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Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

It's the same in the UK, where most of the bread you can get is basically intended for a toaster.

But, it's down to volume and consumption; in my country (NL), bread is a daily staple, often featured in two meals a day - so a family will easily go through a loaf a day. It makes more sense to optimize the production and logistics for a shelf life of days instead of weeks. We can get reasonably fresh (factory-produced) bread daily, and a lot of grocery stores have an in-house bakery as well nowadays if you want to go super fancy. (I'm sure that's a logistical optimization as well, that is, dough or its components are easier to transport than ready-made bread, especially because some (like croissants) are very fragile).

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I might be reaching a bit (also a tangent), but a lot of US's problems are rooted in their urban design and sprawl.

From my experience, Americans often do grocery once every couple of weeks, because the super market is usually a non-trivial drive away.

I can see how a lot of their foods developed to accommodate that shopping cycle, and forced preservatives that make things last those 2-3 weeks while compromising on freshness and taste.

> From my experience, Americans often do grocery once every couple of weeks, because the super market is usually a non-trivial drive away.

Overwhelming majority of Americans live less than 20 minutes drive from a proper grocery story (i.e. not a gas station convenience store), and most probably live 10 minutes drive. In my metropolitan area of 4 million, I can't think of a place that's more than 10 minutes from a large supermarket.

Americans don't do grocery shopping very often simply because it's such a waste of time: there are 5 large supermarkets (two Safeways, one QFC, one Whole Foods and one local chain) 5 minutes drive from my home, and there's also Costco 10 minutes drive. Despite that, I go grocery shopping once a week, because it usually takes an hour. Doing this more often would replace one hour-long trip with three 45 minutes trip. Since the drive is only 5 minutes, living literally next to them wouldn't change my habits much.

Also, let me assure you that most Europeans don't live in 5 minutes walking distance from grocery stores, so the travel time here is not what makes the habits different.

I think you are right. My individual situation is different, but it may just be an exception that tests the rule.

And even though we have a selection 2 to 3 stores in 20 minutes drive ( one we could walk to if we chose to forego convenience of one trip a week ), I remember living in locations where access was not as simple.

I actually hosted some couch surfers from the UK and other places in the world while in Germany. I had a local market with an old bakery(remember that even in Germany the great majority of bakers are now a handful of companies) very close to my place.

The bread they bake is genius it has just the right amount(little) sourness and never tastes soaky, crispy around but soft inside.

But the point being is that some of the couchsurfers would hilariously laugh at the strangeness of having bread that isn't white fluffy toast. I got that reaction from Brits and South Americans. The French would appreciate it and the cheese choices with it.

The UK is an interesting little phenomenon IMHO. Not quite the US but also not quite Europe. In a lot of ways more similar to the US(not always in a bad way). You also get plenty of HFCS there

Are you sure things have HFCS in the U.K.? What’s it labelled as? I often look at ingredients and only ever notice “sugar” ie. sucrose

I have never seen high fructose corn syrup in the UK. There is a bunch of chat right now about not watering down our food (and other) standards to allow US-quality food here after/if Brexit happens.

FWIW brown bread in the UK has been "a thing" since well before I was born, so there there is not just an expectation for white.

I would wager that the typical couch surfer is the sort of person who as well as focusing on value on where they choose to sleep probably also subsists on fairly cheap basic foods.

Certainly in the past decade or two the UK you'll see a lot more variety in what you can get even in convenience stores in London: white, brown, granary, soda, rye, sourdough, bagels, barbari, boule brioche, baguette, challa, chapati, ciabatta - you name it. It all seems to get sold and presumably eaten. Not saying it is any good of particularly authentic or "correct" but there is a lot of variety in the most common of shops.

I didn't know we had HFCS in the UK. What products contain it?

Most supermarkets in the UK have in store bakeries. Buying fresh, good quality bread, including sourdough, etc. is easy.

I don’t recognise your statement on most bread being made for a toaster.

Edit: admittedly not as good as some other European countries.

Life hack: if you want fresh yeast in the UK go to Tesco’s or Sainsbury’s bakery counters, they’ll sell you it by weight.

Until quite recently (five years ago) they didn't charge you for it. It's only a few pence though.

In Poland the in-house bakery in a grocery store is the cheap and convenient way to get bread if you can't be bothered to get actual quality (not made from deeply frozen dough).

So if the Polish baseline is super fancy for NL, NL is better than UK and UK baseline is artisanal US bread, I wonder what baseline US bread looks like. It's made of sponge and sugar?

It's made of sponge and sugar?

Yes, pretty much. It’s very bad.

Good grief. What kind of bread are you buying? I can find terrible bread in Europe too. There is a lot of great bread in the US. People, in these discussions like to take the very worst example of dollar-store bread and compare it to a dedicated boulangerie in Paris, however French supermarket sandwich bread can be just as terrible as the American equivalent. But go to an American bakery and the bread is really good.

It’s popular to characterize American stuff as “bad,” but America is a huge country.

Tortillas in France are pretty terrible and good luck finding a Jalapeño or a Habenero, but in any grocery store in the US, I can find high quality ingredients to make almost anything. Try finding a spice in the average French grocery store any stronger than “hot” Paprika.

These “other countries are better than the US” arguments are ridiculous. In the US, you have access to pretty much anything you want. Mostly not true in many European countries and definitely not true outside the capitals.

"Better Bread Starts with a Sponge" https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/better-bread-s...

I bought some bread from Safeway earlier this year in August. I called the number on the package when the bread started to mould within four days of me buying it.

Outside of New York City area, I wouldn't think of doing groceries more than once a week. The place I've lived at are all terrible in terms of how grocery stores are walkable.

Here in the Netherlands I believe bread also starts to mould after four days. My solution is to have a stockpile in the freezer.

That's not a sign of bad bread. If you bake your own bread, you may find it also molds in 4 days, depending on your climate and how you store it.

I'm more leery of manufactured breads that keep forever.

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