread in Spain and France much better than in Germany ( I lived there and sure there are tons but I am used to different type of bread. Also baguette is just one type in France too. We have plenty in Spain as well.
Came into the comments for this :D French bread is great, but as a German I will only ever rarely crave baguette if I can have a good Bauernkruste instead 💋👌
I don’t eat wheat and dairy, they usually cause me itching , rashes and stomach problems. However , on a 14 day stay in different cities of France a few years back, I was never happier eating all the bread and cheese I wanted. The cherry on top was I didn’t gained a pound!! I couldn’t believe it! I was in heaven for 14 days! Definitely we are doing something really wrong with our food here 😢😢
Maybe that is what is happening to me. I can't eat the commercial bread in US anymore that is sold in grocery stores or that is in fast food restaurants like Subway and I am 46. If I do, I will end up with stomach issues, constipation, diarrhea etc.. so I stay away from it as much as possible. They are absolutely doing something to the bread in this country these days.
@@The_New_Abnormal_World_Order I mean, we aren't getting sicker for no reason. If the new poisons we spray on our food has nothing to do with it, I'll be surprised.
The way American farmers finish the wheat spraying pesticides it poison The wheat and produce cancer and the way they prosees to flour it produce gluten Soo if it is not organic flour I would not eat it
One thing I didn't hear mentioned was how the Great Depression affected how bread was made in the US. In the 1930's the price rose to $3 a loaf ($53 in today's money). Businesses worked to make bread cheaper, last longer and enriched, simply to feed the masses of unemployed and near starving people in the US. Yes, bread in the US leaves a lot to be desired but cheap, long lasting food staples were critical to feed the needy and it is still that way. Poverty has a way of making you forget the artisan foods.
Sure but "artisan" breads in Europe and especially Paris aren't expensive, they're as cheap, and in my experience even cheaper, than processed bread in the US. And you get a much better product.
the problem isn't the strive for cheaper and longer lasting foods. It's the methods used to realise those goals. And that's always artificial chemicals; the consumption of which over the course of a lifetime will lead to cancer and other serious ailments. You're better off finding a new food item instead of chemically modifying existing ones.
well the great depression hit a lot of countrys. Countrys like germany or france were even hit by WWII in the "near" past, and still they didnt go this way. So this cant be the explanation why US chose this path while the other countrys didnt.
What’s crazy to me is, I know gluten intolerances are rising in recent decades in the U.S. due to the artificial methods in which bread is produced. It definitely aligns with the idea that bread isn’t really bread anymore because people cannot digest it here. Especially, when I know people who have been abroad and can magically eat bread, but are sad when they return home and can’t eat bread again.
We still don't know what non-celiac non-wheat allergy gluten intolerance is or anything about how it functions, so there's no way to know how it's happening. Also if it's about the artificial methods in which bread is produced, it has nothing to do with gluten. Gluten exists in all wheat bread.
@@Sobepome Fair. But it doesn’t make sense how people have these “bread intolerances” that prevent them from eating bread in the United States, but they can in other countries. And how these “bread intolerances” have increased dramatically in the last 30 years.
@@emilynlsn3 I don't know what you're talking about but gluten allergies prevent eating of all wheat products. It's not just bread. Also gluten affects everyone's gut permeability it's just that people with gluten allergies are even more affected.
@@sounghungi Yes, but a gluten allergy is very different from a gluten intolerance. And pretty much all wheat products in the US are manipulated to last longer on store shelves.
I live in Poland and I am addicted to bread: sourdough bread, rye bread, rye-wheat, multi-grain, spelt bread, baguettes... I would die w/o my local bakery! :)
How? Where I lived in Poland even at the bakeries they had bread loafs packed in plastic. It was impossible for me to find a bread with a crust. First when I moved to Germany I learned what a real bread means
Car culture is a big part of this too. In a lot European urban environments it's a lot more common to buy bread during your commute, or by simply walking or biking past the bakery. It's easy and effortless, since there are so many of them. In the US grocery shopping is something you do maybe once a week, and the bread is designed around that. In my home country of Finland we have a bit of the same problem, but due to the climate. You simply have very few areas where you want to spend the extra time outside walking in the winter. Our solution has been a bit different though. Our traditional breads are often rye breads that are baked until almost completely dry, which hold naturally for a week or longer, or crispbreads, which can last a year or more. There are ways to achieve a bread that can be eaten for quite some time without a lot of additives, but it makes for a very different bread.
Yep. Been to Germany several times, and it's just like that. People shop several times a week, they just don't buy as much. You don't see a shopping cart loaded to the brim with stuff. It's all people with a small hand basket, buying a few things, that they can easily hand carry home. And there were bakeries everywhere, it seemed. Along with genuine meat markets/deli's.
There is an interesting video by Adam Something about that: In the US cities are planned differently. They are split into "Living areas" where no commercial building area allowed and commercial areas. That makes the suburbs free from any shop where you could buy your stuff. In consequence, you have to take a car to go shopping in a big mall. The world is constructed around cars. There is simply no room for small shops near your house. In Germany you'll always have some type of city/village centre, typically around the church with some shops. A bakery used to be one of them.
Also: rye bread is made as sourdough bread. The acids make it stay fresh longer, even if it's not dry inside. The taste of the bread and the crust is simply extraordinary.
Ill add to that regarding the Panera Bread example: It is very difficult, up to impossible, for artisanal bakers (or for that matter, any artisanal product like coffee, wine, cheese) to survive outside of an urban core - you need both lots of foot traffic, and dedicated costumers. Panera expanded beyond the big cities - into cartopya, where you need to both cut costs to compete, and develop the lowest common denominator - making your products bland and cheap. Thats why only NYC, Chicago, Boston and SF have these nice things - good examples would be "third wave coffee" and craft beers, that exploded in NYC.
I remember someone being in the US wanting some Schwarzbrot (Black Bread with strong taste) and it was sweeter than most cakes you would get in Germany.
Mainly because of the massive corn industry in the US, the high-fructose corn sirup is being applied to a vast portion of the American food industry, including bread.
Thanks for watching! If you want more stuff like this, go watch a few more subscriber-favorite videos from the channel: th-cam.com/video/9XECUXXbjhU/w-d-xo.html
Not fair to compare processed store bought shitty bread to any old bakery anywhere. Just compare American bakery with any French bakery and we can keep it fair
If bread in France is a religious thing then for sure in Greece has reached out of this world levels. Actually do you know that bread made out of white wheat isn't beneficial at all for humans. And Ancient Greeks fed their horses with it. All of this after Hippocrates father of medicine discovered after completing autopsies to people's brains that the gluten from the white wheat stuck in the lower part of the brain to amygdale and hypothalamus? Affecting the ingenuity and creative thinking of people? Instead of bread he suggested cultivating the cereal of zea which is the dark equivalent of wheat which doesn't contain gluten. There is a whole region in the port of Athens (Pireas) which used to be fields cultivated with it. Till the 1900 it was cultivated and suddenly it was banned. But today has returned and again it benefits people's life's. White wheat is prime suspect of cancers cardiovascular diseases autoimmune disorders and cerebral strokes.
@@sambistabeautyAs a German I can promise you American bakeries are not good.
A standard German bakeries has 100 different bread types. Even France hasn’t such a variety. France is only second at baking good bread in Europe.
Why should he even compare it? When most of the American population don’t even have access to a bakeries.
A standard American bakeries can’t learn the skills to make good bread. Also they can’t have a big variety because there is no demand.
Sorry for my bad English ❤
@@LeoNxQL this is all mostly true, but the breads the bakeries do make here in the US are incredible compared to the supermarket junk
My local supermarket is called publix, there bakery is good, try comparing them. Most Americans have that option. In God I trust.
My pet theory is that the rise in zoning, suburbs, etc, encouraged people to shop once per week by car, requiring bread pumped full of preservatives to last that week and beyond. Unlike Europe, many in the US don't have a corner shop (a convenience store surrounded by housing, serving a small neighbourhood that doesn't warrant a full strip mall, nor require that amount of space or population) that they can walk to to get fresh bread several times a week that will go stale after a day or two, so we instead get a lot of abominations pretending to offer the same experience. The zoning/housing/lack of pedestrianisation and local stores issue has a lot of knock-on effects on America's health and quality of food (it also diminishes the demand for local produce, quality farmer's ingredients, etc).
the convenience store doesnt offer much of anything and its prices are higher. so its not much of a convenience.
makes sense
You can blame England for that tbh. American suburbia comes from them.
@@meneither3834 well ive been in England and they have all those things .. I would say they have very much different suburbs than the US
I wonder why we don't buy like 2-3 quality loaves on our weekly grocery trip and store the extra in the freezer for the rest of the week.
As a German, the "steamy" packaging broke me. Half the joy of bread (for me) is crunchy crust. Moisture in the packaging absolutely ruins that.
im more anoyed that he used france as an example for a bread loving nation, when we are litarly across the border making 300+ variants of bread. smh...
@@NETIERRAS Probably didn't have a buddy there. And if you tell your partner "Wanna go to Paris with me for a video?" I imagine the response will be slightly more enthusiastic than "Wanna go to Berlin?" 😄 But yeah, an opportunity was missed.
@@thefili8849 I'm French and I can guarantee you that Paris isn't better than Berlin.
@@RedHair651 But how many people who haven't experienced both know that? ;) I was speaking purely from a prestige point of view, and Paris has Berlin beat there.
@@thefili8849 Plenty of people don't like Paris
As a German I was first triggered by taking France as point of reference. Yes, France has great baguettes and pastries, but it is mainly wheat bread. Germany has a much larger variety of types of grains, doughs, shapes and colors. This has geographical reasons being in a transition zone where not only wheat grows, but also rye, oats and barley. I give it to the French: they are sometime better in presentation of baked goods.
Don't forget, we don't have lots of independent bakeries anymore. The variety of breads in a single bakery is often obtained by using baking mixtures, which contain additives (even small bakeries often use it).
@@MrTuxracer sadly, that is true. But this is the case also in France.
Here in Barcelona I don't eat wheat but brown bread made of barley, but I can buy other cereals like buckwheat... I don't know in Germany but here is getting a tendency to eat other kind of cereals than wheat. Is been there and old traditions?
I agree but there are also a lot of different breads in France, not just baguette... Also, there are multiple kinds of baguettes.
@@alexandrejuve1305 yes, it is, because traditionally wheat doesn't grow well everywhere in Germany. Okay nowadays it could be different with warmer weather and artificial fertiliser.
Just a heads up - it's extremely easy to make your own bread. Here is how:
225 g of water
3 g of live yeast or 1 g of instant yeast
9 g of salt
350 g of flour (should be fine grind and have around 12 g of protein, the more the better)
parchment paper
iron cast post with a lid or a pot you can safely bake in oven
1) Mix yeast and salt into the water until dissolved, add all of the flour at once and mix/mash with wet hand until you get rid of all the dry bits in the dough and it feels evenly wet throughout.
2) Cover the bowl with a lid so the dough doesn't dry out and wait 30 minutes.
3) Stretch and fold the dough a couple of times and make a somewhat smooth ball out of it. (Technique is called stretch and fold, it's an easy replacement of kneading). Cover it again.
4) You can wait another 15-30 mins and repeat the stretch and fold, or skip this step if you're lazy.
5) Let it sit covered until the dough doubled in size and starts to smell with a hint of alcohol. This should take about 4-12 hours depending on the room temperature and amount of yeast you put.
6) Open the bowl and sprinkle with flour, prepare parchment paper and GENEROUSLY sprinkle it with flour. Plop the dough out of the bowl onto the parchment and try to not flatten it too much - we want the gases to stay in it. Ideally you want the top of the dough from the bowl end up facing upwards on the parchment - basically bottom of dough when it was in the bowl will be touching the parchment paper.
7) Put the iron cast pot with a lid into oven at maximum temperature (I use 240°C, which is 464°F) and preheat until both the pot and the oven are hot.
8) Get rid of all the excess flour around the dough and transfer the parchment paper together with the dough into the hot iron pot. You can use scissors to score / cut open the top surface of the dough. CLOSE the iron pot with THE LID and put to bake (top and bottom) for about 45 mins. Again the exact time will vary depending on your oven.
It may seem complicated, but takes about 15 mins to make the dough and you have to plan to come back to it couple of times. Putting it to bake is like 5 mins. This bread is on par with any artisan bread I ever had. Btw this is basically 65% hydration pizza dough.
Seems complicated I will just go to Walmart instead thanks!
Bread
@@bw857 I promise you it's not complicated, but it does take time.
Have a look for overnight bread or no-knead bread. ✅
@@fhpl7355 I wouldn't trust anything from that guy. Look up "Dr. Eric Berg gets fact-checked by MD PhD doctor" by Nutrition Made Simple! channel.
But first to make REAL bread ...
Einkorn Flour - How to Make All Purpose Einkorn Flour at Home
th-cam.com/video/UZPfTq4A5Lo/w-d-xo.html
Fun Fact: Here in Ireland, Subways bread has actually been legally stripped of actually being classed as bread due to the additives and ridiculously high sugar content.
Heard that milk bread which has more sugar hasn’t gotten stripped of the classification too
America Should strip all BREAD products, I eat Nought of that chem shite,
Actually, it not caused by subway breads ridiculously high sugar content, its caused by Irelands extremely low standard of sugar in bread. This might seem pedantic/non sensical, but Irelands law concerning sugar content in bread is extremely low compared to most other countries (including European countries). By the standard of Ireland, most breads aren't bread. It also should be noted that certain sweet breads (milk bread) has been given an exception to this.
Subway bread does have more sugar than some other breads, but its not ridiculously high like what Irelands ruling seems to imply
@@nashbellow5430 Well Ireland used to be notorious for the childhood obesity epidemic so its understandable why they want to regulate the daily sugar intake, especially in goods accessible to children much more than other countries.
@@underpaidpapaya well they failed in that regard if milk bread is considered bread and subway bread isn't.
So im from Germany... it stings a bit, that you chose France for the "Culture of Bread" video, but I get it. The thing that struck me most was the detail Nathaniel mentioned: The "checking in on each other on your almost daily visits to the boulangerie". When I was spending a year at university in Paris, the two ladies that ran the boulangerie on my street were the first genuine connections I made in France. They remembered, when I told them I had scary exams comming up the next day and asked me the next day over how it went. They noticed I wasn't doing well, when I was missing my long distance girlfriend and cheered me up almost every morning. I know my current neighbourhood baker on a firstname basis. But I sometimes miss Margot et Hélène. It was truly special. Probably not despite but more so because Paris is a big city where you can sometimes feel lost. I still try to visit them when I get the chance to go to Paris and they still remember too.
100%. German bakers bake the best bread, no question. I feel like there is more bread variety in German bakeries, too. Sorry, France. I ♥ Bretzel Brotchen. Which you cannot even get here in the USA. "Pretzel" bread is an insulting imitation.
I will give it up to French patisseries though. Unfortunately German bakers do not understand the importance of sugar. German desserts are covered in some barely flavored, unsweetened, whipped cream filling (sahne) in place of icing/frosting/glaze 😢. Nein danke.
Germany and bread. Come on...
;)
German food is much like British food. We love it, but no one else does 😆😆
Germans always searching so desperately for something to be proud of.
@@bradavon lmaoooo
Fun fact, in Ireland, Subway arent allowed to arvertise their subs as bread because the sugar content is too high
Yeah I remember hearing that years ago. Fair play. Subway is awful. We've really lost a lot of independent and local bakeries and delis in Ireland. 😢
That's actually really cool
To be fair, Ireland's also the only one who doesn't.
Fun fact, that was just a way for Ireland to tax Subway a little more by categorizing their bread as a pastry. In a whole footlong loaf from Subway there's about 10g of sugar--as much as a single banana.
So what do they call it?
I stopped eating fresh bread about 10 years ago because i fell into the conceive trap of buying bread from the supermarket, and using a toaster at home. My parents didn't like it, never even tried it, they were still old school and prefer to buy bread from the bakery. 10 years later I'm now a mother who still buys bread from the supermarket and i give it to my son as well, he loves it. I watched this video last year when it first came out and you managed to change my whole attitude towards bread, i no longer felt keen to buy it from the supermarket, so i learned how to make it at home instead, i now make my own bread once a week, i make a big loaf of bread, cut it into 4 quarters and freeze and thaw on demand, every week i make a new one, it tastes much better than supermarket ones, and we've also saved alot of money in the process.
I can't thank you enough for making this video, while I'm not American and our supermarket bread here is still much healthier and doesn't have all those ingredients that you have in America, i felt like i should give my son something that is more traditional.
Wow. I would think that, once you have the ingredients and the knack, home-made bread would be great for your family.
@@mk.3925 I recommend one of those pizza fire bricks (20-40$/€) for your oven as an upgrade. Buon natale.
When talking about fresh bread in the US, I was surprised you didn’t mention the COST. Here in Atlanta, I can go to a fancy stand-alone bakery and get fresh bread, but it averages $7-9 per loaf. Meanwhile a baguette in France is usually under €2, and industrial bread in the US costs about $2-3. Most bakeries I’ve seen in the US market fresh bread like it’s a luxury artisan product and you’ve got to pay a specialized artisan for the arcane knowledge they’ve acquire to make the bread
Ah, you see, in America it's illegal to provide an essential service without exploiting the person you're serving.
when staple food of a large part of Humanity is "fancy", incroyable.
@@Rampala you have $2 pizza, what are you talking about
Arcane knowledge to make bread, hahahahaahha. Good one
May I suggest a middle ground? Here in Austria we have local bakeries supply the supermarkets of their region with bread. That way real bread can still be sold relatively cheap, not everybody has to do the extra trip to the bakery - which still exists, and offers more veriety. If I drive for an hour, the same supermarket chain will sell different bread from different bakery.
On my first visit in the USA i bought a "bread" and you could literally press the whole loaf into a Pingpong ball size lmao
The softness of our bread is because consumers equate softness with freshness
When bread gets stale it goes hard
There's nothing better than French bread though, the soft inside and crispy crust is perfect
Hey, when we were kids, we used to cut the crust off a piece of bread and do exactly that. Make a hard dense ball of bread and eat it, slowly.
“Dough conditioner” made out of leftover plasticizer from rubber manufacturing
@@dustinjames1268 Not specifically *french* bread per se, ANY KIND of hand-made bread is better than that mass-produced trash, no matter the country (but matter the baker)
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I am a home baker in the US and I bake bread for like everyone I meet because no one in my life has ever had fresh bread! I didn't understand how bad the US does bread until I traveled to Europe and was able to have amazing bread every single day. I was so inspired by their bread that I decided to learn to bake my own. We really suck at bread.
As a french, i am glad that you adopted the ways of the bread to your home. Continue this effort, and give us back the Louisiana please 😊
@@CHARLESAUVETBut your country sold it. 😂
And not just at bread. The grocery store in the US is like a battlefield. GMO mutants, chemicals (that are banned in 160 countries) in goods everywhere...
Do you like Sriracha sauce? Yeap, it's made with the use of xanthan gum, a poop of pathogenic bacteria 😱💔🤦♀️
"Xanthan gum really doesn't sound that appetizing: The food additive is excreted by a strain of bacteria, Xanthomonas campestris, that is also responsible for the black slime that forms on broccoli and cauliflower when you leave them in the fridge too long."
*"The love of money is the root of all evil."*
You as a nation not going to suck at bread when there are bakers like you. Bless you and may home bakeries prosper in the United States!
Can you help me bake bread? Like is the flour we use in our country is it good? I heard somewhere that the flour we use is stripped of some of the kernel of the wheat
Fun fact: France does have industrial sliced loaf bread sold in plastic bags... One of the most common brands in supermarkets is "Harris"😅 -
(But since it's more expensive than a regular fresh bread from the bakery, french people only buy it occasionally)
personnellement pour ma famille on fait toujours la différence entre les brioches et le pain x)
@@ad3l547 Perso je prends du Harris que pour les tartines de nutella des gosses ou pour faire des croques-monsieur Je considère pas ça comme du pain. Et de toute façon le pain acheté en grande surface c'est souvent de la merde (même les baguettes tout ça), on peut pas comparer ça avec du pain sorti d'une bonne boulangerie xD
Ce genre de pain, c'est bien pour les croque monsieur ou pour faire du pain grillé le matin (je trouve pas de toaster conçu pour avaler des tranches de baguette coupé en deux, ça me rend triste) mais oui, ça vaut pas un pain acheté à la boulangerie... ça vaut même pas le pain que tu trouves en rayon boulangerie de ton supermarché
@@nonameileos Exact xD
We use it only for preparing Croque-Monsieur!
fun fact: American bread is called Toast in Germany (regardless of whether it’s toasted or not)…because it’s considered to be only edible in it’s toasted form so we figure it was toast all along 💁♀️
Same in Norway 😁
It's ram packed with chemicals and tastes disgusting.
Also in Finland
Exactly American bread was only imported in Germany after ww2 and a lot of the packaging had American flags which caused a lot of anger. Also a Jewish baker who survived a ghetto in Lithuania tried to poison former SS officers that were in a American POW camp in 1946. This is why most of the Germans are banging there fists screaming with rage that German bread is superior to all other breads and don’t even believe American bread is bread even though it’s obviously bread. Scary stuff when you think about the fact Germany is building up their army
Soft bread in France to make a difference with traditional bread. We use that just for toast and daily eat traditional broad from bakery.
A Danish friend came for an extended stay in NJ. I remember her asking, “why don’t you Americans have bread?” Real bread with substance and bulk that you have to bite into and chew using your jaws and molars. She didn’t didn’t consider the soft, spongy loaves that pass for it here as any sort of bread. This was in 1986.
Bread is o good in Denmark. They applied science to bread masking, the pH concept.
Fellow dane here.
The struggle is real. When i travel, i always take some danish ryebread with me because everywhere i go, it just doesnt compare. Ryebread, even in other well established bread nations, is still some kind of bland dark bread with no seeds in it.
@@Wankers001 i take it you have never travelled to germany then 😜
@@Wankers001 but isn’t the point of travelling to see and try out of the ordinary things?
@@Wankers001 Dane here as well, it really is horrible, even in Britain, you really have a hard time finding proper bread...
I recently saw an Australian baker respond on youtube to some American millennial "influencer" on vacation here in Australia, who was whining about the quality of our local bread, asking her audience "why does the bread here taste sooo different from the bread we have back home (in the US). The Aussie baker gave a succinct, two sentence reply to her enquiry in his broad Aussie accent; "It's because we don't load it up with sugar like you guys do. It's BREAD, not cake!!!"
Do you have a link?
Yep, I also noticed while watching this video that I don't think "sugar" was ever mentioned ^^
Had the same experience in Spain with my English friends. They said the bread is Spain is too bland and lacks sugar.
Btw English people are puzzled with how Americans eat dessert and cakes for breakfast.
So I guess there are different levels of sugar expectation between countries. US > England > France > Spain.
@@doodeedah6409 "English people are puzzled with how Americans eat dessert and cakes for breakfast." That is strange because traditionally they spread jam on their toast, which is sweet.
@@riproar11 thats like saying swedish people eat dessert and cakes for dinner and lunch (and braekfast) just because we eat jam with our beef an potatoes!!
there is a HUGE difference between eating:
pankakes made out of sugar or syrup for breakfast (or even just sugary cereal)
to
eating oatmeal and egg with a spoonful of jam on the oatmeal
A simple Italian Ciabatta recipe:
Pre-dough:
100g flour
100ml water (room temperature)
3g yeast (1g dry yeast)
Mix and let it rest for at least 4 h up to 24 h or even 48 h
Main dough:
200g flour
100ml water (room temperature)
3-5g yeast ( 1- 1,5g dry yeast)
8 g salt
½-1 teaspoon honey
10 g olive oil
You can use the pot/container from the pre-dough to mix it all together. Knead the dough at least 5 min and let it rest for ½ h.
Now stretch and fold the dough a couple of times and let it rest again for at least ½ h. Meanwhile heat up the oven to 220-230°C. (I always use a pizza stone, but the oven tray will work as well.)
After about 25min in the oven you can do the "knocking-test", if it sounds "hollow", it's done, additional 5 min if you want the bread little bit darker.
Best bread for Antipasti like Bruschetta or Salmoriglio!
Bread without at least 50% wholemeal wheet is not bread.
Thanks♡
@whyparkjiminnotridejimin
I forgot to list ~10 g olive oil, scusami!
It's just too normal for me, almost every Italian meal/dish includes olive oil 😅😘
Buon appetito compà!
When I moved to Spain from Brazil, I read a bad review of a restaurant. One of the reasons was “bad bread”.
I thought to myself “what? How can that matter?”
Then I went to a restaurant with good bread and understood it.
Which kind of bread do you have in brazil?
@@jungi001 oh, it’s a big country, I can’t speak for all regions, but the most common bread is called “French bread” or “marraqueta” in soanish speaking South American countries.
It’s not bad, but it doesn’t come close to the breads in Europe.
@@jungi001 In Brazil the most common bread is called "pão francês" (literally "french bread") BUT it's actually a "portuguese bread" that is called "Cacetinho" or "Cacete" in Portugal. Some states in Brazil, Porto Alegre for example, actually call that bread as "Cacetinho", but it's mostly known as "french bread" and it has nothing french about it.
That being said, there is the "sliced and packed bread from the US" as well, and there are bakeries making baguettes and other types, but this "portuguese bread" (cacete or cacetinho) is the main bread in Brazil and it's usually called "pão francês" (french bread).
Fun fact: Even tho Portugal and Brazil speak portuguese there are many words that do not mean the same.
As I said, "cacete" is just a bread in Portugal, but in Brazil "cacete" is a "bad word", used sometimes as a slang for penis, but mostly as a simple swear and emphasys, like you would say in english "F#ck, I forgot to buy the milk", you could say in brazilian portuguese "Cacete, eu esqueci de comprar o leite".
It can also be used as a slang to beat someone (as I will win a competition, a bet and/or a fight), you would say "I will beat you", you could say in brazilian portuguese in an informal way "Eu vou te dar um cacete" (I will give you a "cacete").
@@jotairpontes @Luciano Thank you for explaining! Very interesting!
In France, bread is so important that by law restaurants have to provide free water and bread when you order a meal at one of their table ^^
Adding insult to injury, every EU country has its local, traditional type of bread. You could literally tour the European countries and eat each day a different, tasty, traditional type of bread.
So does North America, colonialism just suppressed all the traditional breads to crush the native peoples.
@@samankenmann Corn bread or cassava bread in South America is top tier and one of a kind
Not even country, every little region.
@@DaviRenania yeah at least in my region of germany I could cycle an hour and find literally 30 differnt kinds of bread that I couldn't get where I live lol
I know in my region we have a special type of brioche, and then ANOTHER ONE but just for Christmas :D
I think another thing is that the urban planning of the US contributes to this. Its pretty hard to get fresh food often whenever your cities are made into a sprawling mess of highways that is not walkable or bikeable, and you live in a completely different section of the city than where all the restaurants are.
You can thank Ebeneezer Howard and Robert Moses for that one. At the turn of the 20th century, Ebeneezer Howard, a postman from England, designed this concept called "The Garden City," it contained a centre circle for recreation and entertainment, then it had eight concentric circles all around it that were for housing or industry, connected by long passageways.
Then, in the 1950s, former mayor of New York Robert Moses saw this and said "yes!" He dedicated his life to creating the era of the automobile, believing that we need to view things from the perspective of a hawk high above the city. He took Howard's idea for the garden city and created the suburbs and spent millions connecting them to New York via massive highways, tearing down historic neighbourhoods in the process.
Well no because In the UK most superstores bake fresh bread on site so this is not really an excuse well for bread anyway. American stores could bake bread in store just like they do In the UK and Europe.
And also, getting people sick is a big money spinner.
The US caters to one person becoming a bread billionaire, not tens of thousands of people making a good honest living
@@leegarrett5821 I mean just go to a bakery????????????????
I like this theory. we need a collab with Not Just Bikes or City Nerd
This is why I bake my own bread. It has 4 ingredients: flour, water, salt, and yeast. When I share it with people, they go absolutely wild for it. You are absolutely right about the fact that this kind of bread is only really available to people in large urban areas in the US, and at an unfortunately inflated price due to its rarity even in those urban places. I live in a rural area and love to stop and grab some amazing bread while in one of these urban areas, but I am otherwise forced to bake my own bread, which is quite time consuming, if I want to have any semblance of decent bread. It is incredibly unfortunate that nearly everyone is left to eat the trash heap of overly sweetened, processed breads which are the only breads really available on a mass scale.
I live in Ireland, it was disgusting when moved from Germany. The Bread wasn't really tasty. Now I do bake my own bread too, preferably Sourdough rye bread (Water, Flour Salt) sometimes rye-spelt, (Water, flour, yeast and salt). I did not buy bread for over two years now. The Benefit of sourdough bread is, you put it into the fridge overnight or longer and bake it the next day. I bake three of them, slice it and put it into the freezer. If needed, take slices straight into the toaster.
@@IPMan-me6lo I used to bake sourdough, but now I prefer just making poolish. Basically making a quick sourdough starter overnight using just a small pinch of yeast with flour and water.
@@anthonyantoine9232 Ah, okay, I heard about poolish but never tried. I have two types of sourdough, one from wheat and another from rye, kept in the fridge as long as you like. Sourdough is life, I'll be buried with my sourdough. 😆
@@IPMan-me6lo If you love the sour flavor, then poolish won't do it for you. If you don't mind missing the sour flavor but want all of the other good flavors, then poolish does it all. Even when I made sourdough, I made it pretty mild because my wife doesn't like the sourness, so poolish makes a lot of sense for me.
@@anthonyantoine9232 Yeah, wives makes the life a bit more complicated than usual.🙃 But if my taste sense is right, the sourness fade away if it is toasted after freeze.
I grew up in Switzerland, and I call these spongy loafs "toast bread", and for me it's just the kind of thing you put into the toaster. But the term "bread" refers to actual bread for me, not "toast bread". I was so shook figuring out that in America, this is called bread lol
As if we don't have bakeries in the US. lol. This guy fooled you thinking that processed bread is the only way in the US. Now, I live in downtown Juneau, Alaska. It's like the Hallstatt of Alaska. We have a good amount of small businesses and restaurants that do good. No McDonalds, BK's, none of the fast food. Just straight up fresh sea foods, and baked goods.
We think like that in Greece too
No, no. Don't worry. Americans think like that too. Store bread is not remotely the same thing as homemade bread. Not everyone makes their own bread, but everyone is mostly aware that what you buy at the store is like...jet puffed bread- affiliate. It's for uniforn and even sandwiches and toast. I personally dont consider it robust enough to warrant jam as well as butter, but that's a matter of personal preference. We may not have separate words for bread, but we're aware of the difference. If you ever come to the USA, there's all kinds of wonderful food that is mostly inaccessible if you try to get it at a big chain store. Many things you need to make friends with someone who cooks and get an invite to dinner to really taste. Many of us cook and cook well, but the food we make is not found in grocery store shelves. So much of that is either raw materials or straight up for convenience.
@@alaska8429 he’s saying the majority of people do not have good bread nearly as accessible as non-Americans. Not all. Not counting, say, Publix or Whole Foods (whose bread is meh at best), I couldn’t tell you where a local bakery near me is. They’re also typically more expensive than store bought pre-sliced bread. The outro addressed that….
Americans call that type "sandwich bread", which is typically what we use for quick sandwiches. Our grocery stores have Bakery sections where you can buy different types of traditional breads. This guy decided not to show that for some reason.
When I visited the US, the fact that so much supermarket food had sugar added really shocked me
Why do you think most of them are fat xD
Farmers market is a must when in USA
Its the same for UK supermarkets our bread isn't quite as bad (but not great) however sugar is in everything even tinned soups.
There's really two main reasons for that: fat and cost
Decades ago, the medical community began producing scientific studies showing that excess sugar was causing increased likelihood of negative health impacts like obesity and cancers. The sugar manufacturers didn't like this, so they pumped a ton of funding into diet research on fat. There was suddenly an influx of almost certainly biased studies that showed excess fats caused obesity and other negative health impacts. The sugar manufacturers then began making marketing and lobbying efforts to further convince the public, and it worked spectacularly. By the late 80s-early 90s, food manufacturers responded to the popular outcry against fat by offering tons of low-fat foods. But there was a problem, fat = flavor. So to make up for the lack of flavor, they began adding sugar.
Food manufacturers loved this outcome a lot. Higher-fat foods often spoil faster and are more expensive to manufacture. Higher quality ingredients that taste better are also more expensive. Sugar is shockingly cheap and heavily subsidized through corn subsidies (why do you think high-fructose corn syrup is so ubiquitous?) Sugar is also very good at hiding poor quality ingredients. Your brain is evolutionarily wired to strongly desire high-carb foods for survival purposes. Even if what you're eating doesn't have the best flavor on its own, the added sugar still fills that subconscious desire. So food manufacturers can make their consumers happy by selling them "healthier" low-fat foods and can produce, ship, and store their products at much lower cost.
@@rawwrrob9395bread has never been "high-fat" food. The video mentioned the induastrialization of bread production as the main cause why these changes were made.
my entire extended family has adverse health reactions to bread, and i thought it was just bread, however, once i started baking in school and making actual bread, all those issues had ceased completely if i ate the home made bread instead, long story short i bake for my extended family now
it is time to open a bakery then
Most of America's food is terrible when you read the ingredients
@@Robert-ug5hx It's criminally bad for our health. You almost can't avoid dangerous food in the USA. Nearly all of it has some form of highly processed and artificial junk in it, and a lot of the natural healthy stuff is banned here like raw milk and raw cheese. The American economy/government is basically just designed to maximize profits from food that purposely makes everyone sick so they can then maximize profits off of their illnesses with the massive medical industry.
@@Robert-ug5hx Most of America's food is called lipids and sugar in other countries.
Austrian here. People make their own sourdough but even the simplest bread you can get here is just good quality. Just dont buy already packaged bread.
I now make sourdough since 2020 and its just such a nice feeling eating own bread. Sometimes changing flour. Adding seeds or nuts. Adding greek yoghurt or carrots. So much to try out.
Some grocery stores in the US are starting to offer artisanal breads that baked fresh every day. I grew up in fifties and sixties. We still had neighborhood bakeries, but they focused on cakes and pastries. It wasn’t until I was a newlywed that I discovered neighborhood bakeries that had good bread.
most of it is bake-off, made in the same big factory with the same excessive laundry list of additives. just warmed up and put in a paper bag
This video is dated. The bread at those stores is quite good.
Yes, but is any of it bread without bad ingredients like seed oils?
As a Brit living in a town with a French bakery five houses down on the corner I am so happy. Freshly baked everyday deli and a French couple who own it. If they ever move I’ll move with them.
Because that's what heroes do 🙌
Your profile picture is nice.
I saw a bread making machine selling in a supermarket. I might like to try it.
French arent even the best at breadmaking
your pfp says all
In Italy, they’ve already found a way to preserve bread centuries ago. They have many different bread that I baked hard, such as friselle, taralloni, pane biscottato, etc. You can eat it hard, or to re-soften it, you only have to dunk it in some water. This twice-baked bread, lightly dampened, with a little bit of good-quality oil, accompanied by some anchovy, octopus, cuttlefish salad, or tomato mozzarella di bufala, or whatever some grilled eggplant and zucchine, will make you die and go to heaven. Who needs preservatives when this delicious bread already exists.
Money gremlins like American megacorps.
@@rainthedraconic402 Money gremlins is an excellent term that I'm gonna start using.
i think the point is the softness of the bread. american bread wants bread to be soft and last long.
@@takumi2023 the best part of good bread is the crunchiness…!!!
But that won’t throw off everyone’s hormones and keep ppl easy to manipulate
We have this kind of american bread in Europe as well (I mean, it's still better but the idea is the same), but we rarely consider it to be real bread. In Poland we just call it "Toast bread" and it is a cheap type of food that university students feast on because of it's price and convinience. Also, nearly nobody eats it straight out of the package. We need to toast it to make it edible lmao.
Same in germany
Was about to write a comment about it, lol.
Same in Greece. Toast bread it is.
Same in Belgium, always to make toast with Nutella
Same in Finland.
Thank you. I come from Europe in 1985 and you sir are bringing back wonderful memories of a long time ago, together with a pleasant smell. I just bought a wheat berry mill and several tons of organic berries that are all vacuum sealed now. Planning to go back to the old ways once again.
fresh bread is definitely undervalued..
@lofiboy hs "that kind convenance" seriously ?? Discute un peu avec un boulanger, t'auras pas le même discours !
Je pourrais aussi te répondre violemment en disant que personne aux Etats Unis n'a les co**lles de devenir boulanger.
@lofiboy hs déso mais tu me révoltes
@de la Broise Vincent the USA has bakeries with French ot Italian bakers.
It just costs more .
They also have restaurants with fresh baked breads . It just depends.
@lofiboy hs where is this?
@lofiboy hs thank you
This reminds me when subway bread, wasn’t allowed to be called bread in Ireland, because of its sugar content. It is classified as cake.
In Australia all our major fast food places have soft cakey burger buns. Some fancy burger places started using super sweet brioche buns.
So disgusting. I like crusty burger buns aka bread rolls.
Luckily we have a local farmers market that sells incredible sour dough loaves, it can't be beat for making toast and toasted sandwiches.
Yes I heard here in Australia that McDonald's burger buns are technically a "pastry" here.
I recall back in the day when that was news. While that was the official and true story, and if that were the story spread would have been okay, the humor everyone talked about said Ireland classified the bread as a form of inedible foam (like memory foam or styrofoam) product. At least cake is still a food product.
Bread is by itself sugar and unhealthy even if you add zero sugar.
Lol true enough
I'm a baker in Australia. We have a sort of mixed bag. If you buy bread from any bakery, it's bound to be fresh and have very few ingredients. If you buy it from the supermarket, it will have a similar long list of ingredients as American bread. However it doesn't contain sugar. Regular bread isn't supposed to be sweet.
Exactly
Most American bread in France would be considered as a brioche (which isn't bread) with the butter and sugar it has in it
What kind of flour do you use in your bread? White, half-white or full grain?
@@etuanno Depends on the dough. We mainly produce white bread because it's the most popular. We do make quite a bit of wholegrain bread. It's my preferred bread and the healthier option. Our sour doughs come in two options: White and half-white. They tend to be the healthiest option due to the long fermentation process.
Flour is sugar
@@leonardodtc1493 saying flour is sugar is exactly like saying toilet paper is sugar. flour is a complex carbohydrate and sugar is a simple carbohydrate, but flour is not sugar. The molecular structure of starches does generally contain chains of sugars though and both are processed into Glucose. In Biochemistry, carbohydrates and sugars are grouped into one category called Sacharrides, with many subcategories. However, cellulose is also a saccharide, and also can be digested into forms of glucose.
So if flour is sugar, so is toilet paper.
Where I live (not America) there's practically a bakery on every block. They're everywhere, selling fresh-baked loaves that are also so much more inexpensive than the store-bought stuff (which we have too). It's wonderful and people love it. I do. The best bakeries will sometimes have lines out the door as people buy their loaves and pastries for dinner at home.
Live in a city of 3k and you can go and get a traditional loaf of bread at most supermarkets including Walmart, most people in the US just don't care what they put into their bodies
"Our obsession with convenience, cheapness has led us to a really dangerous path"
Most people don't realise this but it's true for many many things
right wing capitalism need you BACK O WORK, no time to waste, like thise french.
Chernobyl Disaster in a nutshell
@@PikaCheeks very true if you can read books instead of watching tiktok it will increase your iq
Japan suffer a similar food crisis. Everything must be absolutely perfect or it will not sell so they have loads of addatives to their food.
I mean we’re obsessed with cheapness and convenience because we are largely overworked and underpaid
Actually, hate to break it to you but I'm French and these past years, journalists investigated and found that the flour used in most boulangeries is already filles with additives.
It's sold that way from the manufacturer. The only baguette that apparently still has all natural ingredients is the baguette "tradition". Yep, even our good old French bread isn't our good old French bread anymore.
He doesn't care. He just wants an excuse to rag on the U.S.
Technique is a big part of it though, surely?
come to germany we have better bread anyway + a lot of bakerys without additives :o)
Or maybe additives are not as bad as people make them out to be?
If the bread tastes just as good but is cheaper and doesnt hurt your health then what is the issue.
There are certain things that within a certain dosage are not harmful to you but in bigger dosages are.
That does not mean you should not consume said things, just that you should consume them at a certain rate or at least be aware of their impact on your health.
sugar is bad for you and you require no more sugar than what u can get from eating a fruit a day yet we do not recommend anyone completely cuts off all sweat goods.
@@yang8244 bad or not bad for your health, eat freshly baked bread out of the oven with only natural ingredients and you will understand the difference.
I live in Eastern Europe and I was shocked to see American bread. Here we have quite a lot of bakeries and even regular supermarkets and grocery stores have little bakery sections where they make their own bread. Sometimes you can even buy some which was made just a few hours ago and it's still warm :)
But it doesn't last on the shelf so they have to throw away whatever they don't sell that day. That's the problem America solved at the expense of American health. It caused obesity, diabetes and many other diseases. But companies making Wonder bread made their money so that was more important to them. Only educated people stopped buying it.
I lived in England for a few years and in terms of bread, the small independent Eastern European supermarkets where my saving grace. They were the only places I could get good bread and cold cuts/sausages for an affordable price. Loved them and discovered some delicious food along the way.
Ugh eastern European bread is so good. Dark rye loaves with cumin seeds... with cream cheese... delicious
@mandellorian Do You even know where Europe is situated on the map? 😂
I mean in America regular supermarkets often have proper bread in a little bakery corner, so that isn't unknown here
I used to live near a small boulangerie in a town in southern France. I would regularly see guys stopping by on their way home, on bikes, and grab two baguettes. One would go in the basket for dinner at home... and the other? Eaten as the guy rode away. I can still smell that fresh bread. I've never experienced anything like that in the US.
I love how Americans say you can't make sourdough on comercial scale and for low price. Meanwhile Central and Eastern Europe does exactly that
Americans love saying that about everything they're not good at. Then they just hope and pray none of it's citizens ever looks it up and realizes the truth. This country is a disgrace.
Western too*
@@taylorbug9 Kind of fitting that he went to France then, because looking at the US saying something's impossible and going "I'll take that as a challenge" is pretty much what France does as a country.
I’m not sure they do, at least not in the way I understand “commercial scale.”
The US reaches commercial scale by making one company grow (at the expense of other small companies). When this is done, all the processes Johnny is describing happen (mechanization, industrialization, etc.) along with all those negative side effects.
But it seems that the “economic scale” in Europe (for bread at least) is achieved by having loads and loads of small businesses that don’t gobble up each other. They achieve the same level of “commercial scale” but in a much different (better) way.
@@dadawesome784 More competition and less greed, that's why Europe is better than America. At least in regards to bread.
You have forgotten something quite important since 1997 in France the term "bakery" is reserved for bakers who work with the raw materials they have chosen and selected;
carry out the kneading, fermentation and shaping of the dough themselves as well as the baking of the bread;
carry out all the bread-making steps at the point of sale;
do not freeze or freeze dough or bread at any stage of production.
regulation works! something the ultra-capitalist US needs to recognise. but i think its too deeply rooted that regulation is bad to be able to change it (think of reagan and his "im from the government and here to help" line)
Once you get out of the US, you realize how these old professions are, well, professions. A baker, a butcher, even a produce vendor, are as professional as say, a pharmacist.
This point about urban design is so worth emphasizing. What I see as a big difference between Europe and the US is that in the US, people drive in their cars to the grocery store and buy food for the week to keep in the refrigerator whereas, in Europe, people walk out the door and find a nearby bakery and buy food for what they're going to eat that day.
Most people in Europe don't actually do that because it isn't really practical when you're working everyday. What I will say is that even in supermarkets it's not hard to find fresh baked bread because most of them have a bakery
This is generalizing. Not everyone in US buy bread from a grocery, some buy from a bakery, that’s why we still have bakeries and butcher shops. I haven’t bought wonder bread for 10 years and only bought it once.
Not true we have supermarkets but ones like lidl have an actual bakery built in so they can make fresh bread as well as treats daily
@@dylanporter8105 leave it to Harris to lie. I searched up the data where he got 3k bakeries in US, and did not found a source. What I did find was that US had 23k bakeries according to safegraph. It had 168k bakers according to statista.
That’s the numbers but what about irl? They are plenty of bakeries near my house. And they don’t make one bread according to Johnny but plenty of them. Most of them are German, France, and Italian bakeries. I seen other videos of you tubers, who live in southern states, that showed them going to a bakery. This is another anti-American video which dumb statistics. I am so sick of it.
I don’t walk, I cycle
My uncle visited us from Latvia. He said our bread could be stuffed in the ear. And, it wasn't even wonder bread. Wonder how they're allowed to call it bread.
Also I just found out that monkeys aren't real crazy right!?
We don't have fresh anything. That's why we have such an obesity problem.
Yet they still sell crap in NL. There’s like a ton of spongy stuff everywhere. It’s not that easy in many places to buy as good bread as it is in Germany, Poland or France. I’m not counting buns like kaiser one or baguette. Those are the same everywhere.
@@taylorbug9 Every damn subway baked fresh bread in-store. It's hardly a challenging thing to do.
@@TilmanBaumann baking something that showed up as a frozen wad of dough isn't making it fresh on site. I've worked in plenty of pizza places. And subway is the Only sub place I spend my money at.
Only the rich eat "fresh food"
As a German my first thought was France is an odd choice to go for bread, however for for the social aspect it makes sense. For the taste of bread Germans are usually the happiest at home or in Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg... you get the point.
I will never forget the 1st time I had Brötchen and chocolate hazel spread about a decade ago. Started an obsession with eating good bread.
The French are known for their bread, and they do it well. The Germans, however, have the most types of bread and a direct insistence that bread is integral to their culture.
Germany? When I travel there I am always shocked by the fact that a decent loaf of bread is crazy expensive and not always readily available in supermarkets.
The quality of bread in Dutch supermarkets has spoiled me I guess.
@@ipm123456789 That it's not available in supermarkets is the whole point.
@@ipm123456789 Most supermarkets these days have their own "bakery", where they have fresh bread. Not the one in the bread section, but a completely different place where you get fresh cheese, meat, and bread. Although I agree, it is not as good as the one I get from the corner shop
The biggest difference you left out is price. You can get a baguette from independent bakeries all over France for €1.20 or less, which is basically the same converted to USD now. In the U.S. that same baguette baked in the same way with identical ingredients is more like $5-$7 from an independent bakery. On top of that, the proximity is much different. I'd be surprised if most people in the U.S. live within 10-15 minutes of a bakery, so going so far out of your way is prohibitive as well.
im glad to live in a country where every neighborhood has a local bakery that produces fresh bread every day
I’m Irish and worked in Bavaria during Covid on an Engineering Project….one of the things I loved was having a bakery a 5min walk from my apartment and being able to buy from a selection of fantastic freshly baked breads each morning.
We have good bread in Ireland…but the German bakery on the corner was next level
German rye bread is fabulous. Almost impossible to find in Seattle…..
And just to remind you, statistically speaking, you went to an average bakery. Now try to imagine a really "next-level" one. 🤭👍
Yes indeed you have a Hi top bread that I think the Irish brought to Australia 100 years ago
Being a German living in the UK, I love going to Ireland with so many more bakeries everywhere
I used to only eat sourdough bread in the US. I like the dark breads- crumbly types- found in the Netherlands and Germany.
The point you've missed is that - according to movies anyway - if anyone every arrives home with a brown bag of groceries including a French loaf, they will be attacked or murdered within 15 seconds by the criminals waiting for them.
Yup
I grew up on Wonderbread and loved it. Until I got to college and I visited my aunt who made me a sandwich with homemade bread that she had baked that day. I was blown away with how amazing it was. So much flavor and texture! I didn’t realize that this is what bread is supposed to be. I literally couldn’t go back to Wonderbread after that. 😂😂😂
I hate wonder bread and it's weird because I'm not a picky eater or a bread connoisseur. I easily prefer the cheap store brand bread, even though it's basically the same except a few minor things like texture or something.
I'd understand if you disowned your parents for feeding you that rubbish bread.
GrammaBread®
It fucking bread you can make wonder bread taste amazing during the process of making it.
i feel bad for you, you should try Balkan bread
The best bread is the bread you make yourself. Once you learn how to bake your own bread, you can just continue to grow your skills. The first loaf I ever baked was a brick. But I learned.
Me too! I now make delicious SD bread and do trade with neighbors and friends for it.
"Paris is one of the more bikeable cities I've ever been in". As a French person, watching Not Just Bikes makes me want so much more than what we have in France :(
This 👆
Dude be happy. Where I live in the US we don't even have sidewalks.
@@IfYouSeekCaveman meanwhile sidewalks(footpaths) in asia is not ment for, but used for shops; and people walk on roads.
Yeah me too as a belgian(flemish region) eventhough its close to the netherlands
My Dutch friends here that live near Paris are terrified to bike in Paris, ahahahahahahhaha
An anecdote on how complicated real bread is:
I worked in a bakery in Munich called Hofpfisterei (have fun pronouncing that :P). And they are the worlds biggest CO2 neutral, all-organic bakery.
For their breads they only use wheat, water and some special ingredients like kummel or in one special case hops (it's bavaria what can you do...).
They still make the bread by hand, but they don't just have shops in munich and the area, but even in Berlin, Hamburg and other big cities that are hours away.
And they discovered a problem: If they make the same bread in Berlin for example, it goes to shit. Same people, same ingredients - except for one: water.
Turns out the water in munich (which btw is edible without chlorine as is all tap water in germany) is so different than the water in berlin that their whole recipe doesn't work. So now they make the bread in munich and bake it half before transporting it to Berlin during the night before finishing the process in Berlin...
The quality of water is really important when cooking. Here where I live in italy we get water from a dam the problem is it's full of limestone which is not an health hazard but really make pasta taste bad.
@@keyjohnjo194 I just returned from Rome and the hard water killed my skin. I don't see how people can live there without a water softening showerhead.
Absolutely! water quality and type is so important! I'm a tea drinker, but for some reason tea always tastes horrible in the US, and I tried it all over the country! Could it be cause they add fluorine instead of chlorine to water? Calcium, salts and other minerals are probably not the reason, as tea tastes good in various European and Asian countries(even from a source which is high in fluorine naturally)! On the other hand, the French baguette machines are producing French bread all over Europe, and they they tastes different to the stuff in France! Just like the same beer brand manufactured at a different location.
@@reitmanigor8560 In the US we chlorinate our water for sanitation. Fluoride is added as a preventive dental health measure. I'm not sure the amount of fluoride affects water flavor, but chlorine sure does! You can get a water filter that removes the chlorine at the tap. I have one for the shower and it makes a huge difference.
The problem may also be that we boil water in stovetop kettles usually, instead of an electric kettle. Electric kettles never caught on here because we don't drink as much tea, and our home electricity is weaker so an electric kettle takes longer.
The problem may also be that our bagged tea sucks because Americans are less-discerning tea drinkers. Compared to Italy I noticed a marked difference in the freshness of produce, and of course the quality of the bread. I think that speaks less to the ability of a supply chain to deliver a good product, and more that the supply chain is directed to deliver a product of the lowest quality people will buy.
@@googiegress
We have an electric kettle (in Canada, same 120v outlets as the USA). I use it for noodles and coffee and tea. Anyways, it may be slower than in the eu, but it's still much faster than the stovetop kettle I used to have. 4-5min and I have 1.75L of boiling water.
Being an austrian, bread was the biggest cultural shock i experienced being in the US for a few weeks. It felt like bread was just a housing for any toppings. At home we sometimes eat just flat bread because it is delicious enough how it is without any toppings.
toast just tastes like nothing there is no actual flavor to it you have to add things for it to be edible and you technically dont even have to chew toast it just dissolves
Yes, I'm from the US. I'm lucky to be from an area with a heavy Italian heritage and also the hometown of Panera before it expanded and did away with many of its most-loved menu items and more traditional processes, so I grew up with a lot of excellent bread around me. However, Austria just has the best bakery culture out of all the countries I have lived in, and that's what I miss the most about Austria when I am in the US.
Is Wisconsin unique or something, because all the supermarkets have bakeries that make fresh bread every day, and I can get some great flatbreads locally
Dude, Austrian bread 🥖 sucks actually. I highly recommend you try French bread.
In Australia, i doubt you get regular wonderbread and eat it flat without anything LOL.
You would normally go to your walmart/tesco or whaetver, and go to the bakery section.
Idk man, you don't have to go to France to get these breads, here in Czechia we have them too and i actually didnt know it's rare or smth in the USA
The funny thing is that traditionally made bread like "Bauernbrot" in Germany also lasts up to a week, without any preservatives. So I guess why change the method of making it like that
Cheapest probably
It has a long shelf life if you dont mind its going quite dry on the outside, USA can not deal with crust for some reason
@@HelloOnepiece the crust is the best part, these heathens. I like bread that's soft and spongy inside too, but if it doesn't have a nice crispy crust it's just not good
@@ivygreenleaf2722 And yet so many Americans are heathens that would have the crust cut off if someone else was preparing it for them.
We have the same one in CZ! I actually love it so much, you can literally just have butter and salt on it and it's delicious!
I live in the UK though and unfortunately the UK is quite like the US. The other day this guy, originally from Nigeria, came up to me in the bread aisle asking which brand I like best. I was holding the cheapest ASDA branded one and was like "eh, it literally does not matter, they all taste the same, may as well just save your money and get the cheaper one..."
Love the UK for so many reasons but really wish bread/bakeries were more like mainland Europe rather than copying the crap they have from across the pond.
Enjoyed this. There's one aspect of the French bread story that you missed (unless I missed it) and that is that the quality of French bread is actually protected by law. For example, a baguette can't have more than four ingredients, needs to weigh a particular amount, etc. This would actually have been interesting to include because it does say something about the protection/regulation of food quality that seems strong in France and very weak in the U.S. (I grew up on Wonder bread but now know even calling it "bread" seems like a joke.)
Makes you wonder how its bread
I dont see anything wrong with US bread.
Sure its bad to eat by itself, but its really convenient, and is good with sandwiches.
Go to safeway. They have good bread usually. In Canada, we have Superstore thats basically Walmart, but has this cool bakery section that has good bread for sale aswell.
Americans complain about their shit being generic too much, and dont appreciate the qualities in their generic shit. If you want good quality bread, go get some from your local bakery. Not a hard thing to do LOL. Especially if you live in the west coast in SanFrancisco, which has legendary sourdough.
True but you are talking about the "baguette tradition" the other type of baguette that is more popular, and sold in french bakeries called "baguette blanche" has like 14 additives industrialisation still makes its way
@@honkhonk8009 You are used to eating shit. So you think quality food is "wrong".
The thing that fascinated me about American bread was it faked a crust but was soft tasteless doughy crap. And like most fake American food it is "improved" with pointless flavours to give you "choice" but in fact is used to hide the poor quality ingredients especially the chemical additives.
People forget that Germany also has great bread.
As an architect part of the team who is building the bike lanes in Paris, I wasn't expecting your nice words about Paris' urbanism but I'm glad you noticed the changes ! 😊
we thank you for ur work
heho faut aller plus vite
Oui c cool et tout, mais vazy c'est devenu une challenge traverser Châtelet
good work, hope you get paid for all your effort....
@@blend3461 apres c chatelet aussi
If you ever come to Chile, make sure to check the supermarkets. While there's a lot of sliced, industrial bread, we also have whole sections dedicated to traditional bread, including the French baguette. We are one of the most bread-consuming countries in the world, after all.
It's the same in the United States, this guy is heavily exaggerating how "rare" decent bread is here.
I love the marraquetas 👍
Marraquetas!
We have this american bread in Germany as well and it's funny how almost every single one of them is marketed as "American Bread" with packaging full of american flags and such. Also, people don't really buy it. I buy it rarely when I want to make sandwiches in my sandwich maker. Usually I just go around the corner and get bread from my neighbourhood baker.
if i lived in Germany i wouldnt buy it either. Who willfully buys American bread or American anything while outside of America lol.
@@vectoralphaSec It's just called "American Bread" but I believe it's still produced somewhere in europe. It's still healthier than the US variant
@@vectoralphaSec I mean curiousity is a thing but other than that, there si no real reason to do it :D
@@DW-vd6bd yeeaa espiecially since some of the ingridients are banned by eu
We buy that type of bread, it get's used for toast and toasties more than anything.
As a French raised person, I could never understand kids that wanted the "crust' cut off of their Wonder Bread sandwiches.
calling it "crust" is being generous.
@@dodgingcars Haha. Ok, let's call it "outer crumb".
You take that "crust off" because that's where most of the poisons (from the ingredients) accumulate...
@@ronlentjes2739 That's a lie. The "poisons" are throughout the batter. The crust just dried more than rest of the batter that's inside.
In reality, the crust can help slow down digestion. But Americans love to twist a lie and make it a "convenient narrative". So you stick with your baseless theory about accumulating poison.
because them crusts taste bad, unlike freshly baked bread
Fun fact for you Johnny: In France, there's a type of bread that is regulated by LAW (Baguette Tradition, lit. Traditional Baguette).
The ingredients are vastly restricted, and essentially, it can only contain wheat, water and certain rising agents (also regulated).
I saw you were eating a "normal" baguette. You're missing out IMO. Try Tradition next time you're at a bakery.
and Law since the revolution regulates the price of bread, especially standard baguette today
Yes, you also find 'industrial' bread (I might have mis-spelt it) which is kind of quick and dirty bread, compared to the 'traditional' which is fermented overnight. It's more expensive, but it's just better
Hah, someone beat me to it. I second the suggestion. Tradition is where it's at.
I'm one of the few Americans whom can bake proper bread. Regulation, especially in terms of bread, is incredibly lame. The French government regulates bread making? That is incredibly stupid... I'm glad we aren't dumb enough to regulate something as menial as bread making... That being said, we only have shitty bread in the U.S. because Americans, including Johnny, are incredibly lazy... We all eat this shitty bread because we are too lazy to bake it. I can make baguettes like this on a daily basis. This loser is literally shilling "therapy" in his video... Johnny is not to be taken seriously.
Regular baguettes in traditional boulangeries are pretty good generally, but Tradition are absolutely amazing indeed.
My goal this next year is to learn how to make bread at home. Watching someone make bread makes me so happy. I'm nervous to try doing it myself. But I'm ready to learn!
It’s easy to. Watch TH-cam and follow the recipe carefully. Easy. No knead sourdough can be good. Baked in a cast iron Dutch oven is great.
Go for it! The worst that will happen is that you will learn a lot about making bread and what to look for in a commercial loaf.
I remember my first tour as a European in the US, I couldn’t believe how sweet the bread was. Like sugar loaded, that even a savory sandwich was impossible to make.
yeah so that's actually by design
essentially, "sandwich bread" is an entirely different food product than bakery bread. sugar is used a key ingredient to help bond the bread together, improve the test from its non-traditional ingredients, and if I recall correctly, change how quickly it can be baked as well as how well the bread withstands spoilage-- which is critical in a food product that might spend up to five weeks before being consumed. If you pop down to your bakery every morning, of course your bread doesn't need to be long-lasting; it spoils in a week but you eat it within a couple days. But in the US, you go to the grocery once a week or two weeks, and that bread has to sit there the entire time.
Sandwich bread is *designed* to be spongey, have a very long shelf life, be resistant to spoilage (bakery bread can go bad in less than a week, especially if it's left out overnight; sandwich bread can be left out for much longer and still be safe to eat), soak up juices but not rip, tear, or flake, etc. etc.
Sandwich bread is designed to be able to deal with a knife covered in peanut butter scraping over it without falling apart or dropping crumbs every, without... well, there's a long list of "features" that sandwich bread is *designed* to have.
All for a couple dollars that you can pick up *anywhere.*
It's not a bakery bread. It's a convenience food item designed to support a whole host of other foods.
I feel like one of the biggest issues with this sort of thing is comparing legitimate bread with sandwich bread-- they are, in essence, *completely* different food products that are only similar because one is the original and the other is an entirely new product that shares the same ingredients.
@@williamturner7131 Sandwich bread exists in the UK and Ireland too, but it's not sweet.
There is 1.5g of sugar in a slice of white bread. Relax.
@UCyXvI2qWCuEP7Er9_u6VA2Q Not just by immigrants. There are plenty of us Americans that make our own bread. It isn't rocket science. The chief difference is that "sandwich bread" has to last a long time without sprouting mold. The other major difference is that it is made quickly instead of a prolonged ferment. A lot of "sour dough" has acid added to yield the sourness. It is not made any differently than the white typical sandwich loaf otherwise. Most Americans are too busy to spend time making bread, but there are bakeries with good, traditional bread all over the country. Some even deliver their products to supermarkets.
I just made my first loaf of bread in 10 years a couple days ago. It's way easier than I remember, and even more delicious. If you can't get to a good bakery, just bake your own bread people. You can watch a movie while your dough rises and the kneading is a pretty good workout.
but where are you getting your flour? it must be ground whole and used fresh - the industry standards have ruined every package of flour on every shelf in every supermarket with bleaching, removal of bran and germ, and the chemical preservatives added.
In Brazil we also have a fresh bread culture, with what we call “pão francês” being a big part of a lot of what brazilians eat for breakfast
I'm French and I agree making our own bread is so much better in USA(that's a great country I'm sure) the food is really not treated as it should(the most(or no))
@@jollyrodgers7272 I use King Arthur unbleached flour mixed with whole wheat flour. Not ideal, but it's what I've got and it's better than what I can get at the supermarket bakery.
I bought a bread maker (invented in Japan). I make fresh bread every other day. I love my machine because I know I would not do all the steps to make fresh bread every other day. Yesterday I made French style, today is a mix of whole wheat and white flour. No additives in any bread.
About the bread in France, he missed an amazing point, the french bread recipe (more specifically traditionnal bread) is regulated by the law since 1993 under the Décret n°93-107 also know as "Décret pain". And this law goes deeper than the EU restriction on additive, like, this law tell the maximum pH of the "levain" (leaven or dough in english).
I've spoken with several people who say they have to eat gluten free bread in the U.S. but in France they can buy bread in the shops and tolerate it so I wonder if it isn't so much gluten sensitivity issues many people are suffering but the commercial yeasts and all the additives to make U.S. breads cheap and have a long shelf life.
Maybe, but, even if in France there is also a trend to eat gluten-free product, however bread, at least where I live, is a big exception in this trend.
@@baptphyssky4906 Yeah I have heard so much from french people that "bread isn't really gluten" which is hilarious...
The amazing part of french bread was their baguette obsession last century there was only one bread in bakeries
I had a bakery which made traditional bread and included a gluten free option but you have to reserve it in advance as they don't want to cross contaminate this bread with other gluten flours.
Try making no knead bread. You can mix it in under 10 minutes, let it rise overnight. Next day, you can have fresh baked bread in a bit over an hour.
Hello, german guy here! Great Video, I'm always missing proper bread whenever I'm traveling far! 😱
One thing I wanted to mention is, that in Germany we do not consider American Bread (or "Toast-Brot" as we call it here) to be real bread (Brot). It is its own category of baking goods. For example, at a normal family breakfast, we would often discuss whether we want to eat bread (Brot), (american sandwich-) bread (Toast-Brot) or rolls.
So we also have both kinds. Freshly made bread in local bakery's and industrialized, preserved and packaged sandwich bread (Toast-Brot) from the convenience store :)
Thanks for the great videos! Love the Channel :)
That was exactly what I wanted to right. I know it in exactly the same way
My mom’s comment in an American grocery store “Die haben hier nur Toastbrot” (they only have bread that needs to be put into the toaster) pretty much explains the German opinion of US American bread 😅
So true! But I would go even further, and say that a baguette is not really considered to be a bread in Germany! If you would ask someone for bread they wouldn’t bring you a baguette in Germany. They would bring you a sourdough bread with a hard crust! That’s the real bread! Ar least that’s what most of the Germans would call bread!
@@oceandeep1323 only the crust is hard, the inside is soft and compleatly different from white bread it also tastes completly different
Yeah but any bread baked within the European Union even industrialised bread is high quality compared to American sliced bread
When some americans sailed to my city and stayed for a while( it's a harbor city) they were amazed by bread and said that in USA bread is sweet and tastes nothing like this, as well by quality of most foods. Fun fact US organic food is just called food in the most of the world
no, no its not. many countries have organic food as well, don't do that. I've seen it outside the US. Trinidad for example is one of them.
U.s. has gmo dwarf wheat 1950, forced on Mexico, Africa ++ against farmers advice by name Frankenstein (close) in late 40s then forced 🙄 onto u.s.
@@janev7214, GMO does not automatically mean bad. Manual GMO is what we have been doing sins the dawn of life.
Why more diabetes usa??? I think it's more than education!
We had visitors from Germany who wanted to know why we served our burgers on cake. I can't imagine their reaction to that awful King Hawaiian crap. I grew up in NYC with excellent bakeries. Now I live in the Midwest and the bread sucks. Bonus is that I learned to bake.
In Italy we have American bread but we barely consider it bread. It's used either to make sandwiches for trips/picnics or toasted, but it's not "table" bread to eat at lunch or dinner. Often it's not even sold in the same Isle of the supermarket as regular bread.
But that's what Americans do with their American-style bread. It's not like people are putting a loaf of wonderbread out in the middle of the table. There are plenty of bakeries in the US making great dinner loafs.
When we (germans) first visited Rome some 15 yrs ago, my mum searched the city for two days (!), found a very small organic specialty’s shop and for the first time got us kids to eat some bread (and no sweet baked goods) for breakfast. How… memorable italian bread was, is a joke in our house to this day.
There was a lot of really, really good food in Rome (Pizza did tasted better, the pasta was divine, ice cream - how do you do even do it, the sweet (and non greasy, for me (: ) goods were excellent…) but italian bread? No thank you. 😅
Man, I miss Rome.
@@sini234 Italy has a very regional structure, if you were in the northern provinces you would have found fresh bakeries that have great bread and small treats called "salatini" that are, basically, speck, peppers or anchovies inside crispy bread.
Italy is not really defined by Rome and Italian food (and other things) varies immensely from a city to another, next time you visit us try to search what is local and good before! :)
wode diannao this is such a weird video... you can literally buy fresh bagels, baguettes, sour doughs...etc in most supermarket... cheap and mass produced "toasts" are definitely not the only "bread" in the US lol
@@KaienFEMC Exactly! There's usually a "commercial bread" section and a "bakery" section. I quit watching when he started talking about how terrible it is that American bread is made with white wheat while celebrating a French baguette.
Exactly why I started baking all the bread that we eat. Our normal bread, not the "dessert style breads like Japanese Milk Bread, etc.", has only three ingredients - unbleached organic wheat flour, homemade starter, and water - and, of course, time to let the ingredients work with each other to make their magic. Will never eat industrial bread again.
I'm from Czech Republic and i was really intrigued when the whole "sourdough bread" wave came on all social media, americans were obsessed by it, so i looked into it to see what is it about, and i found out, its just bread, our normal classic bread that you can buy in any supermarket. That was a weird experience, thats for sure.
Sour dough you actually make with a 'starter' rather than "Fresh" Yeast. Traditionally most bread was made with a starter culture (it's basically a big pot of yeast and flour and water you keep feeding and alive for years if you want). But the flavour difference with a really good starter or Mother yeast can be night and day from making bread from say packet yeast. I'm not sure if it's the flavours coming from the basically fermented starter or what but you can taste the difference when you baked them at home.
A ton of stuff that even our poor post communist countries consider normal is a luxury in the us
@Deerheart Uh as someone that's made sour cream, and butter, and therefore buttermilk. Both of those statements are a touch misleading. Yes our store bought sour cream has been pasterurized but sour cream is a very different product from both yogurt and kefir.
@Deerheart the difference is massive. Ur tastebuds are dead
They were obsessed with making it at home during the pandemic, not amazed by its existence.
As a european, the first time I tasted bread in america was an eye-opener. It was disgusting, inedible, and super unhealthy.
Dutch be like; healty bread + unhealthy chocolate hagelslag 😆
@@Zero-oh8vm aye! don’t diss hagelslag lol
@@Zero-oh8vm chocolate is the best source of fiber
Here in Canada the Bread is basically like in the US you know considering how we are almost similar to our neighbours down south we just get used to it anyway.
@@jayplay8140 Have you ever been to the US and have chocolate before we agv many efferent flavours of chocolate I really like our chocolate although our Bread is Kinda Bland.
I'm French. We often forget how lucky we are. Thanks for remembering me. You motivated me to rush to the best bakery in my surrounding, not the closest, the best one. I have lots choices. A 5 minutes walk allow me to choose between douzains of artisan bakers, who cook bread slightly differently, most of them delicious.
same here in Germany :)
yeah you forget how lucky you are to still be alive and act like frenchs too hard when forgetting. fcking snaileating fuqs
@@jerryleo7963 sorry but no....German bread sucks bad compared to French boulangeries. and this is coming from a guy from a German-French family.... tut mir leid!
@@jerryleo7963 lol nope
he should stop with the accordeon thing though , it's the least french parisian thing in the world. I can't stand it.
My favorite bread is when I grid wheat kernels, then make a loaf in my bread maker with that. It has such an earthy flavor to it, and I only need one or two slices of it to filled me up for hours. A slice of that toasted with a fried egg on top is incredible. I should do that more after watching this video.
I grew up in Georgia with traditional southern American traits, except my grandmother and mother always baked fresh bread, banana bread, raisin bread, and even cinnamon and sugar toast. They always called store bread chemical loafs.
Very unusual for the south, ngl. The south has ALWAYS been anti-regulation, "gimme chemicals, guns, and god" country.
Like NGL the best food I ever had in Texas was the worst food in Washington.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 IF the south has a propensity for fake bread it's because of the higher rates of poverty here, but the south has always been poor and IMO some of the best cooks in the country, so it doesn't surprise me that there are people down here making real breads and cursing the industries that poison our products.
Moreover if you ever lived in the south you'd know that cultural distrust of government and economic institutions means that we tend to be very aware and critical of added chemicals into things.
When you say that manufactured bread is rare in France, get this : I'm french. I was born and grew up in France. When I was young, what we call "pain de mie" (your manufactured bread) was so rare my sister and I asked our parents to buy some instead of bread because we saw it a a treat!
Yup, I do agree on that.
And my father would criticize me for asking to buy that shitty "pain de mie" rather than getting proper and real bread at the boulangerie.
we actually do have long bread that is like what he is holding often baked in the deli of some stores its a full bread that is more like what yall have and I do think the delis bake it fresh its only in some stores though ones that have a deli
@@irfuel is croque monsieur a food trend now or why am I seeing it everywhere today?
@@irfuel I have been seeing it on shorts and I also am seeing pink pasta and curly Spagehtti aglio e olio.
I was making pain de mie back in 84, so not that rare. At that time, pain de mie was used a lot to make canapés. (Beside croque Monsieur)
As a Norwegian I'm no stranger to industrialised bread, it's just done completely different from how it's done in US and Canada. Industrialised bread in Norway is made in a more traditional way, with traditional ingredients, but at a much larger scale. Even if the bread in the grocery store comes from a centralized bakery, it is distributed to the grocery stores the same day that it was made.
i am a swed and that is how it's done in Sweden to
Baked goods and produce in Norway is significantly less fresh (and more expensive, and lower quality) than in the US.
@@anewliberalismI'd say that depends entirely on which store you go to, a fresh bakery in the US might be better than a Norwegian supermarket but a Norwegian supermarket is probably going to outpace an American one if only due to sheer quality regulations.
@@anewliberalism I would really like to know where you do your shopping, because that is not my experience at all. Even what they call "fresh" bread in the grocery stores here are more than a day old, while back in Norway I could get bread baked same day at any grocery store and often store baked and only a few hours old.
It's not that it's impossible to get fresh bread here, but it's definitely not the same selection and abundance that I'm used to.
The situation did however encourage me to start baking my own breads :)
Oavsett så har både Tyskland och Frankrike en mycket mer diversifierad, lokal och hantverksmässig kultur av bröd. Både Sverige och Norge är ganska kassa på bröd i jämförelse.
French here: and you know what? Even the bread you get in french bakeries is generally NOT the best bread we used to have in the past.
Most bakeries use synthetic yeast because it's cheaper.
If you look for the best bread, look for sourdough bread or "pain au levain". It has a distinctive acidic taste that makes it far more digestible.
As a German, whenever I go abroad I miss our variety of actual bread.
Yeah, I get his point… aber ich denke immer an Mamma „Weißbrot ist kein Brot!“.
@SnoopyDoo Even those have decent freshly baked bread nowadays. The packaged stuff is only one option of many.
@@whoamitodisagree1217 das sagt mein Onkel immer.
Bier ist flüßiges Brot!
German bread >>>> other bread
I've been baking my own bread for 50 years (I just turned 70), with a starter, and the basic ingredients. I bake, usually, once a week, and have probably baked 3,000 loaves in my life so far. Making one's own bread is simple, and quite satisfying. Not living near a bakery doesn't keep one from good quality bread.
you get the ingredients home delivered or buy those locally so you pretty much live near a Bakery.
Now you've got 50 years experience . You should open your own *Les petits pains de Chérie Tata Sue. Est.. 1972* Bakery.
I've been making my own bread for five years now. I hope I can make it to 50 years too!
making bread is more annoying for me than cooking a meal.
70 years old people on social media? That's kinda sus.
If you sah Adam Raguseas Video you know that now you just have to get rid of American flour so that most of the " gluten-intolerant" are able to eat it, too. American flour causes severe bloating for some reason, which european doesnt.
As a European, the thing that shocked me the most when I went to the US was the fact that it was pretty much impossible to find 'real' bread. Everything you could find was industrialized and it all had added sugars in it. That's right, added sugar in bread... I'm glad to hear there is (at least in the big cities) a new direction some people are taking!
As an American it shocks me how judgmental and close minded most Europeans are. I hear so much negativity about America from Europeans but ask anyone trying to migrate from a 3rd world country and they will take America every time.
I can't believe bakery shop is rare in USA, factory made all the way
I've made bread from scratch, sugar isn't an uncommon ingredient. But most Americans don't have time to bake fresh bread daily.
added sugar in bread is absolutely normal. It's used to feed yeast. It doesn't even make any difference in the finished product, the percentage of sugar will be about the same.
@@Ubeogesh *extra* added sugar, and then *extra* added salt and a plethora of other ingredients to balance the flavour, resulting in an addictive product the likes of which honestly made food can't compete.
I knew someone who grew up in Germany, they said when they came to the western as a child, they tried Wonder bread and thought it was cake.
I was really surprised there was no talk in your video of the US government essentially pushing Wonderbread during WW2 as this is probably one of the biggest reasons bread culture here is so different than in Europe. There were a lot of nutrition deficiencies in the US population before and during WW2 that were causing disease like pellagra and so the government asked companies to start enriching their products, which for Wonderbread meant enriching their flour (they almost called it restored flour, but didn't want to give the game away). Wonderbread advertised their product as essential for building strong bodies until they were brought to court over it in the 70s because their claims were not based in fact.
Yeah lack of research I guess
WW2 is over I believe
@@zaraalawi4660 yes but the US government is the reason why American "bread" has persisted to this day. The highly processed bread Americans eat has been become a staple and a lot of people don't anything different.
@@zaraalawi4660 Turns out history affects the present day, who woulda thunk it
You should have interviewed local Parisian to see how they'd react to eating American Wonder Bread. I would have loved to see that.
it just tastes like toast everyone in europe can buy toast in the supermarket so it wouldnt be a very interesting reaction
@@Rottengoal no it doesnt taste like toast
The French know what processed bread tastes like, though
It’s very sugary and doughy. I prefer the hard bread that’s made in bakeries and not factories.
@@thoticcusprime9309 to prevent confusion, in europe you usually buy american bread only to toast it, so (in germany atleast) you usually call it toast bread, and everyone tried one time un-toasted american bread, so we do know how it tastes.
Just a comment here from a Swiss/French person….It’s not so much that we “care” about the bread and bakeries but more so that it’s just a fact of life and how society is. Of course we care about our breads and stuff but there’s not strong conscious effort by most to ensure the culture stays alive, it’s just how things are
I second!The same thing applies to Greece.
Yeah, bakeries just exist because there are people who knows and wants to bake. It is your choice if you want to buy bread in a supermarket or in a bakery. I am bothered with showing the name of the store-brought bread and shaming it the rest of the whole video. And many people and animals are hungry, why throw it? Is this a sign of entitlement? I mean food crisis is a real problem. Hey sir, I would love to visit Switzerland or France.
@@francefrancisco7906 Of course we got the "choice" to chose between a delicious inexpensive artisan bread available in all the streets and a supermarket bun filled with chemicals
I think you care more than you think. What would happen if those bakeries were to just disappear, and you are stuck with American "bread"?
I think this is a classic case of taking things for granted.
Exactly same in the US with our shitty bread, it’s basically all people know and have access to it’s not like we consciously choose shitty bread over good quality bread
I grow wheat and I have a mill in Uzbekistan. My mom is expert baking. So, I think I am very rewarded 😅.
As a Dutch man with severe GERD, who’s diet consists for a large part of whole grain bread; I was really surprised and disappointed at the choice of bread during my trip to the US: sugary, extremely sour or other weird types of bread that seemed more like cake. Was really difficult dealing with my reflux, so I really feel for people who permanently live in the US with GERD
GERD plus USA bread makes for celiac disease so bad the guts will leak into the body cavity risking infection. Plus chronic yeast infections for humans and pets. And massive bloating. And sluggishness.
You wouldn't have gerd in the first place if you weren't eating wheat products.
@@CS-uc2oh Not quite true. GERD is a very complicated sickness. A person with GERD can eat one day old white bread made in Europe no problem. But sweat, sour bread from the US will increase acid production, especially since it includes unnecessary chemicals. And its not just bread that can be a problem. Living with GERD in Europe I can't eat almost no fruits cause they all increase acid production.
I grew up in the US but my parents are from Europe. When I moved to Spain as an adult, all of my GERD and other Gastrointestinal problems literally disappeared overnight. I just went for a visit and felt 10 years younger while in Spain.
@@CS-uc2oh Nonsense.
Funny that in Australia (I'm not sure about other countries), Subway was sued for their bread - the sugar content was too high to be legally classified bread so it was legally cake. As such, they had to pay goods and services tax on them.
Large multinationals paying tax in Australia? Hahaha Nice jokes
That happened in Ireland, not Australia
Early 90s I first tried Subway in Florida. The bread they used then was actually really good bread, unlike that chemical waste they call bread now. They have truly ruined their original product that helped make them who they are. The fact that people still eat makes me believe that most people do not have any taste buds.
Subway tuna is dolphin meat
@@krombopulos_michael ah you're right I think I read it on an Australian news sight that's why I thought it was here
I am a bread baker professionally in the US. So glad and thankful to not only be able to make my own bread but bring it home fresh from work whenever I want.
That is great, but what if the bread you're making contains poverty wheat? The things sprayed on the wheat nowadays is ruining the bread, too. I hope you have a reliable source for your flours! Even the water and salt quality matters to me.
Hell yeah, bread is the shit 🍞
You're bringing home the bread AND the bacon. :D Bacon sarnies NOW!
The food value of bagged bread and what the hybridized wheat varieties do to our North American bodies is probably on par with a chocolate bar. Making bread at home is soooo inexpensive and joy-giving...because when it comes out of the oven, hot and fresh, you can just lean into the wonder and "look what I made" feeling of it all.
I’ve spent some time deployed on a US aircraft carrier. One time while working with the French it came up that we don’t have fresh baked bread aboard the ship and they were appalled.
if I was on a Carrier(or battleship) and I can't eat a good fresh bread
I would kill
at least have Gardenia
@@britishneko3906 They do bake bread on the subs.... at least on the Toledo. Subs rule! So do sub mariners! (They are just as special as Special Forces.) When the Toledo was in its home port, the sub mariners didn't want to eat Navy chow... they wanted their own.
@@bonnyd.5334 lol
@@bonnyd.5334 I don't see why they wouldn't. Subs have limited space. Flour keeps forever, and bread is perishable. Flour takes up very little space compared to bread. They also have an unlimited supply of water from desalination.
Is this actually the case? Modern US Navy vessels don’t have daily baked bread on board?
I lived in Germany for about 18 years. I truly miss great bread.
In Germany, there are more than 3,000 registered sorts of bread.
France may be known for its baguette;Germany, however, has every other country beat.
I guess it depends on taste. I am from Spain and I like the bread in Spain and France much better than in Germany ( I lived there and sure there are tons but I am used to different type of bread. Also baguette is just one type in France too. We have plenty in Spain as well.
Cap
Came into the comments for this :D French bread is great, but as a German I will only ever rarely crave baguette if I can have a good Bauernkruste instead 💋👌
I don’t eat wheat and dairy, they usually cause me itching , rashes and stomach problems. However , on a 14 day stay in different cities of France a few years back, I was never happier eating all the bread and cheese I wanted. The cherry on top was I didn’t gained a pound!! I couldn’t believe it! I was in heaven for 14 days! Definitely we are doing something really wrong with our food here 😢😢
Maybe black bread is right for you then, Leib in estonian
Same thing happened to me. Get bloated with USA bread, but when I ate bread in Europe, I was fine.
Maybe that is what is happening to me. I can't eat the commercial bread in US anymore that is sold in grocery stores or that is in fast food restaurants like Subway and I am 46. If I do, I will end up with stomach issues, constipation, diarrhea etc.. so I stay away from it as much as possible. They are absolutely doing something to the bread in this country these days.
God dammit.
Well, I guess there's a reason the ingredients used in US food are literally banned in Europe.
Ya know dude, every single one of these fancy European breads is available for sale at your local grocery store.
I have long wondered if the ballooning cases of "gluten intolerance" isn't related to industrialized bread making processes
I thought of the same thing after what he said at 13:45
Apparently it's the pesticides on the wheat.
@@The_New_Abnormal_World_Order I mean, we aren't getting sicker for no reason. If the new poisons we spray on our food has nothing to do with it, I'll be surprised.
It’s also the zoomer generation who wants a condition to latch onto so they can get sympathy online
The way American farmers finish the wheat spraying pesticides it poison
The wheat and produce cancer and the way they prosees to flour it produce gluten Soo if it is not organic flour I would not eat it
One thing I didn't hear mentioned was how the Great Depression affected how bread was made in the US. In the 1930's the price rose to $3 a loaf ($53 in today's money). Businesses worked to make bread cheaper, last longer and enriched, simply to feed the masses of unemployed and near starving people in the US. Yes, bread in the US leaves a lot to be desired but cheap, long lasting food staples were critical to feed the needy and it is still that way. Poverty has a way of making you forget the artisan foods.
I see, thanks
My understanding is that there was also a Great Depression in France, and yet a decision was made not to ruin bread in France.
Sure but "artisan" breads in Europe and especially Paris aren't expensive, they're as cheap, and in my experience even cheaper, than processed bread in the US. And you get a much better product.
the problem isn't the strive for cheaper and longer lasting foods. It's the methods used to realise those goals. And that's always artificial chemicals; the consumption of which over the course of a lifetime will lead to cancer and other serious ailments. You're better off finding a new food item instead of chemically modifying existing ones.
well the great depression hit a lot of countrys. Countrys like germany or france were even hit by WWII in the "near" past, and still they didnt go this way. So this cant be the explanation why US chose this path while the other countrys didnt.
What’s crazy to me is, I know gluten intolerances are rising in recent decades in the U.S. due to the artificial methods in which bread is produced. It definitely aligns with the idea that bread isn’t really bread anymore because people cannot digest it here. Especially, when I know people who have been abroad and can magically eat bread, but are sad when they return home and can’t eat bread again.
it's not gluten intolerence it's "bread" intolerence
We still don't know what non-celiac non-wheat allergy gluten intolerance is or anything about how it functions, so there's no way to know how it's happening.
Also if it's about the artificial methods in which bread is produced, it has nothing to do with gluten. Gluten exists in all wheat bread.
@@Sobepome Fair. But it doesn’t make sense how people have these “bread intolerances” that prevent them from eating bread in the United States, but they can in other countries. And how these “bread intolerances” have increased dramatically in the last 30 years.
@@emilynlsn3 I don't know what you're talking about but gluten allergies prevent eating of all wheat products. It's not just bread.
Also gluten affects everyone's gut permeability it's just that people with gluten allergies are even more affected.
@@sounghungi Yes, but a gluten allergy is very different from a gluten intolerance. And pretty much all wheat products in the US are manipulated to last longer on store shelves.
Sometimes will take some bread, which never seems to go bad and throw it out for the birds and squirrels., And they won’t eat it it just sits there.
I live in Poland and I am addicted to bread: sourdough bread, rye bread, rye-wheat, multi-grain, spelt bread, baguettes... I would die w/o my local bakery! :)
I love a good Rye.
I tak sobie leżysz na tej drodze na Roztoczu Gąsko i marzysz o dobrym chlebie? :)
@@Janeway1269 razowy ssię pałe
How? Where I lived in Poland even at the bakeries they had bread loafs packed in plastic. It was impossible for me to find a bread with a crust. First when I moved to Germany I learned what a real bread means
A local bakery is gold. I have found one myself where I live. Real bread…
Car culture is a big part of this too. In a lot European urban environments it's a lot more common to buy bread during your commute, or by simply walking or biking past the bakery. It's easy and effortless, since there are so many of them. In the US grocery shopping is something you do maybe once a week, and the bread is designed around that.
In my home country of Finland we have a bit of the same problem, but due to the climate. You simply have very few areas where you want to spend the extra time outside walking in the winter. Our solution has been a bit different though. Our traditional breads are often rye breads that are baked until almost completely dry, which hold naturally for a week or longer, or crispbreads, which can last a year or more. There are ways to achieve a bread that can be eaten for quite some time without a lot of additives, but it makes for a very different bread.
Yep. Been to Germany several times, and it's just like that. People shop several times a week, they just don't buy as much. You don't see a shopping cart loaded to the brim with stuff. It's all people with a small hand basket, buying a few things, that they can easily hand carry home. And there were bakeries everywhere, it seemed. Along with genuine meat markets/deli's.
There is an interesting video by Adam Something about that: In the US cities are planned differently. They are split into "Living areas" where no commercial building area allowed and commercial areas. That makes the suburbs free from any shop where you could buy your stuff. In consequence, you have to take a car to go shopping in a big mall. The world is constructed around cars. There is simply no room for small shops near your house.
In Germany you'll always have some type of city/village centre, typically around the church with some shops. A bakery used to be one of them.
Also: rye bread is made as sourdough bread. The acids make it stay fresh longer, even if it's not dry inside. The taste of the bread and the crust is simply extraordinary.
Ill add to that regarding the Panera Bread example:
It is very difficult, up to impossible, for artisanal bakers (or for that matter, any artisanal product like coffee, wine, cheese) to survive outside of an urban core - you need both lots of foot traffic, and dedicated costumers. Panera expanded beyond the big cities - into cartopya, where you need to both cut costs to compete, and develop the lowest common denominator - making your products bland and cheap.
Thats why only NYC, Chicago, Boston and SF have these nice things - good examples would be "third wave coffee" and craft beers, that exploded in NYC.
There's some truth to that. But I can't imagine anybody buying the same thing everyday, a cup of coffee maybe.
I remember someone being in the US wanting some Schwarzbrot (Black Bread with strong taste) and it was sweeter than most cakes you would get in Germany.
Mainly because of the massive corn industry in the US, the high-fructose corn sirup is being applied to a vast portion of the American food industry, including bread.
🤣 than the sweetest cake tastes like bitter dark chocolate with 90% coco proportion. 🥴
@@WickedMuis Almost like the last time the feds let grain prices dip it nearly took out the global economy or something
That's because in the US, we add white sugar to everything, and bread is near the top of the list.