Why are so many American pastry and bread shops really bad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think I have ever been to an "American" bakery which has bread aside from inside supermarkets. Cake shops, sure. There are many bakeries near me but they are from Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, France, Italy, Germany...Never just American.

Where do you live? I have lived in Chicago, NYC, DC and MoCo and there were American bakeries selling great bread in all the places. Plenty of subpar ones, too, although as others have said I could say same for most places in the world I have traveled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think I have ever been to an "American" bakery which has bread aside from inside supermarkets. Cake shops, sure. There are many bakeries near me but they are from Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, France, Italy, Germany...Never just American.

What? There are at least 5 bakeries (not just sweet shops) inside DC that I can think of off the top of my head: Pluma, Bread Alley, Seylou, BreadFurst, Baker’s Daughter. That’s not counting the speciality gluten-free ones. Or the ones that do lots of pastries but also do bread, like Nino’s or Rose Ave or Je ne sais quoi….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think I have ever been to an "American" bakery which has bread aside from inside supermarkets. Cake shops, sure. There are many bakeries near me but they are from Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, France, Italy, Germany...Never just American.

Where do you live? I have lived in Chicago, NYC, DC and MoCo and there were American bakeries selling great bread in all the places. Plenty of subpar ones, too, although as others have said I could say same for most places in the world I have traveled.

South Florida.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think I have ever been to an "American" bakery which has bread aside from inside supermarkets. Cake shops, sure. There are many bakeries near me but they are from Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, France, Italy, Germany...Never just American.

Where do you live? I have lived in Chicago, NYC, DC and MoCo and there were American bakeries selling great bread in all the places. Plenty of subpar ones, too, although as others have said I could say same for most places in the world I have traveled.

South Florida.

I imagine south florida is a large place but spending 2 seconds to put your term “south florida” with “bread bakery” into a google search turned up I Loaf Sourdough, Gran Forno Bakery and Wicked Bread Company, among many others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jesus lady, you should have been here before the 80s. It was white bread or nothing. You can't even imagine.

This is an exaggeration. Born in mid 70s, lived in suburbs in five states (including Midwest and south), never had white bread in the house. You definitely had to look for wheat bread or know how to bake it. Very few people knew how to handle sourdough or make their own cakes or pastry.

There was definitely a loss of baking skills in homes after WWII through the 80s though. Much of the baking skills of immigrant families was lost as people tried to claim only an American identity.

[Anonymous]

There are two very good pastry bakeries near me. They're only open Thurs-Sat or Sun, and they only make croissant type stuff for $7-8 apiece, no bread. You have to plan to go early and wait in line for 30 minutes, because the rush dies when they sell out early and close.

There are a couple places that sell bread, but as a daily staple, I think there's less of a market for $7-12 loaves that get stale quickly. For people who are picky about bread, it's cheaper and easier to make your own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus lady, you should have been here before the 80s. It was white bread or nothing. You can't even imagine.

This is an exaggeration. Born in mid 70s, lived in suburbs in five states (including Midwest and south), never had white bread in the house. You definitely had to look for wheat bread or know how to bake it. Very few people knew how to handle sourdough or make their own cakes or pastry.

There was definitely a loss of baking skills in homes after WWII through the 80s though. Much of the baking skills of immigrant families was lost as people tried to claim only an American identity.

Yeah I think that person is wrong. I grew up in the 70s and remember fresh bread we bought. We ate a lot of rye bread or pumperknickle and my grandmother made fresh bread almost weekly. Also back then the supermarkets had full bakeries in store. Now they only have maybe 1 baker at the store — they get frozen dough from corporate and bake in store, or they don’t bake anything at all. It used to be that each store had a staff of bakers.

Another good bread place is breads unlimited in bethesda. I love their Russian rye.

I would like PP to explain how a breadbox helps bread stay longer. Does that work? We often buy on weekends but I figure we have to eat it in a day or it becomes bread pudding or strata.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus lady, you should have been here before the 80s. It was white bread or nothing. You can't even imagine.

This is an exaggeration. Born in mid 70s, lived in suburbs in five states (including Midwest and south), never had white bread in the house. You definitely had to look for wheat bread or know how to bake it. Very few people knew how to handle sourdough or make their own cakes or pastry.

There was definitely a loss of baking skills in homes after WWII through the 80s though. Much of the baking skills of immigrant families was lost as people tried to claim only an American identity.

On one hand, you're ignoring the long history of "whitebread" American families making their own breads. Up into the first decade of the 20th century over 90% of flour sold in the US was for home consumption. And, of course, many immigrants were from cultures (typically poor, typically peasant or urban workers) who didn't have amazing bread traditions of their own, outside special breads for holidays. Because of the expense of wood burning ovens, in much of Europe by the 19th century it was already more common to get bread from the local bakery, and those breads could be pretty mediocre, packed with fillers in the days of no regulations or quality oversight. There's also nothing particularly special about daily bread, while the special holiday baked traditions have always been maintained, to this day, for obvious reasons. You'd probably be appalled by the mediocrity of so much of the breads the poor and working people ate. We make fun of Wonder bread today, but let's be frank, it wasn't amazing "back then" either. The wealthy and middle classes always ate better, of course, having cooks and maids who could make the bread if it wasn't outsourced to a local good bakery, but their idealized bread were the soft billowy white breads made with refined flour, not the coarse and heavy peasant breads.

People stopped making daily bread at home in the interwar years in the US because it was easier and cheaper to buy it outside the house. When you're a busy mother with four kids and a house to run, plus even working outside the house, the rise of the inexpensive sliced bread was a lifesaver. And as an excellent baker who does make her own sourdough bread every now and then (I keep a starter jar) even I have to acknowledge it's no better, and at the end of the day, no cheaper, than going to the half dozen excellent options I have for a good loaf of sourdough. I make it at home because it's a pleasure, not because it's better. And that's the reality with bread these days.

Anyway, we have plenty of excellent breads in the US. They're typically not sold in a "boulangerie" type place but in good supermarkets and bakeries.

[Anonymous]

The US military food science industry influenced the huge aisles of shelf stable food in American supermarkets (e.g.Folgers Crystals, Spam, Wonderbread which was described in their internal literature as a "bread-like product").
When one grows up with bread that takes only 20 minutes from inception to bagging, it really numbs the taste buds for what good bread can and should taste like.
So taste bud expectations here are pretty low.

I started baking fresh bread during the pandemic. It was a revelation.

[Anonymous]

I bought some of those frozen croissants from Trader Joe's (very good for a frozen product, knowing what it is) and I had the thought that I suspect a lot of bakeries pre buy almost the exact same product in bulk. My suspicion is that a lot of places use pre made frozen stuff that is then baked on site.

Obviously you can find places that don't do that. But it takes some quality control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus lady, you should have been here before the 80s. It was white bread or nothing. You can't even imagine.

This is an exaggeration. Born in mid 70s, lived in suburbs in five states (including Midwest and south), never had white bread in the house. You definitely had to look for wheat bread or know how to bake it. Very few people knew how to handle sourdough or make their own cakes or pastry.

There was definitely a loss of baking skills in homes after WWII through the 80s though. Much of the baking skills of immigrant families was lost as people tried to claim only an American identity.

On one hand, you're ignoring the long history of "whitebread" American families making their own breads. Up into the first decade of the 20th century over 90% of flour sold in the US was for home consumption. And, of course, many immigrants were from cultures (typically poor, typically peasant or urban workers) who didn't have amazing bread traditions of their own, outside special breads for holidays. Because of the expense of wood burning ovens, in much of Europe by the 19th century it was already more common to get bread from the local bakery, and those breads could be pretty mediocre, packed with fillers in the days of no regulations or quality oversight. There's also nothing particularly special about daily bread, while the special holiday baked traditions have always been maintained, to this day, for obvious reasons. You'd probably be appalled by the mediocrity of so much of the breads the poor and working people ate. We make fun of Wonder bread today, but let's be frank, it wasn't amazing "back then" either. The wealthy and middle classes always ate better, of course, having cooks and maids who could make the bread if it wasn't outsourced to a local good bakery, but their idealized bread were the soft billowy white breads made with refined flour, not the coarse and heavy peasant breads.

People stopped making daily bread at home in the interwar years in the US because it was easier and cheaper to buy it outside the house. When you're a busy mother with four kids and a house to run, plus even working outside the house, the rise of the inexpensive sliced bread was a lifesaver. And as an excellent baker who does make her own sourdough bread every now and then (I keep a starter jar) even I have to acknowledge it's no better, and at the end of the day, no cheaper, than going to the half dozen excellent options I have for a good loaf of sourdough. I make it at home because it's a pleasure, not because it's better. And that's the reality with bread these days.

Anyway, we have plenty of excellent breads in the US. They're typically not sold in a "boulangerie" type place but in good supermarkets and bakeries.

This is why I read DC UM, thank you for that informative analysis!

I agree that home baking is not a big thing in europe; suggesting we bake christmas cookies to my eu fam is always met with ??? Their baking is confined to like…once a year donuts. This birthday cake made of layers of storebought cookies and whipped cream. One relative makes a yogurt cake for a specific relative’s birthday and ppl act as impressed as if it is a wedding cake every year.

Bread in europe haa been going super downhill fast, the omnipresent hot loaves you can buy everywhere are basically subway roll quality now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree.

Americans love preservatives. I am also convinced it’s partially water-related; IMO a plain European pilsner is always superior to an American beer.

This take is 20+ years out of date.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus lady, you should have been here before the 80s. It was white bread or nothing. You can't even imagine.

This is an exaggeration. Born in mid 70s, lived in suburbs in five states (including Midwest and south), never had white bread in the house. You definitely had to look for wheat bread or know how to bake it. Very few people knew how to handle sourdough or make their own cakes or pastry.

There was definitely a loss of baking skills in homes after WWII through the 80s though. Much of the baking skills of immigrant families was lost as people tried to claim only an American identity.

On one hand, you're ignoring the long history of "whitebread" American families making their own breads. Up into the first decade of the 20th century over 90% of flour sold in the US was for home consumption. And, of course, many immigrants were from cultures (typically poor, typically peasant or urban workers) who didn't have amazing bread traditions of their own, outside special breads for holidays. Because of the expense of wood burning ovens, in much of Europe by the 19th century it was already more common to get bread from the local bakery, and those breads could be pretty mediocre, packed with fillers in the days of no regulations or quality oversight. There's also nothing particularly special about daily bread, while the special holiday baked traditions have always been maintained, to this day, for obvious reasons. You'd probably be appalled by the mediocrity of so much of the breads the poor and working people ate. We make fun of Wonder bread today, but let's be frank, it wasn't amazing "back then" either. The wealthy and middle classes always ate better, of course, having cooks and maids who could make the bread if it wasn't outsourced to a local good bakery, but their idealized bread were the soft billowy white breads made with refined flour, not the coarse and heavy peasant breads.

People stopped making daily bread at home in the interwar years in the US because it was easier and cheaper to buy it outside the house. When you're a busy mother with four kids and a house to run, plus even working outside the house, the rise of the inexpensive sliced bread was a lifesaver. And as an excellent baker who does make her own sourdough bread every now and then (I keep a starter jar) even I have to acknowledge it's no better, and at the end of the day, no cheaper, than going to the half dozen excellent options I have for a good loaf of sourdough. I make it at home because it's a pleasure, not because it's better. And that's the reality with bread these days.

Anyway, we have plenty of excellent breads in the US. They're typically not sold in a "boulangerie" type place but in good supermarkets and bakeries.

This is why I read DC UM, thank you for that informative analysis!

I agree that home baking is not a big thing in europe; suggesting we bake christmas cookies to my eu fam is always met with ??? Their baking is confined to like…once a year donuts. This birthday cake made of layers of storebought cookies and whipped cream. One relative makes a yogurt cake for a specific relative’s birthday and ppl act as impressed as if it is a wedding cake every year.

Bread in europe haa been going super downhill fast, the omnipresent hot loaves you can buy everywhere are basically subway roll quality now.

Bread in Europe is also very regional. I’ve often had excellent crusty bread and focaccia in Italy. But Spain just puts flavorless white slices on your table.