Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Bread! (The best of Norway, part 1)

I think I might have sounded too negative about Norway the last days (weeks?) so decided to write about one of my favorite things here: bread!

Having grown up with my Mom making us home baked bread almost every day I admit bread is a big deal in my life. And as a true half-German, hamburger and hot-dog buns do not count as bread in my world. Bread is supposed to be dense and very crusty. At home my brothers and I used to fight for the edges of the loaf!

While living in the US my baking skills saved me from supermarket bread since bakeries were outside of my grad student budget. But, boy, is Norway better! Here you can buy freshly baked, crusty bread in every corner! And what's even better than Paris, with all its boulangeries is that you mostly find whole wheat and rye! The real stuff everywhere!

And in the supermarkets they have a bread slicer for you to slice your own bread before taking it home. I must admit it is a bit intimidating with it's grumbling sounds, shaking and size:
But after watching for a while (and I mean several times in different stores not to give myself away) I figured it out too!

Ah... life is good! ;)

PS- This is a topic A. and I will forever disagree with. For him bread is for people that are sick and cannot eat rice. And when he does like bread it is the pav bhaji type... burger!

3 comments:

  1. Oh yeah bread with a crunchy crust RULES, being from Switzerland I got used to so many yummy varieties. India was though with the soft buns and sliced bread, like you I don't count these as bread. I have friends sending me dry yeast from Switzerland to make my own too :)

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  2. Hi Cyn,
    Good you have a supply of yeast!

    And I forgot to mention the amazing knekkebrød they have here too!

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  3. Oh, I agree with you about bread! I've recently started baking most of my own, nice and crusty! Whenever I move to another country the first thing I try to find is good bread.

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