Special topics: Bread

I missed the baguette from Paris. So I went to Publix yesterday and bought what looked like a baguette, and it was even labeled as a baguette. However, upon biting into it, the taste and texture was nothing like the bread I had in Paris, and it made me miss it even more.

French baguette from Paris. 1.05 EUR.

I got this baguette in a small boulangerie tucked away in a neighborhood near my hotel. (A boulangerie sells breads, and a patisserie sells pastries. In the US, we lump them together as just "bakery.") There were many other bread on display, really long ones, short and fat ones, round ones. I didn't know what they were, so I just asked for the baguette that I knew and recognized. The bread had a hard crust on the outside, but a firm, chewy inside. Slightly salty, it was good just eating it plain. This simple and unassuming baguette set the bar for the rest of my trip.

Breakfast sandwich from Godt Brot in Bergen, Norway. With coffee and a dessert pastry, the total was something like $20 USD.

Next is a bread from Norway. There is an organic chain bakery, called Godt Brod, that had excellent bread. I got a breakfast sandwich from there. Although a bit pricey, (what isn't in Norway, though?), the bread itself was high quality and tasted delicious. The crust was quite hard, and the inside was slightly firm. The texture doesn't sound all that appealing for what you'd normally find in your typical bread, but it turned out nice, and functioned really well as a sandwich bread. This bread comes in at #2, very close behind the french baguette. 

Typical Moroccan bread served during meals.

I've had this bread on several occasions in Morocco. It's served quite often with meals. Unlike the french baguette which has a slight salty taste, this bread is a bit on the sweeter side. The texture inside is firm and a bit crumbly, and the crust outside is rather hard. It's tastes really good on its own -- I'd eat it as a snack. 

Breakfast plate from my hotel in Istanbul. 

Baskets of sliced bread at our dinner table in Cappadocia, Turkey.

One thing I've noticed in Turkey is that bread is very common. In most restaurants that we went to, bread is free and unlimited. But the bread is very plain and bland, lacking any character of its own. However, what I did find interesting was that for breakfasts, there would be many kinds spreads for the bread: apricot marmalade, orange marmalade, sour cherry jams, blackberry jams, yogurt mixture of some sort, and honey. Bread became a vessel to carry these spreads into my mouth (cue Mitch). 

Having had these various kinds of bread across Europe, I feel like I'm paying more attention to bread now. I'm a bit excited about rediscovering bread in the various bakeries here in town (Alon's, for starters), as I feel like I have something tangible to compare them against.