Well, okay there are a few exceptions, but as a general rule our bread is awful. Bread in the UK is awful, bread in Canada is awful, bread in the USA is awful. I don't really think it's a big stretch to say Aussie and Kiwi bread is terrible either.
Coming from the world's greatest wheat growing nation, you'd think I'd be a bit of a bread buff. Sadly, it's just not the case. There are small exceptions, I'm thinking specifically of Winnipeg -where the standard bread is rye. Canadians haven't exactly led the charge when it comes to baking, although we do control a massive bit of the industry - not just on the supply side. I'm talking to you members of the Weston family (who I'm sure are['t] frequent readers of this blog). I will not be too harsh because I do love the almost all the PC products, especially the Memories Of sauces, and Wagon Wheels (but only really because I had to trade my home made lunch things for them, which in retrospect seems idiotic).
This little tirade has been brought to you because of my trip to the local Russian shop. Dundee has a Russian Shop, yes - who knew? They have all sorts of odd things and a lot of vodka, but they also have Russian bread. Lovely Russian bread that is probably a month old and smuggled via mafia connections in sea containers full of feau-lex watches and trafficked persons. Each bite has so much flavour. I ate it today for lunch with some herring - fantastic.
Now a little dip back in to history tells me that us Britons were once making such bread, simply because we didn't have the climate to grow wheat. All we could grow was oats, barley and rye. It took many years of selective breeding to develop a wheat variety suitable for our cool and damp climate.
I should have really written this a while back after I went to Andrew Whitley's seminar. I shall now plug Mr Whitley and his website which is far more interesting than my rant:
http://www.breadmatters.com/
Also, does anyone know what is up with the large eared bear cub that seems to proliferate Russian stuff? I just drank some juice with him on it. The shop lady tells me he's the bear who likes kindness and drinking milk.
4 comments:
I don't remember NZ, but you could get decent bread in Aus. Actually most food there is decent, but I might be biased, since my diet consisted a lot of fresh fruit and veggies. You could also get less than decent bread, reminding me of the average north american bread. Australia has a bit of everything apparently. Now, as far as Europe go, the trend continues around the mediterranean - while normal food is excellent there, the bread quality is sad, esp for breakfast. *except* for certain types such as baguettes, croissants, ciabatta (these are however specialty breads - the average loaf is still not up to standard by any means). But then, go north... enter areas with germanic languages. Holland is good, Germany is amazing, and there there is Scandinavia. Polarkaka. Need I say more? ;)
Yeah, I imagine Oz to be a lot like Canada, you can get good bread, it is possible, but the average person eats the white death. I'm mainly basing this on my current Aussie flatmate (sorry James), haha.
That's a good point about Italy. I was wowed by the normal food so much I didn't realise the bread was actually pretty miserable.
Your mother tells me she had some amazing bread in the caucasus.
I think that Mom's bread is good. Although I must admit the the average run of the mill bread that you pick up at the local grocery store is crap, flavourless starch. I keep saying that I am going to make my own bread but then I get caught up with other projects. Now I craving fresh homemade bread.
Meg: get a bread machine! we got one last December, and haven't bought store bread ever since! (except for an occasional croissant). It's very convenient, and fun too! :)
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