Norwegian living the U.S. here. It's pretty different when you consider the average supermarket.
The breads you get in your average American supermarket (Giant, Safeway, Shoprite and so on) are either the pre-sliced, packaged kind, which are largely flavourless and full of preservatives and sugar, or the stuff in the bakery section, which tend to be Italian-style white bread rolls, bagels and so on. You can find better bread — and sometimes very, very good bread — in many bakeries, or in high-end grocery stores like Whole Food, at farmer's markets, and so on. But it's not the norm.
Scandinavian supermarkets generally don't have separate bread and bakery sections. There's just a bread section [1], where you'll find all freshly made bread. The whole grain content is very high, and the breads feel rustic and wholesome overall. You'll be able to find plain wheat bread and French baguettes, but these are the exception. You'll also find some pre-packaged breads, but they are typically sold specifically for their longevity.
While I can get great bread in the U.S. if I seek it out, I still miss the easy availability of good bread, and I feel bad for all those who think that pre-sliced package bread is all there is.
I just want to point out that you can get very horrible bread in Norway as well. In the image you link to, you have Loff at the bottom left of the screen. That stuff is even more tasteless than the average American bread. It also gets more prominent placement, at least from what I've seen in Oslo grocery stores.
"Loff" is terrible! I didn't even like it as a kid. To be sure, not all Norwegian bread is great, I was really speaking about the general difference in the availability of good bread.
To be fair, the point of loaf is exactly that, to be unhealthy, white and tasteless. It's great for pan-fried toast with cheese and kids who only want to taste the jam.
The majority of Americans get their bread from the grocery store, and by the time they eat it it’s probably several days if not weeks old.
It is true that you can get extremely high quality fresh bread from a bakery (or even bakeries inside grocery stores) but that isn’t really part of the culture and good quality bread is usually considered an occasional treat.
A baguette in my Midwestern city close to as good as a standard Parisian corner store baguette is like $6. You can get some that are "good" but in fact way worse than the real deal for $4-5. Approach the 2 Euro baguette in price and we're talking something that's so much worse it's unrecognizable. Pastries have a similar ~2x markup and are still usually not quite as good as the norm there even at the high end of the price range. IDK what it is that makes decent baked goods so expensive here. We grow all the wheat, FFS. Apparently kinda halfway knowing how to produce a plain-ass croissant that is somewhat reminiscent of an actual croissant is rare and expensive knowledge around here. We flat-out cannot produce affordable baked goods & bread that aren't fairly bad, it seems—simply not-bad is luxury priced here, and you may have to drive a ways to get it.
[EDIT] and this bleeds over into anything requiring bread, like a sandwich. If you buy one out and it's not quite expensive, it will for sure be using pretty bad bread and there'll be a fairly low cap on how good it might be.
[EDIT EDIT] toss in the fact that decent or better cheese is more expensive here, and the sandwich situation is downright dire.
While I'm sure that depends on the store, many supermarkets I'm aware of -- including Safeway out here in Silicon Valley and Publix in Florida, where I grew up -- have in-store bakeries.
I should have been clearer, with "good bread" I meant dark whole-grained bread, not white stuff like loaf and baguettes. Sorry, just my Norwegian bubble I guess.
> I should have been clearer, with "good bread" I meant dark whole-grained bread, not white stuff like loaf and baguettes. Sorry, just my Norwegian bubble I guess.
Then I'll walk to the Eastern European deli a couple blocks from my house! Though only a small selection of their bread is freshly delivered, the better Eastern European deli near me closed quite a few years ago, they baked stuff on site.
I can get plenty of darker whole grain breads from some of the above sources I listed as well.
Though saying that French styles breads aren't good may get you in trouble with a huge swath of the world! There isn't a "quality" difference between fresh made baguettes and any other styles of bread, at that point it is down to preferences. I wouldn't call anything fresh made at a local bakery "not good bread." I may not prefer it, but that doesn't make it low quality.
Nutrition, of course, is separate discussion!
Now if you want something legit to complain about in America, talk about deli meats. Boar's Head has an almost complete monopoly over deli meats, especially on the west coast. I have to travel to, at minimum, Chicago, before the corned beef starts getting good.
Likewise with cheeses. Each major area of the country likely has a local dairy making cheese, and I used to think those cheeses were a-ok, after all, local dairy and all that. Travelling a bit made me realize how not-so-good most cheeses, outside of the artisanal ones, sold in America are.
On the flip side, ok-quality cheese also trends in price towards being dirt cheap, and "not-so-ok" quality cheese is dirt cheap.
Ah, total cultural translation fail. To me anything very "dark" is bad bread. I really enjoy the sort of "medium light in color multigrain" my local bakery makes, which includes whole grains like millet and flax, with a slightly chewy texture. Here are "good" breads from my local bakery in small town USA: clockwise from top left, semolina sunflower, multigrain, country white, and cranberry walnut. Scones, muffin, and cookie are bonus. https://photos.app.goo.gl/Prcba1K99yioxNVU9
Best not to conflate all bread in America with Wonder Bread. We have bakeries that actually choose to make a quality product, and it's available in (edit: grocery stores in) most cities. Many Americans simply choose to optimize for cost.
Having to go to speciality bakeries to get good bread is a different thing than just having it available in every corner market and whatever the bodega equivalent is.
But you don't have to go to a specialty bakery to get good fresh bread. I can get Acme Bread at nearly any grocery store in the San Francisco Bay Area -- and lest someone (fairly) say, "Yes, but that's the Bay Area," anyone who grew up in the southern US probably knows Publix, the biggest grocery store in that region, is justifiably famous for their in-store baked breads.
I think there's sometimes a tendency among Europeans in particular to write off all American food as being essentially the same as the most iconically awful brands we have over here: Wonder bread, Velveeta cheese, Hershey's milk chocolate, Bud Light beer. And that's just not true.
I'm sort of inspired by Vox's article on the "boring lunch" here to start packing simple sandwiches again, which I haven't done in years. If I do, I'm probably going to be able to get pretty good bread, butter, cheese, and meats -- they're just not that hard to get here.
The difference is that when I lived in Florida I was going grocery shopping at Publix once a week or so. I tended to buy in bulk and prioritized shelf life. I now live in the downtown part of a walkable city and I tend to buy staples every other day or every 3 days because I can just drop in on my way home from work.
Having the good stuff suffusing your daily life rather than being a specific thing you need to go get makes a difference in your relationship to the food. It’s just easier. It’s not a decision you make, it becomes a default thing you get.
You don't need to go to a specialty bakery to get good fresh bread in most of the US. It is ubiquitous in most cities, and many stores that sell it will start to run out later in the day. It is either made or delivered daily. Several small shops within 1-2 blocks of where I live all sell fresh bread.
The old school sliced white loaf in a bag that was very popular in the 1960s has been in decline for at least a few decades. I rarely see it anymore.
In my experience most of the food is. American seem to go for quantity over quality. I am sure there are exceptions (they do good hamburgers) but most of the stuff i got served seemed overly processed.
