Clearly, it was a mistake for me to come to Germany.
I expected that the routine difference in availability and quality of beer would be a problem. And, sure, the universal quality of beer is higher, and the price is lower, than in the U.S. I can deal with that.
But....the bread. There is just no comparison. The bread, the pastries, almost anything baked....it's as if it is just a different product. Not just what you get at specialty bakeries. I mean the bread on the shelves at the cheapest grocery. The crust, texture, and flavor are better than you could find in the U.S. at 5 times the price. (To be fair, this might not be true in the Northeast, in Chicago, or in San Francisco. But in the areas I'm used to, in NC, it's not close: Germany 1, US 0)
Unfortunately, this means that I am likely to be flown back across the Atlantic, at the end of my sojourn here (August 1) with ropes attached to me, like the Hindenberg. My arrival will blot out the sun for an entire zip code. I should never have come....
14 comments:
The pizza in the US sucks too, in comparison with stuff in Europe, even in Romania... that's my tragedy.
Repeat those two words: "Mexican food". It might help.
I recommend you go to a (real) football game over there and compare it to the atmosphere at an American football game. Whether you like the sport or not I think you will enjoy yourself.
Always been my complaint about the US. Even Russian bread (yes, even in the early 90s) was vastly better.
Now, come on folks. A Wonder Bread sandwich, cut in 2 pieces diagonally, is simply in a class of its own. The good breads in Europe are great, but they're a totally different animal. Fluffy, light-as-air, bleached white American sandwich bread is ambrosia. I challenge you to even watch someone pull one out of a paper lunch bag & take a bite out of it without vicariously feeling a little rush of pleasant feelings.
I had the same misplaced feeling about our bread until some students I met in Europe came here & demanded to know why I had never told them about our incredible sandwich bread.
Plus, the butter is so much better.
One word for you Mike: Gugelhof
http://www.guglhupf.com/catalog/breads/breads.html
Not exactly Europe, but as close as you can get and so close to Duke.
p.s. now you understand why so many comparative politics types love field work.
Thomas
if it's that much better, why isn't anyone making it here? is it like ny pizza, supposedly better simply because of the nyc water?
elitist
Elitist. ELITIST?
Look, bruh, I'm a patriotic AmUHRican. It KILLS me that our bread sucks.
But that doesn't change the fact that it does.
We go to a bakery near my house, in Raleigh. They have good loaves of heavy dark bread. Six bucks a loaf.
Better bread here, in the cheap grocery, for the equivalent of $1.40.
Shawn, maybe it is the water. But I think it may be that I just like different bread, heavy, dark, and crusty. So, the fact is, as has been noted above, that American white bread is actually the realization of the elitist dream. 200 years ago, if you could produce bread like Wonder, folks would have lined up for it. Light, soft bread was the goal.
So, I guess the problem is that I am really a peasant.....
The bread is a tragedy, but not everything Americans do is terrible. Gabriel's comment on pizza is just plain wrong. I've had pizza in Rome and it was nothing but salt pie. In Czech you can get it with egg and ketchup. Blechhh. A big folded over slice of NYC pizza is heaven.
As someone who has tasted pizza in Italy, Germany, Holland, Czech, England, Ireland, & Peru, I have but one thing to say: Gabriel you are on crack.My great-grandfather emigrated from Naples to build pizza ovens.
Italian pies are on par with the 'real' pies you get in Federal Hill or North Jersey (and I will acknoweldge the fact that pizza is a Greek derivation, not an Italian one.)
And while the Peruvian Pizza Hut slices I enjoyed (capitally,) that dining experience was enhanced by the fact that it was the first meal I ate that week that didn't have traces of Giardia microbes in it.
The central & north European pies I tasted were on par with what one might obtain from a day old Chuck-E-Cheese slice, after it has been carefully aged on the floor of a truck stop bathroom in Gaffney, SC.
Yeah, our breads and dairy products might be on par with our health care system, but every American town with more than 25,000 people in it has at least one hand-tossed pizzeria (as well as a Mexican restaurant that serves a great margarita and carnes asada.) Forget Manefest Destiny, forget Neil Armstrong: THAT is a sign of our inherent greatness.
Cuba Pizza - the tomato sauce is in fact tomato soup or juice - never have the pasta.
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