King Arthur flour may be the best.....but it's too expensive for this old bread baker.
Does anyone know a retailer that ships the "approachable loaf?"
Does anyone know of a bread maker recipe for the "appoachable loaf?"
Thanks.
3
"The only thing this is good for is to erase charcoal," said my dad, as he pinched a slice of white bread into a small white ball. Having landed in NYC in 1942 by way of Warsaw and Paris, he wasn't impressed by Wonderbread. Walking to the bakery where he bought real rye bread (seeded, sliced) was welcome even on snowy, cold winter evenings. He always bought 2 loaves: one for the next several days, and the other to eat, warm, as we walked home.
5
its interesting that at least the king arthur recipe is a sourdough sandwich bread which is what will keep it fresh longer without molding. the recipe softens the bread with the addition of a little fat. I wish i had this recipe when my kids were young (along with some of the sourdough rolls i make now) they learned to like hearth breads but it took a lot of time to wean them off of wonder bread
2
If it's good, word of mouth should see it very popular
I used to tell my students - the most powerful form of advertising is word of mouth.
I live adjacent to a Chinatown - where restaurants open and close all the time
if a new restaurant opens, local people walking past every day will check it out immediately - even before it opens
if it is good - locals will tell each other and word will quickly spread - and friends will drive from across town to eat there - resulting in long queues even if they never advertise.
if it is not good - locals will walk past every day and Never go in - while the restaurant might pay for expensive advertising brochures to put in my letterbox - which I know to ignore
so - if I get a restaurant flyer in my letterbox, I'll know it's not good - as they need to advertise
the good local restaurants I know, never advertise - they are full every day with locals, friends and family, and people who've driven across town to eat there.
1
@Frank Whenever I see advertising I shut my eyes very quickly. Had a few mishaps driving on the interstate.
1
Why can't the bread be packaged in paper bags? Not perfect. But better than plastic.
1
@Cfugwyft Why not cellulose bags? Better than either paper or plastic.
No one who lives in poverty is going to spend $6.00 for a loaf of bread no matter how delicious or healthy. If you make minimum wage, a loaf of break takes a half hour (or more) to pay for. Too much.
Perhaps if the loaves were smaller they could be cheaper. Someone with limited funds might splurge for $3.00. It would also keep the bread from going bad as quickly.
They should approach the big fast food companies by making hamburger rolls -- hamburger buns are truly awful and millions of people eat them every day.
3
@Cfugwyft I agree. I like to break up the bread and put it in my pockets, sans bag. Did this once with a chocolate but it was a hot humid summer day and things didn't go as planned.
1
@Jeanie LoVetri these are typically about a 2lb loaf, an 18 0z loaf of wonder bread is about $2 so the price per lb is not as big a difference as it appears to be by loaf. Slice it a little thinner and the calorie count will be similar and get double the slices. Just a couple of ways to look at it, although you are right, if you are struggling financially you are careful with the $
The article is incorrect in its description of roller mill processing of wheat. It is the sperm, containing the nutrition-rich but volatile proteins and oils, not the bran, that is removed in roller mill processing. The bran is healthy, but it is also the part that a lot of people are put off by in "whole grain" breads. Fresh, stone-milled, flour retains the full nutritional content of the wheat. For those who want less fiber in their sandwich bread they can sift off a portion of the bran.
1
Millenniums? Really?
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen millenniums rather than millennia.
1
You must mean "germ," not "bran":
"roller mills, which separate the bran — the “whole” part of whole wheat — from the kernel."
The bran is the outer shell of the wheat berry, right? All fiber, little nutrient. The germ is the oily, nutritious part of the wheat berry, which the early-adopter health nuts would sprinkle on their cereal each morning back in the 60s.
You still have it wrong. The price has to be no more than $2.99 a pound loaf. With a discount, Pepperidge Farm already produces this bread. At least they are under $3.99, and if you can find their Family Wheat breat, it is less for more. These bakers are still typically out of touch with reality. Perhaps its from living in rural areas. The number of ingredients is a completely false issue. Pepperidge Farm even makes a whole wheat-rye bread that is excellent, if you can find it. The drivers don't stock it, or it immediately sells out when it is stocked.
2
Agreed. This is too expensive. And I don't buy bread or feed it to my family if it just has just 60 percent whole wheat..
Respectfully, try leaving that bread as long as possible to see when it molds.
After realizing our soft bread mass-produced whole wheat loaf didn’t mold after two months, I began to doubt its healthiness and sought new bread options. I found tastier and better options in my own kitchen and that of a great local baker.
7
My grandfather was the first of his family to immigrate in 1902. For an illiterate, non English-speaking, penniless immigrant from war-torn Poland baking was more than family business; it was life. Samuel eventually took over Mr. Kasanof’s bakery in Boston and started a family in the 2nd floor apartment. My father, Bernard, dragged sacks of flour weighing more than himself in the pre-dawn hours before school. Samuel kept a bin of damaged bread at a discount filled by damaging bread when necessary, “because people deserve their dignity,” he said when Bernie asked. “Kasanof’s” grew to become “New England’s Leading Jewish Bakery.” It succumbed to economic forces in the early ‘70s, but Bernie found opportunity with an up-and-coming hamburger chain, becoming one of modern baking’s innovators in producing white bread to NASA-like specifications. I grew up eating McDonald’s hamburger rolls. To this day, a sandwich on square, flat slices feels like a novelty.
As a teenager in the late ‘70s, reading about “whole foods”, I punkishly asked dad’s opinion of white bread. “I think it’s a waste,” he said, “and I hope someday the American public wises up and demands real food.” When I took him to an “artisanal” bakery a few years ago, he was behind the counter in minutes, on his knees, examining the old-world oven.
Bernie died a year ago this month. His last meal was a sandwich on good, chewy rye bread. He would have been pleased to be reading this article along with it.
29
@Kermit Cole The brand survived, I've seen Kasanof's bulkie rolls and challah for sale.
2
Anyone know what bakery in New Haven is selling approachable loaves?
@Kristin Wildermann I know one but the loaves are not approachable.
I’m having a hard time figuring out who their market is. Bakers seem to think their sliced whole wheat is for ‘the people’ but at $4.50 to $7.50 a loaf, when you can get a big loaf of white for 88 cents at Wal*Mart, well, it is clearly a luxury food.
3
@Carmine
Donuts are cheap, too. McDonald's is cheap.
But that stuff makes you sick.
Kale, quinoa, etc. Not cheap but health-giving nutrition.
And whole grains are very nutritious.
6
@Carmine I get it, Carmine. I don't buy the beautiful organic whole grain loaves sold at the greenmarkets here in NYC because of the cost. At the same time, 88 cents for something with zero nutritional value (you're probably paying Walmart mainly for the chemicals to keep it looking fresh), is "a bargain" I can do without.
3
Tartine Bakery expanded to Los Angeles and then expanded to distributing in Whole Foods. I love their bread and we buy a variety. But sometime I just need a loaf for quick breakfast toast or PBJ. They make a great loaf for this purpose called "Kid Bread" which is exactly what I want. I slice the whole loaf and immediately place in the freezer. It is always perfect. And yes, the kids love it and the adults appreciate it too.
The freezer is key to a good bread life.
10
@JudiAU
Absolutely...we always keep our sliced organic whole wheat bread in the freezer. Keeps just fine.
3
I’m a little flummoxed by the term “local” wheat. Now I like the idea of my food being grown and prepared locally of course. But the grain we call wheat is certainly not an indigenous plant.
1
Your article supports local bakeries and local distribution. We recently discovered Dave's Killer Bread, which is whole grain with no preservatives and really delicious. But I was startled to discover that it seems to be distributed nationally. I'm seeing it in stores in Connecticut and California. I've been wondering about its sudden expansion.
2
They were bought by the same company that makes Wonder Bread!  https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/blog/2015/08/daves-killer-bread-acquired-for-275m-by-owner-of.html
If you want really good bread, you'll find it in Germany. It has a real crust, is firm and comes in so many varieties so that there is something for everyone. Whenever I was in the USA, the one thing I missed was German bread. American bread is just by far too soft.
6
@CMD 'good bread, you'll find it in Germany'
I fear like in France, there may be an increasing trend to pre-shaped frozen dough prepared in industrial factories and shipped frozen to the small shops to be 'freshly baked' - except they just don't taste as good.
2
One of the things missed and not mentioned is modern flour has the good healthy ingredients removed to prevent spoilage. Real whole grain healthy flour spoils in week or it needs refrigeration. The healthy part of the flour gummed up the machines used to grind it. So a less healthy more machine friendly version was found. The troublesome parts sold to other industries like the vitamin industry, so we now buy the bread and it’s vitamins separately.
The bread we eat today does not resemble “the staff of life” but a shadow of the symbol it once was.
5
@John - As an avid home baker (I bake all of our breads and rolls, most of the flour is whole grains or whole grain flour blends, and the yeast is sourdough), I agree with you that whole grains require refrigeration to prevent storage. I have a chest freezer specifically devoted to storing my whole grains, whole grain flours, and my baked goods. I keep it in my kitchen right by my counter work area; it is so very handy.
3
The article doesn’t say...but I wonder if their recipe/process requires the use of pure gluten as an ingredient, called “Vital”. I suspect that this latter ingredient may be the trigger for some of the gluten sensitivity....I.e. most of us can digest gluten when it occurs in “normal” quantities but not slugs of it added to commercially baked bread. Vital is added to reduce proofing times and therefore increase production, as I understand.
1
@Spicegirrl, no their recipe doesnt use added vital wheat gluten.
I loved the article and applaud the bakery and mill owners. There's a lot one can nitpick about, judging from the comments, but for me the focus is on what seem like the obvious good intentions and effort of Blair and Andrew. With luck I'll make it to Vermont and get to sample their wares.
12
Let’s at least stem the confusion: no bread is healthy. Agricultural grains are the root of bad health in general.
If health is your concern, then eat like humans did pre-civilization: small animals and root vegetables, a little seed/nuts and the very rare fruit. Essentially like any other omnivore, albeit, with larger brains, a strong tilt to carnivore. It’s what our genome was built on.
2
No bread is healthy? Really? Not one healthful attribute at all including the psychic pleasure of enjoying a good bread with a good soup?
Lighten up!
43
@Mike
Grains have been the original source of high glycemic foodstuffs. So yeah, it's bad. Corn, rice, potatoes and the biggie: sugar. All the stuff any doctor will tell you to avoid. The "white" foods. All those foods convert to glucose and raise blood sugar levels. Even the whole grain bread stuff. Obesity and diabetes is a huge, huge, huge problem. No need to be dismissive about it.
But I do love it!
1
It's hard to lighten up when you are seriously craving a good loaf of bread
2
I make my own bread because it's impossible, around here, to buy 100% whole wheat bread without sugar or honey or similar abomination added to make it more palatable for everyone unused to any bitterness and acclimated to a lot of sweetness. Only three ingredients necessary, wheat, water, yeast, but I do add a little salt. I'm not a fanatic.
By the way, very little wheat is hybrid. The author reveals his ignorance when he states "the yield of modern hybrids". I'm sure he meant it as a pejorative, but I'm not sure there is anything inherently wrong with hybrids. The vast majority of wheat is varietal, and there isn't a yield advantage to hybrid wheat. Dr. Jones knows this full well, as he was a wheat breeder in a previous life.
2
I so wanted this article to come with a recipe so I could try my hand at one of these loaves at home! Recipe, please?
3
Bread Flour, water, yeast, a smidge of salt, maybe a dash of sugar. Long, slow fermentation.
4
@shhhpaula - King Arthur Flour's "Just Bread" recipe (the loaf mentioned in the article) is on their website. They recently did a blog post about development of the bread. Here is the recipe:
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/just-bread-recipe
5
that's entirely unhelpful
Any idea which bakeries are affiliated with this group in Denver?
2
Fascinating story. The article states the bread, in one form or another, is made in 20 states. Is it available in New York? New Jersey? Connecticut? If so, who has it?
4
@Euphemia Thompson nj - pechters and calandras
I think these bakers are a bit late to the game. In Maine, Jim Amaral, at Borealis Breads in Waldoboro, has been making a similar bread, whole-wheat, sliced, and, yes, packaged in plastic for years, distributed all over the state. Maine kids are privileged to have it. It's made with Aroostook-grown Maine whole wheat flour (the number one ingredient, as it should be), bread flour, water, organic whole wheat starter (itself made from flour, water, and wild yeast) and sea salt. That's it, five ingredients, delicious, wholesome, easy to transform into a PB&J, and made without any obvious pats on the baker's back. He just does it.
5
@nancy harmon jenkins We have been making our Aroostook Wheat bread with Maine grown wholewheat flour since 1998 Nancy.
2
To say anyone is late to the game of baking bread is kinda funny. Thousands of years late?
8
This looks great. But plastic bags? Please don't! It's bad for the environment, plus they make your bread loaf go soft and humid.
9
I've been making whole wheat bread for 40 years, 2 loaves every 2 weeks (use one, freeze one). A BLT or a turkey sandwich made with this bread is nothing short of spectacular. For the kids, we might use a store bought white bread from time to time, but for 'toast and honey' they lined up for homemade.
2
I bake our breads and rolls at home (nothing is store purchased) using my sourdough starters. I maintain 2 starters: 1 made with Unbleached AP Flour, and 1 made with Organic Pumpernickel Flour. Most flour in my breads and rolls is whole grain flours and blends. I only use King Arthur Flour products, which I've found to produce consistent results year round.
You absolutely can produce a fluffy and moist whole grain bread at home without a fussy recipe, whether it be using active yeast or a sourdough yeast. A higher hydration dough helps, as well as weighing ingredients so you don't add too much flour. I've found certain whole grain flours and blends mixed with Unbleached AP Flour consistently produce a light and fluffy crumb, and a delicious bread or roll. Try KAF's Whole Grain Flour Blend, Harvest Grains Blend, Organic Pumpernickel Flour, and Sprouted Wheat Flour to easily add whole grains to your bread baking.
8
@Mary The King Arthur Flour website is a goldmine of information as well! Their White Whole Wheat flour will charm the Wonder Bread crowd. Digital scales, instant read digital thermometers, and parchment paper are some of the baker's best friends, too!
4
As a baker of whole wheat sour dough, I certainly enjoy making and eating that type of bread. However, the article and characters therein make two unforgivable mistakes: first there is no proof that anyone will live longer eating this bread (I know, anathema) and second that these wonderful people know what is best for Wonderbread consumers (Trumpians after all). Surely the next step to be recommended is government regulation imposing whole wheat bread upon these unwashed so that overall health care costs will be lower.
2
I am a home baker and I freeze the breads in half loaves with plastic food wrap. Bread thaws in a few hours and the half loaves last a few days.
You can pre-slice before freezing but I leave as it whole.
You can go by quarters if that works better for you...
The stale bread goes to my dog. He eats everything...
5
@UFR
Stale bread? Bread pudding! French Toast~! Croutons!
8
I don't mean to chaff wheat here but no bread is native to the American continents. Wheat didn't exist in the Americas until after the Colombian Exchange. You can make healthy varieties but nothing is strictly speaking "local." You're working with an imported food grain popularized by European settlers. Europeans who didn't domesticate the crop in the first place. Wheat is from the Middle East. Not to mention the Native Americans wheat agriculture displaced.
I love me some decent bread too. However, lets not pat ourselves on the back too much.
3
@Andy
Nice pun!
1
I'm not too sure what the poverty level is in San Diego, but $5 for a loaf of bread?
For whom is that "approachable"?
You can pay that for a fancy loaf of bread at Bread Alone, an extremely elitist artisan bakery in Upstate New York.
The people who need good bread are still going to be buying those $1.99 sugar- and additive-laden loaves at the local supermarket.
In fact, even if a good artisan bakery offered a $1.99 loaf of bread, most poor people would never see it. The artisanal customers would suck it up; and the poor folks would be too intimidated to even enter the bakery in the first place.
Trump understands this; Bernie and most rich liberals haven't a clue.
Meanwhile, using King Arthur Flour, a Dutch oven (no loaf pans, thank you!) and any lazy weekend day, I can make an outstanding loaf of bread for about $1,25 (using an amalgam of the recipes in "Flour Water Salt Yeast" and Daniel Leader's (Bread Alone's creator) "Living Bread".
Despite what Mr Leader suggests, baking really good bread is not rocket science, nor does it demand either big, expensive mixers or hours of strenuous kneading. It's really just easily there, if you want it to be.
Maybe not everyone who needs good cheap bread has the time to make their own; but anyone who can pay $5 for a basic loaf can do better.
Meanwhile, this guy who grew up on 10 loaves for a dollar 2nd-day bread knows that, in today's economy, a $5.00 loaf of bread is NOT "approachable" but a luxury food item for the rich.
21
@J Boyce It may not be approachable for everyone but I don't think they ever made that claim. They don't mean the pricing, they mean the willingness to switch to wheat bread, and if this bread will get my husband to stop buying wonder bread, then it is totally worth the price. For me, it is approachable.
But just for the record, most people living in San Diego don't have a problem spending money.
4
@Tonic
I believe you mean WHOLE Wheat because the default flour for bread is "wheat."
So, WHOLE WHEAT is what we're talking about.
2
@J Boyce $5.00 per loaf may pay the employees a wage above minimum wage. There are better ways to help poor people than making more people poor.
2
In Detroit proper bread can be found here: http://www.avalonbreads.net/goodies/breads/
Also as mentioned in the article Zingermans in Ann Arbor.
https://www.zingermansbakehouse.com/
6
The photos make my mouth water just thinking of slathering butter on some of that great looking bread or dipping some in olive oil.
Thanks NY Times, once again, for such interesting articles.
6
Important secrets for making 100% whole wheat bread with no added sugars are: 1) massively more water than you would use with white flour; and 2) mixing just the water and flour together and leaving it to rest 30-60 minutes. The enzymes in the flour activate to generate natural malt sugars (called autolysis), eliminate bitter tasting components in the flour, and develop gluten. Skip this step and the bread is inedible! An autolysis step improves the structure of white-flour bread, too. Here's a receipe (the best part is no kneading!):
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-makes-whole-grain-bread-so-hard-to-bake-63878/
9
In the bread baking world it's called autolyse, not autolysis. It is an important technique depending on the type of bread you are making.
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2017/09/29/using-the-autolyse-method
1
Whatever, but please do not put any sweetener in it. I never understood the need for sugar in bread in this country.
21
@Denis
The addition of a small amount of sweetener (sugar or honey) improves the texture and appearance of the bread. Sugar is hygroscopic, meaning it attracts moisture, and it promotes browning as the loaf bakes.
7
@Denis
I put a teaspoon of sugar in as food for the yeast.
Bread can be wonderful.
Eat less of it.
1
$6 a loaf is more than I can afford.
9
@Patrick little more than the price of a couple cans of beer. If it's important to you, you can afford it.
2
@TWM
$15/sixer is more than I can afford, too.
It may be nice and tasty and good for you but at these prices it's still an artisanal for a smaller base of consumers.
White bread is cheap and it helps in creating under nourished brains and diabetes. This makes the serfs more manageable.
13
My German-born wife of twenty years has taught me the most important first step in selecting edible bread -- if the top is soft, put it back. Real bread is not soft. Similarly, if real bread made without "enhancers" is already sliced on the shelf then it won't last more than a day or two at home.
German, Austria, and Switzerland somehow manage to provide delicious actual bread at affordable prices. Here in the Boston MA area, there is exactly one -- perhaps two -- bakery in the entire region that even comes close to European standards. Those who live here and appreciate real bread know the bakery I'm talking about. Here's a hint -- you won't find its breads in grocery stores.
I'm glad that a new generation of bakers and consumers is trying to recover the lost art of bread making. In my view, the first step in a successful approach is to rediscover the feel and texture of real bread.
Real bread is not soft and is not sliced. The material from which its packaging is constructed is irrelevant.
12
@BrooklineTom Real bread can be soft. Probably not the types of bread you and your wife are used to. Look up pandesal.
@BrooklineTom One reason Switzerland manages to provide "delicious actual bread at affordable prices" is because the country has stringent food purity laws which, among other things, means preservatives are not permitted. That's why you don't see packaged bakery items such as Twinkies anywhere in the country.
4
Bread, whether whole or not is essentially sugar (glucose).
Sugar tastes good but makes you fat, creates inflammation and over time causes all metabolic diseases.
Change to a no grain, non starchy, green leafy vegetables, fat based diet.
3
@Carbosugar: No thanks. Give me the sublime crunch and aroma of a lightly toasted slice or two of dense, whole-grain bread (preferably Irish brown soda, spread with some unsalted butter). If you are correct and this impairs my health enough to shorten my life by a bit, I still will have had a happier one. No regrets!
7
@Olenska
If you are enjoying it that much, it will extend the life in your years.
I feel much healthier eating some bread than eating no bread.
2
@Carbosugar Starchy carbs with high levels of fiber -- especially legumes and pulses -- eaten in moderation don't seem to be a problem for most people. And they sure do make food, life and socializing more enjoyable.
2
American soft white bread is the worst bread I've ever eaten. It's bland and has no substance..just air & mush. Give me a crusty, hearty, flavorful bread anytime.
32
@KaneSugar the two cheapest things bakers can sell are air and water.
I've been making bread for close to 20 years, my favorites being a boule and a sandwich bread from an older King Arthur recipe. There's something so cathartic and comforting about making bread. While it warms the kitchen, it also warms the heart. It really is food for the soul.
6
I had the good fortune of growing up in an immigrant family. My mom made bread all of the time. What she didn't make, we bought at a local Italian market. I continue to make bread, albeit not as often as my mom. It's a lost art, I think. I will look for these brands when I shop.
1
I got on a sourdough baking kick last fall and haven't looked back. I have a favorite "sandwich" loaf that has whole grain flour, salt, water, and a tsp of diastatic malt powder but I do other non-loaf bakes too. It has totally spoiled me for commercial bread products.
4
Bread is food for the masses, for the working poor. Always has been. Adding fat or margarine to a slice of bread was and still is considered a rich meal in many parts of the world.
Bread fills the hungry stomach.
8
@Jay Tan Have you ever heard the phrase "the upper crust"? It refers to the part of the bread reserved for the lords and ladies of the manor. Everyone ate bread, but those in power got the tender parts.
Bread is of course taste, but it's also culture. It's the memories of family and childhood.
If the bread you know from your time growing up is Wonder Bread, you may very well stick with that type of bread.
If you ate ethnic breads like Italian, rye or pumpernickel in your youth, maybe you'll stick with them. That was my case, and I still look for what I think of as "bread."
I had company. I recall reading that Frank Sinatra, famously a son of Hoboken, when he made it big, had loaves of Hoboken Italian bread air-freighted to his homes in CA. He kept the bread in the freezers.
1
"Even the whole-grain breads that have reached a national market sometimes contain chemical preservatives or additives, like flavor enhancers or sugars.”
I understand preservatives.
But why do most so-called health breads have some form of sugar in them: be it, sugar, honey, molasses, malted barley, etc?
Sugar in a brioche or challah is understood, but in whole-grain, health breads, it is contradictory and alien.
I’ve asked bakers and they say that it speeds up fermentation.
Is speed more important than our health?
4
@just a thought the amount of sugar added to speed the fermentation is small considering the amount of flour used to bake a loaf of bread.
5
@Jay Tan
That’s not my point.
My point is why add sugar to a “health” bread in the first place.
If I want sugar in my bread, I’ll buy some challah or a brioche.
People were using wheat to make bread for millennia and never added sugar until recently.
And what’s the big rush that claims the need for sugar?
2
@just a thought For small commercial bakers, a bit of "speed" might make the difference between profit and loss. Naturally fermenting loafs might take 18-24 hours. Add a little honey and that time can be cut in half. So tomorrow's bread today can be started today, avoiding a much lengthier process. In this case, you have to think like a businessperson, not a consumer.
Just had three slices of homemade Whole Wheat Sourdough bread topped with microwave melted Mozzarella cheese sprinkled with fresh ground pepper.
8
@PATRICK Was away from home for a week, and after greeting my dog, husband, and cat (not necessarily in that order) the next thing I did was pull "Levon" out from the fridge, give him a good stir and feed him. Looking forward to my own bread again tomorrow...or maybe Friday.
Packaged in plastic. Yeah, so is the commercially sold stuff but surely these small bakeries can do better. Otherwise those 6 year olds will find a broken ocean by the time they're 16.
4
@lzolatrov The small bakeries already sell bread without plastic and the parents weren't choosing it. It's really the parents that need to do better, and the first step is getting them to buy better bread.
12
Great to see.
Eating white bread is like eating white sugar to your body and your health! 'False Bill of Goods'.
But some of the nouveau breads are for the rich not for eating but for bragging rights like their 5,000 sqft McMansions. Not a good thing.
2
We always used whole grain bread raising our children. One of them on moving to his own place joked he contemplated buying white bread but didn’t because he felt guilty.
When our other son was in first grade, his teacher told me at lunch time another boy saw his sandwich he started crying and said, “he has chocolate bread, I want it too.”
3
I’m intrigued that they’re working with different kinds of heirloom wheat. Does anyone know if any of these new-old varieties are a little more tolerable for people (like me — wheat sadly is a migraine trigger) who have wheat sensitivity???
@Kim
You might try whole spelt or Einkorn wheat. Bread Alone makes an Einkorn wheat- it's dense and very yummy.
It doesn't bother my innards. But everyone is different.
I came to the SF Bay Area from Texas in 1966 and discovered
whole wheat bread. I especially liked Orowheat Honey Wheat
Berry as well as some of their other types. A number of years
ago Orowheat's quality declined as a result of their being
purchased by Bimbo, a large multinational bakery. I have found
"Dave's" bread available at Safeway to be pretty good.
2
Where can I find these Approachable loaves?
8
@mb
See comment a few below yours by Kathy Baker.
1
I bake all of our bread: soft, mass-market-style sandwich bread, mostly whole wheat, zero dough conditioners, 7 REAL ingredients. If you bake bread, here is the list for 1 large loaf:
275 g atta (whole wheat durum flour, from India: Ashirvaad)
175 g white bread flour (King Arthur)
7 g dry active yeast
14 g salt
1.25 c filtered water
0.25 c local honey
0.25 c neutral oil
I discovered atta when learning about South Asian breads (some of the best in the world). It is my "secret ingredient" that I tell everyone all about. It's 100% strong durum wheat flour, milled to a Western European/American style without discarding germ & bran: No chunks and hunks. Most important, no sharp bits of bran to cut through gas bubbles and reduce the rise. Also, the atta I use ($12 for 10 kilos), imported from India, is MUCH less expensive than the King Arthur bread flour ($5 for 2.25 kilos/5 lbs). Big carbon footprint, but great taste and great baking qualities. (It works for pasta as well.)
3
@DavidV would atta be good for naan? I sometimes make a batch of naan from excess sourdough starter and freeze the rounds of dough for later.
This sounds wonderful! I know whole wheat bread is a lot better for you. Probably in large part due to being raised on a diet that included squishy white bread, I like white better than whole wheat. BUT I am always on the hunt for whole wheat bread that I would find tasty. I wanted to know where I could get the “approachable bread”. I found a link online for the Bread Lab: http://thebreadlab.wsu.edu/the-bread-lab-collective/. It has a list of members. One is in New Haven quite close to me and I am going to give it a try! Happy Day!
1
Thanks for the link.
This article has a very interesting definition of "affordable". I do not believe $6 is the budget for most Americans for an "affordable" loaf of bread. A loaf at Aldi's is 85 cents.
16
@Melissa
It is all relative. You can buy a 50lbs of whole wheat bread flour at Costco for about $12 (or $7 for 25lbs of some even higher quality locally grown stuff). That along with the rest of the ingredients bought in bulk and a little practice you can get a loaf of high quality bread for about 35-60 cents a pop at home that will rival any of those $6 loafs in this article.
3
@Melissa
But think of what it is - you are eating NUTRITION in every slice. It's healthy. If there are 15 slices, it's oh, I can't do the math. But not expensive.
2
@Still Waiting... You're right - it is all relative. Those living at the margins of society don't just suffer from lack of money, they have less time. Relying on public transportation to get from job to job to daycare to job to home takes more time than if you own a car. Traveling to a Costco without a car, and affording their membership fee is out of reach for many.
1
Someday USA bakers may learn how to make real bread.
3
Love everything about this, but she lost me at the plastic bag. Let's figure that out. You really do not need to put bread in a plastic bag.
4
Someone teach Whole Foods how to bake.
3
@db2 Mine sells locally baked bread
When I was growing up, my mother only bought Pepperidge Farm bread, I wanted to eat Sunbeam like all the other kids. Sunbeam was white, soft and had a cute girl on the label. So my mom finally bought a loaf and I hated it! It tasted like cardboard and stuck to the roof of my mouth!
Today I purchase multi grain Dave’s killer Bread, it’s healthy and delicious and supports employing former felons.
5
Where do we buy this in NJ or NYC?
1
My wife slices her dark bread with a knife. I, as a fanatic of baguettes and ficelles made by my wife, just break them off or cut laterally into dorsal and ventral halves.
2
@Tuvw Xyz
Breaking is the way to go!
1
Vermont butter, cheese and bread lover here... quick correction; butter is churned, cheese is made. Both go very well on Elmore Mountain bread!
5
“If it’s crusty, you’re not going to get soccer moms saying, ‘Hey, we need to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of this’”
Why the heck not?? What's the matter with those "soccer moms"? What's wrong with crusty bread?
7
@Swift Loris I put peanut butter on all kinds of bread, even after its toasted. Tastes great.
1
You should try the levain bread from Barrio Bread in Tucson. Another innovative baker using heritage/local grains.
2
Both my wife and I are great bread lovers. We avoid white bread like the plague. It's beyond me why people eat this tasteless stuff. The article also brings back a memory. While on the road to Russian occupied Poland during WW2, we spent a night in a peasant home. The interior was suffused with the aroma of whole grain bread. Unforgettable.
17
@Jacob Opper : For fear of the added gluten, we have given up eating any bread from the bakery. Along with gluten, the genetically modified wheat is not recognized by human guts, causing effects like psoriasis. We know that the farmers use herbicide and pesticides few times in every crop. A part of that herbicides goes to the guts and creates havoc to the gut flora.
To make Indian bread called Roti, we buy flour imported from India, made from organic wheat. When we buy pasta we ensure that it is imported from Italy. It has less gluten.
Thank goodness that rice, which is primarily imported from Asian countries are not genetically modified. The gut recognizes it. That is why rice is replacing bread for us.
Lots of varieties of wheat with varying protein levels. Have you tried einkorn, spelt or emmer? Einkorn is the least hybridized wheat (heirloom) you can buy. I order and keep whole berries (all organic), and grind when needed. If I sift, I use the bran in something else. I avoid gluten free breads like the plague; I do not want increased arsenic levels (rice flour).
3
@David Chhetri Psoriasis didn't exist before genetic modification was possible?
1
The local supermarkets have entire aisles of bread that I never buy.
I am always searching for decent bread. My local Hannafords has a 9-grain that they bake on the premises. It is OK.
There are some local family owned bakeries but they tend to specialize in pastries rather than bread. I imagine pastries are more profitable than bread.
1
If the alternative is a Snickers Bar you're not going to get kids to eat much bread no matter how good it is. The first time I had Whole Wheat Bread made with really fresh organic wheat flour it was amazing. I don't know all the ins and outs of milling and aging flour, just that there are some. I also know baby food is pretty mild and bland stuff. Still, I believe if you raise your kids right and don't force them sooner than you would like they will be wanting to eat your food and drink your beer.
About 5 years ago, my husband and I were sick of buying loaves of bread that were gummy, hole-y messes. And they were too expensive; about $4 a loaf at that time. My husband started making our bread and we have not looked back once. He makes the dough in a bread machine and then lets it rise and bakes it in a pan in the oven. It is extremely cheap; a 5-lb bag of whole wheat flour costs approximately $1.25 in our local supermarket. He uses good quality yeast from King Arthur and weighs everything, including the water. The result is a consistent, tasty, inexpensive loaf that is not filled with holes and which stands up to slicing and toasting. He has been so successful that we now have 2 bread machines and he makes 2 loaves at a time. Unless I absolutely have to, I will not buy bread in a supermarket again.
5
"Wonder Bread" isn't bread at all.
It's just a variation of play dough that tastes better.
7
@Marge Keller ...or a by product in Styrofoam production?
@Jay Tan
And then there's always that!
Thanks Jay Tan!
1
I too have spent countless hours searching for good bread in the hinterlands. I retired last year and last winter taught myself how to make good sourdough bread. I make a variety using rye, spelt, einkorn, whole wheat . It takes a while to get proficient but it is not hard, as history has shown. Bottom line, it not only nourishes my body, it does the same for my soul. Give it a try, you won't regret it!
11
@RJ Newcomer My husband makes sourdough so he can use the pour-offs (from feeding the dough) to make sourdough waffles. They taste fantastic!
3
Last September I spent two weeks in and around Banff Canada. Early in the trip I spotted a tiny bakery and bought a loaf of their whole grain bread to enjoy with breakfast during my stay. I had a variety of meals while on my trip, but the only food I remember, and miss, is that bread.
5
$6 a loaf is too expensive for most families, I'd say. I would like to try one of these "affordable" loaves. I love the smell of all bread, rye especially, even packaged Great Value bread.
6
@RAH "Daves Bread" is a good choice for an everyday bread from the supermarket. Giant around Washington, DC sells it for about $5 but if you've got access to COSTCO they sell two loaves for about that price.
1
My rubric for food: I compare everything to the cost of a precooked chicken from Costco = $5/6.
So is a loaf at $6 worth the same as a cooked chicken? IMO no.
This is bread for the bourgeois class. I'm sure this collective's economics is great for enclaves like Elmore, Vermont, Berkeley, Bolinas, CA, or Brooklyn, NY, but this price point is a no-go in places were families are struggling to make ends meet and could really use better bread.
Artisanal bakers might consider "modifying" the commercial production lines of bulk producers to add quality without significantly increasing prices. My suggestion for a target price is 60% of the cost of a Costco chicken. (Why not work with Costco?!)
That's about $3.50. More than that for everyday bread puts it out of reach of the families with school kids who would truly benefit from these bakers' craft.
29
The Costco chicken looks and tastes great- raised however in inhumane conditions and priced to not encompass its actual cost to environment, excess water use, runoff from the disgusting facility, workers not paid a living wage with no benefits or bargaining power and their healthcare costs shouldered by the rest of the dwindling middle class. So the price should be ten dollars? Then the bread fits your ratio?
22
@Smokepainter* Costco sells Daves Bread, two loaves for about $5. Cheaper than the chicken.
3
@Smokepainter* : Apparently you didn't actually read the article. It isn't possible to break even (never mind profit) from producing a loaf of bread with a shelf-life of a few days. That's why commercial production lines use artificial additives and preservatives.
As D. R-K observes, your choice of Costco as a benchmark is interesting. A Costco chicken exemplifies the very worst of industrial mono-culture practices. The bird itself is filled with artificial chemicals. It is fed antibiotics that breed resistant super-germs hazardous to all of us. The industrial practices of Costco drive other chicken producers out of business. The externalized costs -- environmental impact, burden on local infrastructure, and so on -- amount to stealing from everybody else.
The answer to your perhaps rhetorical question ("Whjy not work with Costco?!") is that any bread product from CostCo will make Wonder Bread look artisanal by comparison.
6
Not just, "our daily bread," and, "bread and butter." A companion (copain, in French) is someone with whom one shares bread.
7
I keep all my breads in the freezer. That way, they never mold and I only take out (yes, slices) what I need. I love good unsliced bakery breads, but they are not practical for a single person, who is trying to keep her weight down! Unsliced bread screams for breaking off big chunks and swooning over.
13
For all the doubters out there that want to claim we have not segued completely into a class system I give you the notion that a $6 loaf of bread is called 'affordable'.
30
@Chris that's 16 slices (or 8 sandwiches). that works out to bread costs at 75 cents a sandwich. Seems pretty reasonable to me. Add on PB and that might get to $1.
5
Aaaand here’s Massachusetts chiming in with “yes that’s affordable”
I remember when I lived in a bubble.
2
@Chris depends on the size and weight of the loaf. and, what are the costs of health problems caused by adulterated "bread."
3
Thanks for this article. It started my day just right. I lost my taste for bread long ago wben I couldn't find rye, really chewy, dense, tangy rye, and as a chef, I enjoy other aspects of food prep more than bread baking. I like a challenge, so maybe I will experiment, pull out my old copy of Tassajara, find organic rye berries and go for it.
6
Same! I have been searching since my childhood for a rye bread such as the kind you describe! There used to be a bakery near us that made those fresh tangy rye loaves every Sunday and oh how I still long for that taste!
4
@Pam I'd bet the rye bread you're looking for is the same bread I grew up with in the Midwest. It's a double baked rye bread with an extremely crunchy crust and strongly flavored bread. Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, Michigan sells it mail order although it's expensive to ship. Whole Foods sometimes carries Jewish Rye which often has that Midwest double baked crust. It's double baked since when it's done it's put back in the oven with spray of steam that crunches up the crust.
If breadmakers want mass appeal, they need to have bright colours and logos on the wrapping, maybe a cute animal too. It may not be the wholesome bread itself that turns people off; it could be the granola connotations of the packaging. Sad but very possible. Advertising works. Quality product is not enough. Further experiments please!
3
@EE
Free samples in the supermarket works best.
Indeed, of all the things we eat, bread is the most broken. Growing up, my European parents loved the convenience of the soft, mass-produced white stuff in a plastic bag. It is and always was a sickly perversion representing something healthy. Just take a walk down the "bread" aisle at your super market. The smell of it sickens my stomach. It was never alive, just a mass of chemical leaveners and more chemicals parading as health and nutrition. Void of both.
6
The only bread I can eat is sprouted flourless whole wheat berry bread. Anything else gives me sluggishness, baggy eyes, and a rash. It's available at a popular trader with a common name.
2
I note the photo showing the artistic care she uses in scoring the dough for expansion. The bread must be baked with equal care and dedication. You can't put a price on that.
23
There's many valid posts here about having to minimize transport to the market, availability of the product, premium prices, and storage. It's a shame that there's not more local bakeries, not better preservatives. As for bread in my diet, I will happily die 5 or 10 pounds overweight before I give it up, and I have a fairly strict diet and workout routine. Fresh, wholesome bread is one of the greatest pleasures in life, and its invention was a monumental step in the progress of humans. I applaud these small bakers for their efforts to bring their art to local communities, they're indispensable to a proper society in my book.
44
Now if all the bread makers would start selling half loaves. Do they understand how many single households exist? I can never make it thru a full loaf before it spoils (no preservatives).
57
A very good point. In other parts of the world, they do! I appreciate great bread, but it is not part of my daily diet. A half loaf would reduce wastage.
13
Bread freezes really well. Freeze half loaves or individual slices. They will be as fresh once defrosted
74
We freeze half a loaf and take it out when we are ready to use it.
5
I don't know if it is my aging taste-buds or what, but I honestly can't tell the difference between commercial potato bread, oat bread, white bread or wheat bread anymore. The up-side is that at least the blandness is inspiring me to eat less of it.
7
@Jackie I've been wondering the same thing. No matter if I buy the "whole wheat" at the grocery store or a baguette at my favorite French bakery, nearly all of it just tastes sweet to me. An earlier letter talked about "tangy" rye and I realized that the tang is missing for me now. Even sour dough bread is either too sweet or tastes like they added a cup of vinegar. I really miss loving fresh bread.
2
What's the attraction of sliced bread? I always look for and buy unsliced bread. It gives me choices. Thin slices for sandwiches, thick slices for breakfast toast.
In Chicago, you could buy Rosen's Rye Bread unsliced. With or without caraway seeds. Some time ago they switched to baking it in pans, which was an improvement: it made it easier to handle and made the end-slices better.
Within the last year, they discontinued it entirely. Now I have to go shopping all over to find a replacement.
6
@Bicycle Bob
I could use the same reply to many of the comments on here: bake your own! It's easy and doesn't require much hands-on time once you get the hang of it. Cheap, tasty, fresh.
3
As a child I ate locally baked bread sold at the grocery store unwrapped, either white or whole wheat. The baker produced a delicious loaf using only flour, water, salt and yeast. Those are the only ingredients necessary to make a great loaf of bread--ask Julia Child. A long slow rise creates the flavor. American bread is so adulterated, with the addition of soy, which many are allergic to, that it is awful stuff. A lot of the bread sold in supermarkets in western Europe, especially Italy, now includes soy and other additives. Last year the tasty buckwheat bread produced in France and sold unwrapped in London disappeared from the shelves. The grocer said she was having problems importing from France--Brexit at work.
12
I'm surprised not to see any comments about the problems faced by people who can't make frequent trips to the grocery store. There's a reason commercial bread is designed to last longer than a week. Nobody likes stale bread or seeing mold growing on the loaf. While it would be my dream to live somewhere that I could buy fresh produce daily, that is not going to happen for me and many others.
Also, if I have to eat the bread within one week, half of the loaf will go in the trash, because we can't eat that much bread in a week. I have long wished you could routinely buy bread in smaller quantities, like a half-loaf.
The price of this beautiful bread would not be an impediment for me, but would for many. I would love to see this bread available for everyone to eat, but there are some problems that need to be solved before that could happen.
20
@Madeline Conant We make a lovely bread pudding out of our stale bread. Other options are French Toast, Cheese Strata, or croutons.
10
@Madeline Conant. In Belgium, grocery stores/supermarkets sell freshly baked bread of various types. I wouldn't dream of buying commercial bread which is NOT bread to begin with. PS Bread freezes well.
13
We freeze half a loaf. Eat the first half fresh. No problem.
4
The simple joy of a good loaf of bread! Even here in "enlightened" SF, hard to find a good bread for making sandwiches, but I finally found my favorite: a buttermilk bread from The Jane Bakery. Sold unsliced, but they'll slice it for you. I have to make a special trip, since it's not in my 'hood, but it's worthwhile :)
4
How can one find a cooperative or bakery where one can purchase an approachable loaf in Northern NJ or NYC
10
Certainly Balthazar Bakery in Englewood is one good option.
I make my own 100 percent whole wheat bread in a bread machine for less than $1.00 per loaf. The only ingredients are flour, water, yeast, salt, molasses, butter, and vital wheat gluten to help it rise. Eating healthy does not have to be expensive.
11
@Nick I started with a bread machine, then moved to having the machine just make the dough and baked it in the oven--great improvement. Now I use a Kitchen aid to mix my whole wheat sourdough and bake it in a cloche in the oven--still just about $1 but tastes like $7 bakery loaves.
13
@Nick
Hopefully, you won't see this comment as raining on your parade, but 100% WW flour (the kind you buy off the shelf in the grocery store) has been made by grinding the grain, sifting off all the bran and the germ parts of the wheat (most of the nutrition, but also the parts--particularly the germ--that turn rancid quickly from exposure to air), and then adding back some bran, etc. so they can call it "whole wheat" and still have a product that has extended shelf life.
I recently bought an electric grain mill and have been making my own bread from (organic) wheat berries that I grind as needed. (The grains of wheat when left whole have an infinite "shelf-life.") It takes about 30 seconds to grind about 2 cups of flour, and the bread is fantastic.
The time for the dough to rise is long, and I am still determining how to splice that into my daily routine on a bread-making day, but the hands-on time is just minutes.
7
@MRM But it's still much better than using white bleached flour.
2
I've been baking bread for decades, but something I only learned in recent years was the difference between whole grain whole wheat flour, versus whole wheat flour.
The former is the ground grain.
The latter excludes most/all of the wheat germ and some of the bran. It is made by first separating the wheat into its components and then re-combining the bran with white flour. It is much more shelf stable because the germ is perishable.
The two are not the same, either taste or nutrition-wise.
These days I grind my own flour. I do find it more challenging to work with, compared to store-bought whole wheat flour. On the other hand, the flavour is so much better. It has none of the bitterness I had associated with whole wheat flour.
I think the whole-grain "approachable loaf" is an excellent idea.
11
Wheat Song Bakery in WPG MB had the best organic whole wheat stone-ground bread i've ever tasted. this was the mid 70's only ingredients were the wheat, yeast, water, and honey.
no longer live there or would still be eating a loaf a wk. great for ERG. so sweet toasted w/ nothing else on it. i see they still sell their loaf for 4$
4
A few years ago, I read an inspiring book in which a National Geographic man traveled the world several years studying the diets and social habits of Centenarians and long living people. In his compilation of the results, he noted a common food among long living people; Sourdough Bread.
I embarked on a love of bread baking after reading the book and remembering my mother's homemade delectable bread, including how she placed the tin of dough on a radiator to speed the rising of the dough before baking. You haven't lived until you have eaten homemade bread.
Over a year ago, I purchased Sourdough starter cultures for both San Francisco and Whole Wheat varieties from Cultures for Health. Keeping a Sourdough starter culture means adding water and flour every day to the starter dough kept in a jar or plastic container, and about once a week if kept in the fridge.
Sourdough bread is the original bread. It is just what it is called with a delectable tangy flavor controlled by the duration of rise. It is homemade bread using live cultures in the recipe to provide leavening and flavor. The baking renders the cultures void but the taste remains. It's wonderful and healthy. The Whole Wheat bread is my favorite after learning of the health benefits of whole grains.
There is much available to learn, from companies websites to "Youtube".
Just be sure you always care for the starter dough and be sure the internal bread temperature reaches over 200 degrees F.
Thanks for the article
15
For some additional help, the book is called "Blue Zones" and to speed the rising of the dough, I use plant seedling heating pads under the dough in pans.
5
Growing up in the 50's, most all we had was white bread - the kind with the consistency is soft memory foam, where you could cut off the crust and roll an entire loaf up into a ball about the size of a tennis ball. Even Roman Meal bread was exotic in our house.
But once I moved away, I discovered that there was bread that I really liked, and have always sought out local bread wherever I went. I have found a local bread that is my "go-to" and comes in plastic bags with a paper label. If I get it early during the day, they will not put it in the bag but place the bag in my carrier - it needs to cool completely. A loaf of honey oat bran lasts about a week if I keep it in the refrigerator; I usually toast it for a breakfast sandwich each day. Two cycles in the toaster allows a wonderful texture, bringing out the crispness of the crust and the "tooth" of the middle.
I have tried other breads in paper, and they just don't retain texture for long enough. Plastic bags are fine for me, and they are re-used for a number of things when empty. Actually, I have about a barrel full of plastic containers that I re-use over and over again - and they all come from foods purchased at the supermarket. Once in a while I have to pick through and place in a recycle bin, else I'd be overrun with them.
4
While this is certainly a step in the right direction and a vast improvement over the typical loaf, it is possible (and desirable) to make bread suitable for children's lunches that is 100 percent whole wheat bread with no added sweeteners. It is sprouted bread. It used to be widely available, but I can no longer find it. Also, Wasa crackers are 100 percent whole grain with no added sweeteners. My 7-year-old loves them with peanut butter for snacks. (They're also good with avocado, butter, or cheese.) Related: The NYC school district currently serves children juice and partial whole grain products loaded with sugar, setting them up for a lifetime of diabetes, heart disease and health problems. I wish schools would stop pushing junk food on children.
7
@Mopar
Maybe this would be similar to the sprouted bread you liked? It's got other grains and a bit of sugar though.
http://www.daveskillerbread.com/sprouted-whole-grains-thin-sliced
A bread cooperative may sound more egalitarian than a bread company, but there's something linguistically satisfying about a bread company. "Company" from Latin com "with, together" (see com-) + panis "bread," or those we break bread with, are our company.
7
For several years I made Jim Lahey method no knead bread, weekly. I now buy Trader Joe's San Francisco Style Whole Grain Sourdough bread and enjoy it greatly.
3
At $6.00 a loaf, I’d call that a luxury item. That’s just too much for most people to afford. Especially people struggling to pay rent in New York City!
14
Excellent article, because we are reminded that children need to develop a taste for real bread at an early age. I agree that we need to respect the issue of gluten sensitivity for some people, but for those who can digest gluten, there is nothing but love in a hot fresh loaf of bread made with excellent flour and care.
For all the reasons noted in this article, I have a bread machine that is well-used. Granted that my flour is not as fresh as that used by Ms. Marvin, but I can have a hot loaf in three hours at any time. And with my solar array on the roof, the bread is baked in part by photons.
5
Warm bread placed in a plastic bag destroys the crust, one of the more delightful aspects of good, fresh bread. Slicing a bread necessitates putting in plastic. We buy only long-rise, hand made sour dough bread from Merci la vie in the Laurentien mountains north of Montreal in Piedmont. They went from a few varieties and a few tables and some pastry to a multi-ovened, multiple-variety baker of sublime bread that has no slicing machine and offers no plastic. The bread lasts easily four days, especially if you don’t mind toasting or frying bread. The place is now mobbed on weekends. Proof that if you offer substantial, healthy bread, without a plastic bag that turns it to rubber, people will come.
5
A soft pan-baked wheat product is not bread. It is fake brioche.
But clearly whole grain, chemical-free fake brioche is healthier than the corporate version.
3
@Green Tea This couldn't be more wrong! Brioche is an enriched bread containing a fair amount of eggs and butter. Bread itself is just leavened flour and water. Baking bread in a pan does not make it any less of a bread...just because it isn't a shaped artisan loaf does not mean it isn't bread.
2
@Mels
Soft crust, glazed top, mushy interior. They've replaced the egg with some kind of chemical, but brioche is CLEARLY the model.
Over the years we have sought out good bread--anyone recall Pepperidge Farms Sprouted Wheat, or Honey wheat? Not terrific but but was to be found on the shelves. 'Artisan' bread made its appearance made by regional bakeries. Fast forward, now with more time I bake a loaf of Sour Dough every week, three years running. Mix up the flours for variety. Locally the good bread desert has seen some signs of life, with a fellow baking and selling good fresh bread--even if not quite rustic enough to my taste. But goodness how far do I have to go to get a decent baguette! Family heritage includes direct line to Stroehmann's bread, white bread central! But I loved their cinnamon buns and sticky buns as a kid. Just some semi-random reflections on how bread and the search for a good loaf is interwoven in life.
5
Vermont doesn't grow wheat (or at least in any quantity to feed more then 20 people). Thank you midwest for really feeding us.
Plastic bags use less energy to make and ship then paper. Much better product. Plastic SAVES millions of lives around the globe keeping bugs and bacteria off of food.
5
@steve Vermont does grow wheat, just not in enormous volumes where they are shipping across the country or world like the Midwest growers you reference. Enough volume of wheat is grown in Vermont to be sold commercially, in stores and online. Rogers and Nitty Gritty are two I know of off the top of my head.
7
This is not new. Back in the 70’s, in Buffalo New York, I worked in a collective bakery called Yeast-West. We baked a whole Wheat bread based on a recipe from the Tassajara Bread book. It was soft and sliced. Baked in standard loaf pans. Sold in plastic bags. Sliced or unsliced. Great bread. We sold it from the bakery and in local stores. Even supermarkets.
8
@David Just have to agree about the Tassajara Bread Book. I wore out my first two copies in the 1980s-2000s and was delighted to find a slightly used one on Ebay last year.
I regard it as the Bible of bread-baking.
8
@MLChadwick I still treasure my original copy of the Tassajara Bread Book, from 1972 or so, complete with stained pages. It is indeed a bible of bread baking, but now I am only baking sourdough and Tartine is my new bible!
3
@David This entire discussion is giving me flashbacks to Laurel's Kitchen, one edition of which contains an infamous introduction called the "Keeper of the Keys," which argues that it's a great thing for a woman to be able to stay home and be a homemaker, bake bread for her family, and have time on the side for community and political activism. Those were the days, eh? While surely gender shouldn't matter, I'd love to have the time to do a little baking with my son. How educational, delicious and thrifty.
1
Our local Hannaford in Brunswick, Maine, used to sell a wonderful whole grain boule from New York. They copied it, or tried to, and then discontinued the original. We were very sad but tried the Hanford brand and used it for years. Now they've discontinued that. I would love, love to get my hands on the breads like these from Vermont. There are local bakeries here that make good bread, but you have to make the trip to get them. Worth it, for sure, but I don't always have time. Give me whole grain anytime!
2
While $6 a loaf is a lot of money for a homemade loaf of bread that has "more than 60 percent whole wheat flour" and "no more than seven ingredients, all of which have to be real food", I know a ton of folks who spend a fortune every day on fancy coffee drinks alone, not to mention pastries and other delectable delights that are far less heathy, if even at all.
My husband's favorite treat has always been a fresh, warm homemade bread with butter and orange marmalade. I used to make it often for him until my arthritic paws began to hurt beyond words.
We still search out bakers who make bread, REAL bread by hand. There are a few around, thank goodness.
We always keep any bread we buy in the microwave to keep it fresh. It stays fresh for days in there.
Thanks for such a wonderful and illuminating article. Love to live in Vermont, if not merely for this bread, the butter, and the milk.
24
@Marge, We love living in VT, but it's expensive, and winter is long and cold.
1
I saw on BBC a bakery that regrinds stale bread and sells both new bread and special label regrind greener bread. By law regular new bread has to have almost all new fresh ingredients, but regrouped stale bread given a new life has to be labeled as so. It might have been in Germany. I thought they were going to make croutons, but this was more marketable.
@Richard Paul
Many bread recipes incorporate old bread. There’s an idea (don’t know how substantiated this is) that the old bread brings in some microbiota that add flavor and other beneficial qualities to the new bread.
2
Obread bakery in Shelburne , Vermont, has been making whole grain organic sourdough bread and slicing it since 1977.
7
The bread-making philosophy is admirable. Somewhat diminished by the use of plastic to package it. I know it stays fresh longer, so let’s figure out a paper alternative and really make a healthy product.
6
Bread Alone is healthy and delicious. The French Sourdough is our favourite.
5
Philadelphia's Metropolitan Bakery makes a Whole Wheat Sandwich loaf with unbelievably great texture and taste.
2
This seems not only great for nutrition, but great for politics!
Science, social service, and middle America joining hands, to create something as American as Apple Pie.
Maybe this can convince people that they have something to gain from reaching out to each other.
7
The problem I face is you have to read the label very carefully or in some cases actually do a chemical analysis on it to see whether it is truly whole grain or not.
When I do this, and find a true whole grain bread, it usually doesn't bad which is ok. In fact I use is as a benchmark or standard to get the healthy bread,
Even in my senior center that serves "whole grain bread" it is delicious and has a sweet taste to it and swear it is bogus.
The reason this issue is important is that whole wheat bread has been proven healthier than white bread. It is not a useless cure all like a million other "health" products out there but truly healthy especially for diabetics ie less calories and does not turn to sugar as fast.
2
@Paul Unfortunately most industrially produced whole grain breads are closer to cake than bread. The whole grain percentage is rarely very high (white flour is much easier to work). And the products are heavily dosed with added sugar to please the American palate (sugar, corn syrup, cane extract...). White bread is probably better for you than these sugar bombs.
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@Jeff I am afraid to admit you may be right.
I had a typo in my post, should have read it usually tastes bad which is ok....which means its the real McCoy, true whole grain bread.
1
Everything about this article and the idea is great but one word: soft. It is easy to make bread soft, but homemade soft bread turns out as insubstantial and not useful for many purposes. The "old" breads that you used to find in indigenous bakeries tended to be substantial Russian black bread, ryes and chewy sourdough. That should be the goal.
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@jack I bake all types of bread. It's not difficult to bake bread that is soft but worth eating: potato rolls, challah, even a good, sliceable white bread. These breads have their place. I love a hearty rye for sandwiches, or sourdough with dinner, but the pleasure of a fresh Friday challah--or Sunday's French toast with the leftovers--will never go away. Or the delight of a still-warm roll with a pat of butter.
1
@jack — perhaps “soft” doesn’t sit well with you. Okay. But, the whole idea of an “approachable loaf” is to get mainstream consumers to eat better bread. That means meeting people where they are, not reproaching bakeries because they have turned some of their production away from those indigenous loaves of middle-European grains. In this case, “indigenous” is white flour-based loaves of airy, vitamin-enriched, preserved sliced bread wrapped in plastic. For mainstreamers like parents and their young children, that’s the ground on which a good bread has to stand.
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@jack Who are you to judge what kind of bread other people should eat? I don't know what an "indigenous bakery" is but my local bakeries in Milwaukee produced rye breads, challahs, and whole wheat breads that were much softer than the bricks of Russian black bread and still more substantial than Wonder Bread.
2
I like a couple of pieces of toast in the morning and the bread pictured in this interesting article has my mouth watering. I frequently buy sour dough bread but even that is now coming in whole wheat if the labels are to be believed.
3
I am in Minneapolis and shop at the Longfellow Market. I am now patiently waiting for an approachable loaf to hit my store.
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I bake bread. I began baking bread years ago and don't even remember why. I stay away from whole wheat and sourdough because no one in my family, including myself, likes the flavor and texture of whole wheat bread--that is, regular, normal whole wheat bread, the texture and flavor are off putting. What we do like (at least, periodically) is "vollkornbrot", a dense, coarse bread, great with ham or with jam, but not with coffee or peanut butter. Look online for recipes.
I bake French bread and it's delicious and i use active, dry yeast, not sourdough. I have two problems with sourdough starters: 1- the waste that goes into making it, tremendous waste--that just rubs me the wrong way. And, 2- commitment and dedication and responsibility of feeding a sourdough starter. It's like having a pet or a kid, but without the entertainment they bring.
Reading this article i've learned the price of locally baked whole wheat bread, from $4.50 to $6.00. That's out of my range. And how well does whole wheat bread make a bread pudding?
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@Greig Olivier You're right about the time commitment (although I do frequently let my starter hibernate, so the commitment level can be mitigated), but if you bake any sort of bread on a regular basis, you don't ever need to waste ANY of your starter! If you make your starter with 50-50 water:flour, then you can easily use your discard in any other bread recipe. With a 50/50 starter, just subtract that amount of flour and water from your bread recipe and replace it with the discard. So, for example, if you have one cup of discard on hand, reduce the flour in your recipe by 1/2 cup and the water by 1/2 cup. You might need to add a little more flour, but since adjusting the water:flour ratio is standard with bread baking, that's not a big deal. It adds a little extra lift to the bread, but not enough to need a yeast adjustment. I haven't thrown out my discard at all in the past year.
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@Greig Olivier I am a regular sourdough baker. Once you have an established starter, you can really reduce the waste--refrigerate the starter and then only feed it once a week or when you need to bake. And the discard is usable in pancakes or waffles.
However, a preferment (such as a poolish or biga) with ordinary yeast can also give you excellent flavor without the commitment of sourdough.
2
I keep my 5 yr old starter in the fridge, as well and I travel for a living and sometimes it doesn't get fed for a month or more. It's still going strong, baking some bread right now. I got mine from the San Fran area and it was only really sour the first time I used it and then acclimatized to the non sour Dallas yeast but still really good. You can put your pour off in your compost.
Keep on Baking on!
1
Whole grain or refined, it matters not to the ever increasing population of people who can’t tolerate wheat. Gluten is certainly difficult to digest, but it didn’t sicken so many until growers started spraying their crops with glyphosate, Roundup, immediately prior to harvest. Almost all wheat is drenched with the herbicide. The industry must be thrilled by the distracting noise about GMO and gluten. People who find themselves suddenly sickened by foods they have consumed for a lifetime, bread and noodles, are dismissed as hypochondriacs. But sadly, our numbers keep growing. Nothing is going to stop Monsanto or any other industry from destroying our bodies and our futures. Money is all.
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@Ellen Bulger The issue of glyphosate being used to prematurely dry crops in some areas where the growing season is short, has not gotten into the news much. When it does, it seems to be buried on page 3? I don't want that in my food supply. I have found that there are still ways to get around the problem, though the solutions are more costly. Montana Gluten Free is a company that grows wheat in an area where it naturally has enough time to dry in the field and they have organic options. Their Oat Groats are also fantastic. Also, many pastas from Italy are fine since they dry wheat naturally there too. Look in the aisles of the Gluten Free section of the store and discover some of these brands. It may sound counter-intuitive but you can then research their product line. Anyone with food allergies, like I have, should be paying attention to what some farmers are doing with glyphosate. It certainly doesn't help the digestive tract.I would ask some of these bakeries if they can be sure that the wheat they are using has not been treated with it. Make sure that the bakers have some certainty of the source of the grain and how it was treated in the field. Otherwise, all their effort in the bakery is for naught.
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@Ellen Bulger There's no evidence at all that gluten intolerance has anything to do with glyphosate use. (Your suggestion to the contrary is conspiracy-mongering of the kind that leads to the belief that childhood vaccines cause autism.)
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@Luder
The commenter writes about use of glyphosate causing health problems, not targeting gluten per se.
1
Great article. I love bread particularly whole wheat. My first taste was one of those hippie brick whole wheat breads from the 1970s baked by the Women's Community Collective Bakery in Washington DC and sold at our Arlington Food Co-operative in Arlington VA. The women's collective and food co-op closed.
Today I buy organic bread only sold by Safeway which is good but not as good as the hippie bread from the 70s.
I am part owner of a small organic farm that grows organic wheat and grains and I believe that organic is better for everyone--the farmer, the environment, and the consumer.
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Good bread is both healthy and delicious. I make my own bread. I just recently found a recipe I like which is truly "whole wheat." Even recipes which call themselves "whole wheat bread" often only have some (50% or more) actual whole wheat flour along with the generic white.
I wish I lived in Vermont - this bread looks wonderful.
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As a true bread lover, I say "bravo". The world will always need a new type of good tasting bread. If its better for you than other breads, well, that's great.
5
The major problem with bread is making a loaf that doesn't take over the taste of your sandwich. I want a bread that compliments my insertions/inventions, not the other way around. This may take as many as 5 to 8 loaves in a retail setting, but at home is economically unsupportable.
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@Tee Jones - I'd argue that given the key part of the sandwich is actually the bread, I would choose my filling to complement the flavor and texture of the bread...
Store bought bread whether whole wheat or white is bad because it's probably made from wheat treated with roundup, a terrible chemical. Organic, chemical free wheat, whether white or whole will make healthy bread you can be happy about eating and giving to your children. I care about the organic part more than whether it is whole grain or not.
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What's wrong with sliced bread? It used to be that "the greatest thing since sliced bread" was a high complement. But that was probably started by people who remembered unsliced bread. What's next? Will somebody decide homogenized milk is bad?
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@Emacee
Too late. Already, there is a big, underground movement of people buying un-homogenized milk, usually directly from dairy farms.
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@Emacee Homogenized milk is a synthetic product that does not even begin to resemble the product as it comes from the cow. First the milk from hundreds or even thousands of farms is collected and blended at the processing plant so there is no way anyone can tell the source of the milk. It is pasteurized at high temperature, or even worse, it is ultra-pasteurized (check the container label) which destroys the bulk of the nutrients. 100% of the cream is removed. Then a specific amount of the cream is added back in to make 1%, 2%, skim or what is absurdly referred to as "whole" milk. It is anything but "whole." The federal standard is 3.5%, which is purely arbitrary. Whole milk as it comes out of a cow's udder may be as high as 5% cream or even more. Then the final insult, homogenization, which changes the molecular structure of the product so the cream never separates. When people tell me that they can't tolerate milk, it is no wonder. This synthetic product is not even "milk" anymore. Try the real thing, certified organic, non-homogenized raw milk from a local farm. Cream on top. Yum!
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@sjs
There's a difference between "homogenized" and "pasteurized." You can buy commercial milk that hasn't been homogenized—that just means the cream still separates and you shake it before you use it. Organic Valley sells a "grassmilk" with the cream on top that's readily available in my town (though the stores that stock it frequently run out). However, this milk is still pasteurized because, if I'm not mistaken, pasteurization is required to sell milk for human consumption. One store in my town offers raw local milk marketed as for pets only and kept in a separate refrigerated case.
The movement to which you refer is for raw milk—not homogenized, sure, but the "underground" part is that it isn't pasteurized. It's perfectly safe if you can rely on your local dairy producer.
3
Such an important article, highlighting how bad for you (and, IMHO, bad-tasting) most supermarket bread is, the system that supports lower quality and less nutritious food sold in most supermarkets and other food outlets, and the intensive, collective effort — and expense — it takes to change that system.
And I am tickled that Elmore Mountain Bread is highlighted. My “second place” is Vermont, and, among other special things there, that Bread — including the Vermont Redeemer — is delicious. I have enjoyed many summer breakfasts of toasted VT Redeemer, olive oil, smashed garlic, salt & pepper, and vine-ripened tomatoes. And maybe some local cheese too . . . “Heaven can wait,” as my mom would say.
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For a insight into the psychological nuances of brown bread versus white, please read George Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier".
Like so many things in our culture, the world has turned upside down. The rich are thin and eat brown bread, while the poor are fat and eat white. We use food as a weapon against the health and well being of the underclass. The clarity of Orwell's thought is a treasure. It was also he who said: "In the end the can opener may prove more deadly than the machine gun".
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@Sera
Nice quote of George Orwell for it is so true.
I always thought what Wonder Bread is to real bread is what margarine is to butter - a cheap, affordable and far less better tasting and nutritious option that gets the job done when that's all one can afford in their weekly food budget.
Eating healthy by purchasing the best products out there is not always easily affordable. I think a lot of people buy what they can afford rather than what they prefer on the grocery shelf.
2
@Sera: Thanks for that interesting Orwell quote.
However my conclusion after reading that chapter isn't that the "world has turned upside down", rather that "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
Both then and now then the poor went/go with the sweeter and softer white bread because they weren't/aren't as educated about nutrition, and seek comfort food for their harsh lives.
What *has* probably changed is that back then more rich people also ate white bread because knowledge of nutrition has since expanded and propagates more easily. Only the most informed like Orwell were aware back then; now most readers are hammered by excellent empirical nutrition information.
Education is still the key to better health for everyone, even more so since the poor are now less restricted by the cost and availability of good food.
3
An example of the importance of nutrition education is today's article about the success of food warning labels in Chile: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/health/chile-soda-warning-label.html
1
"Without added chemicals to keep the bread soft and mold-free, the approachable loaf has a shelf life of about a week before it goes stale."
Put it in the freezer and pull out slices as needed and you won't waste any.
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@JBC
Sadly not in my freezer which both dries and adds ice crystals.
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@JBC I've been baking sourdough bread for over 10 years. It keeps for weeks on the shelf. The trick is getting a large amount of whole wheat in it. Sourdough doesn't work well with whole wheat, but I'm working on it.
2
Don't be fooled when a bread says "Multi-grain".
Often, much of the "multi" is white flour.
100% whole wheat is the key. Nutrition, fiber and taste.
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@akamai
My brother owns a restaurant and bakes his own bread 3 or more times a week. His "whole wheat" is only 40% whole wheat, otherwise it is never purchased. He bent to the tastes of his customers...
Keep the faith, as those kids get older their bread horizon will expand. Our local chain grocery store got rid of their craft bread section and stocked the traditional, soft, squishy, tasteless commercial breads. That lasted about 3 weeks, when they saw how much their bread sales fell, along with their total sales, they quickly brought back the locally made craft breads.
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@Bruce1253 Sure wish we had that here. I'm from NJ originally and one of the things I miss the most is good bread. I don't want it soft and sure as heck don't want it pre sliced.
Regard whole wheat bread... when our oldest daughter was in a daycare school and they served only white bread, she refused to eat or try it because she only had whole wheat bread at home. Fortunately the school was wise enough and started serving whole wheat bread to the kids as well. The point is that was 35 year ago!
11
So happy to read this article. Today I made a special trip to a local bakery in my large metro city for a loaf of their honey whole wheat sandwich bread for my kids' lunches. They have no appreciation for this bread but I love buying it. Ingredients are: whole wheat, honey, yeast, water, salt!
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@AM
Why honey? Why on earth honey? It's not cake, you know.
I agree with all - (even though I don't eat bread)
except the part of using plastic - to wrap. WHY??
I get it - it has to appeal to most Americans used to seeing their bread (white, soft, tasteless) wrapped in plastic
BUT I think most Americans by now (we hope) are aware of all the plastic in the world, choking fish & polluting oceans & drinking water/environment so why not use light-weight paper that is compostable & if needed, a small cellophane "window" to view what the bread looks like
and since kids -esp. in schools at lunchtime_ arent' even seeing the wrapped bread WHY all the PLASTIC??
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@yogaheals --
The plastic helps keep air away from the bread, which helps keep it soft. It's even more important if you are using bread with fewer/no preservatives.
If the bread starts feeling hard to the touch, people will assume it's gone stale and throw it away. That's not a good outcome either.
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@yogaheals
I agree with you.
Almost every day there are media stories about biodegradable plastic made from plant starches or something.
Why not use those?
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@S Why not indeed. We were recently in Patagonia of all places and in one place we received our pre-made lunch in biodegradable plastic made from plant starch. It worked just fine, even better than regular plastic wrap.
18
Dr. Jones is incorrect and miss leading in stating "just eat the whole kernel" will increase yields. The by-products of milling are used as animal feed, then the animals get eaten.
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@Greg M. pretty large carbon footprint, though. It's better for us and the planet to eat the "animal feed" ourselves. The carbon cost of raising animals for food is exorbitant and one we can no longer afford. Cattle produce a very large percentage of the world's greenhouse gases, as well as to the pasturization of the Amazon, which is being clear cut in large part to create cattle farms for companies like McDonald's, contributing to global warming...we ignore this at our continued peril.We're cutting down the lungs of the earth and populating them with polluting animals. This is not news, of course.
9
I am fortunate to have a friend who is a Master Baker. She has been selling the most amazing breads at Farmers Markets during the summer and soon will have her own brick and mortar. There is nothing like real bread that is homemade and baked in a wood-fired oven!!!
18
White bread, like wonderbread and hotdog buns are pretty much just candy. And not very good candy at that. It is probably my parents' faults but I have always been drawn to nutty and whole wheat breads. A whole wheat marble rye being one of my favorites. Probably coming as no surprise, both of my parents are good cooks/bakers and I learned to be pretty decent myself as a result. I grew up in home with very little processed foods. My wife and I try to do the same for our boys. But you know, sometimes you just want a pizza delivered to your house or a bowl of ice cream too.
14
I could not count the number of times my wife and young daughter clashed over bread-healthy vs. yummy. Thanks for bringing attention to this old problem.
3
Bread heathy is yummy.
I've been baking bread at home for more years than I can count. Not always whole grain but always better than store bought. I developed a sourdough high fiber 60% whole grain sandwich bread that we loved for years. Recently, some of the commercial bakeries are producing organic, whole grain breads with a very short ingredient list. Sold sliced in plastic bags. They can slice them thinner than I can slice mine. Still have the many-years-old sourdough starter in the fridge but if the trend continues, I may be able to retire from bread baking before I'm 80.
31
i helped run a bread bakery in a boston suburb a couple of decades ago where we milled Bronze Chief hard red winter wheat into flour and made bread from it. the smell of the flour coming out of the mill was almost grassy. it smelled alive. white flour by comparison is dust. the breads were also rich with honey and had a long life, sitting in a paper bag on the counter. i cannot eat supermarket white bread. but over the years i have made literally thousands of loaves of Professor Calvel's pain rustique, all white flour, but fermented in a way to wring every bit of flavor from it.
36
@David As a retired baker/bakery manager I have to agree with your comment about "fermented in a way to wring every bit of flavor from it." I'm of the mind that the long, slow fermentations not only wring out lots of flavor but also serve to increase the protein and vitamin B content of a loaf. As the yeast grows and multiplies it converts the starches of the bread to alcohol and CO2, and of course, more yeast, so the final product has reduced carbs/increased proteins. So even white bread, properly fermented, can provide some decent nutrition.
Still, 100% whole wheat/whole grain breads are the more nutritious. My own loaf also has steel cut oats in the mix. So: WW flour (organic), steel cut oats, butter, molasses/honey, salt, yeast. It can be made with a sourdough starter too but is touchier. I use an old dough starter and an overnight ferment. Try it, you'll like it!
6
yes i still have and use a bread machine....Would love to see the new bread adapted to my machine.
5
@tom Me too and I’d love to have the recipe for the bread in the article.
I usually make potato brown bread from Beth Hensperger’s bread machine cookbook, which is an excellent sandwich bread made with mostly whole wheat flour. It’s fairly soft though and I’d appreciate more options.
2
@tom King Arthur flour's website has terrific recipes, all of which are very well tested and really reliable.
I've seen that they do have recipes for sandwich loaves that are healthy, with only the necessary, few ingredients, as well as some for bread machines.
They also have a Baker's Hotline, allowing you to get free advice from a skilled baker about adapting a favorite recipe or clarifying directions.
But perhaps some time when you have enough time for an experiment, you might try making a simple loaf from scratch? I respect that your bread machine works well for you, but this might let you try a bread that your machine doesn't do well.
It's truly not that difficult, especially if you have access to a really well-tested recipe and a live human who can offer clarifications and encouragment.
Alternatively, I know some people like the results they get from using the bread machine for initial mix and rising, then remove the dough to bake it in an oven.
I wish you many more enjoyable loaves, however you make them.
7
@tom King Arthur flour's website has terrific recipes, all of which are very well tested and really reliable.
Here's their article on converting your favorite bread recipe to use in a bread machine. https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2018/04/30/how-to-convert-recipes-to-a-bread-machine
I've seen that they do have recipes for sandwich loaves that are healthy, with only the necessary, few ingredients, as well as some for bread machines.
They also have a Baker's Hotline, allowing you to get free advice from a skilled baker about adapting a favorite recipe or clarifying directions.
But perhaps some time when you have enough time for an experiment, you might try making a simple loaf from scratch? I respect that your bread machine works well for you, but this might let you try a bread that your machine doesn't do well.
It's truly not that difficult, especially if you have access to a really well-tested recipe and a live human who can offer clarifications and encouragment.
Alternatively, I know some people like the results they get from using the bread machine for initial mix and rising, then remove the dough to bake it in an oven.
I wish you many more enjoyable loaves, however you make them.
3