Oh you’d be surprised … by the way, the same goes for literally everything at the bakery counter. Heard a customer complain once that she won’t ever buy pretzels in the store again because they weren’t actually freshly made, the employees just tossed prepackaged frozen pretzels ino the oven yadda yadda … uhhhm lady, do you really think they’re kneading dough behind the scenes?! Never wondered why your croissants, bread rolls and the like always have the same shape, size and weight? It’s almost as if they were made in a factory or something …
…yet these, too, are treated like first choice over the frozen bread rolls you can bake at home, because “a real baker made them” …
The bakery part hits me especially hard, I’m living in germany, where many people are proud of the bread culture, and you basically need to look for artisan bakeries to get stuff they actually made themselves instead of having frozen stuff delivered and just baked in the store. The saddest part is most people don’t realize, while still writing comments online about how “american bread is just sugar”
If you’re ever in San Francico there’s this hole in the wall Bob’s Donuts on Polk Street, go there after 8pm and order whatever was just made. Eat a five-minute-old donut.
Bob’s supplies most of the cafés and donut shops in San Francisco, and tapping the source is a fast way to becoming a donut snob and addict.
Hear, hear. Another bullshit part about this is that they often explicitly ask for baker apprenticeship and/or certificates in the job description, and you still end up just tossing factory-made frozen dough clumps into an oven. Why do you first need to prove that you can make cakes and doughnuts and the like from scratch, in order to be allowed to toss frozen clumps from a factory into an oven? It makes no sense.
I have a micro-bakery (I run it completely alone) where I make everything from scratch, and every day I get customers who enter and immediately leave disappointed because I only have 6 or 7 different breads at most, when the big-name franchise store in the main street has literally dozens of varieties. Once one woman asked me why I wasn’t baking fresh baguettes every hour like them. I don’t know, lady… maybe because my baguettes take more than 3 hours just to do the first proofing, while they simply have to put industrial made ones in the oven?
I am in East Asia. I work about 11 to 12 hours a day, every day. And it is NOT worth it, we survive because we are fortunate enough that my SO has a well paid job.
If you really crave good bread, I can give you this advice: find yourself a copy of “Bread” by “Jeffrey Hamelman”, get a nice baking stone (pizza stone?) for your oven, and bake it at home. It is incredibly easy (really, you will be amazed), and really satisfactory.
Oh you’d be surprised … by the way, the same goes for literally everything at the bakery counter. Heard a customer complain once that she won’t ever buy pretzels in the store again because they weren’t actually freshly made, the employees just tossed prepackaged frozen pretzels ino the oven yadda yadda … uhhhm lady, do you really think they’re kneading dough behind the scenes?! Never wondered why your croissants, bread rolls and the like always have the same shape, size and weight? It’s almost as if they were made in a factory or something …
…yet these, too, are treated like first choice over the frozen bread rolls you can bake at home, because “a real baker made them” …
The bakery part hits me especially hard, I’m living in germany, where many people are proud of the bread culture, and you basically need to look for artisan bakeries to get stuff they actually made themselves instead of having frozen stuff delivered and just baked in the store. The saddest part is most people don’t realize, while still writing comments online about how “american bread is just sugar”
If you’re ever in San Francico there’s this hole in the wall Bob’s Donuts on Polk Street, go there after 8pm and order whatever was just made. Eat a five-minute-old donut.
Bob’s supplies most of the cafés and donut shops in San Francisco, and tapping the source is a fast way to becoming a donut snob and addict.
The Bay Area is actually pretty good for fresh made food. You can watch someone take the crab off the boat and then make it for you.
Most of the US is not like this.
On top of that the Bay is also close to central valley farms for fresh fruit & vegetables
Hear, hear. Another bullshit part about this is that they often explicitly ask for baker apprenticeship and/or certificates in the job description, and you still end up just tossing factory-made frozen dough clumps into an oven. Why do you first need to prove that you can make cakes and doughnuts and the like from scratch, in order to be allowed to toss frozen clumps from a factory into an oven? It makes no sense.
Just a guess, but marketing and truth in advertising laws. They can then say they have real bakers preparing the products and not be lying.
I have a micro-bakery (I run it completely alone) where I make everything from scratch, and every day I get customers who enter and immediately leave disappointed because I only have 6 or 7 different breads at most, when the big-name franchise store in the main street has literally dozens of varieties. Once one woman asked me why I wasn’t baking fresh baguettes every hour like them. I don’t know, lady… maybe because my baguettes take more than 3 hours just to do the first proofing, while they simply have to put industrial made ones in the oven?
Please tell me more. I’m obsessed with good bread. Where are you based? Do you have to work mad hours to survive?
Sorry for replying late.
I am in East Asia. I work about 11 to 12 hours a day, every day. And it is NOT worth it, we survive because we are fortunate enough that my SO has a well paid job.
If you really crave good bread, I can give you this advice: find yourself a copy of “Bread” by “Jeffrey Hamelman”, get a nice baking stone (pizza stone?) for your oven, and bake it at home. It is incredibly easy (really, you will be amazed), and really satisfactory.
I am eating a kaiser roll that was baked in my local grocery store at 3 am today.