America's Bread Problem and My 6 Month Sourdough Journey

How bread is emblematic of America

Sourdough bread made by the author

I recently fell down the sourdough bread rabbit hole. Our 4-year-old son loves bread; oftentimes it is the only food he is willing to eat for dinner if pasta is not on the menu. But I struggle to find quality bread even at fancier U.S. supermarkets like Whole Foods.

Scanning the average American grocery store bread aisle is a journey through preservatives and artificial flavorings. Calcium propionate. Potassium sorbate. Emulsifiers. Vegetable gums. Even ingredients that are banned across much of the world like potassium bromide are used in many commercial sourdough breads in the U.S.

Whole Foods sells sourdough breads with additives like riboflavin and niacin to mimic Vitamin B that’s lost when bread flour gets refined. While this may be far superior to the preservatives in most bagged breads, it’s still unnatural and by much of the world’s standards not “real” bread.

When I started paying attention to American bread, it became clear to me that we have traded chemical shortcuts for what time and proper fermentation accomplish naturally. We’ve settled for industrialized bread when just a little planning, time, and attention can give us the real thing.

This is so emblematic of an America where the French fries from McDonalds still appear the same between your car seats as when you bought them months prior. Wonder Bread can magically survive on countertops for weeks. It’s a true wonder how that happens!

When my young son started to develop a strong preference for bread, I took a closer look at the American bread market. Immediately, I ran into three main problems:

1. Most grocery store sourdough bread is bad

2. It’s hard to find good bread bakeries in America (even in my home metropolis of New York City)

3. Good bread is very expensive

After months of frustration, I talked about making my own bread enough that my wife decided to buy me a sourdough bread book. It seemed daunting at first. I had only ever baked with commercial yeasts that arrive in those little packets with small balls. And my baking experience was minimal to nonexistent.

How was I supposed to create this enchanted elixir called “starter”? Was it a little gross to grow live bacteria on my kitchen countertop?

Like an alchemist, I fed my starter with all-purpose flour and water every night. It took all of five minutes each time. After about one week it started bubbling and showing some activity. Then I got overexcited and tried my first sourdough bread recipe, only for the bread to come out of the oven like a bowling ball.

But I kept at it. Some 6 months later I’m much more consistent about producing good bread, but I’m still far from being an expert baker. I documented this 6 month journey in a short movie because I wanted to prove one thing — if I can make decent bread, anyone can. And if more people have higher expectations for bread, maybe America can improve her bread culture.

One question I had while embarking on this sourdough journey was: why is American bread culture so different from a place like France? How did our bread cultures diverge so drastically?

I visited France for the first time in 2010 shortly after graduating college. My first memory from Paris is getting off an overnight train from Milan at Gare Du Nord and being hit with the smell of bread. It was 6 AM and the boulangeries were opening their doors.

A vivacious French grandma invited us haggard American boys into her shop where she was setting out fresh croissants that made my mouth water. It felt like I had stepped into a cathedral of bread. The fresh yeasty aroma has stuck with me to this very day.

There was love and passion not only in that boulangerie, but across all of the bread shops in France that we visited. I learned that the French had developed their bread obsession out of both necessity and scarcity. In the 18 century, for example, the average French person consumed 60-80% of their caloric intake from bread.

The apocryphal phrase attributed to Marie Antoinette, “Let them eat cake”, was an alleged instigator of the French Revolution as bread prices spiked and quality dropped. The French rioted.

Given the importance of bread to life and survival in France, bread regulations date back to medieval times. The government has controlled pricing, weights, and quality given the impact and instability bad bread can have on French society. If a baker was caught cheating on weight, for example, they could face severe penalties.

As a result, bread culture became a matter of civic pride and honor, with deep roots in French history and culture. This pride survives to this day with French law regulating "baguette de tradition française."

We simply lack this history and culture in America. We’ve always been a country of agricultural abundance. Our revolution and independence was more about “no taxation without representation” than it was about unstable bread markets and vast wealth inequality.

In America, we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to resources. We have never been dependent on bread alone, as France was throughout much of its history. So when industrialization came, many Americans did not care about having their bread produced through mass production that created convenience at the cost of taste and quality. Us Americans prioritized shelf life over artisanal output.

We’ve also never had bread making guild systems in America as they do in France. Unless your grandma made bread, there was virtually no apprenticeship system for aspiring bakers in America. Bread-making knowledge was generally not passed down through American families across generations.

It certainly was not passed down in my family. Bagged bread was typical. It was all we knew, and we never thought to question it.

So when I did question American bread in a recent YouTube Short, I knew I would be swimming upstream and challenging the status quo. It inspired a few American cultural defenders to respond:

America isn’t bad at bread, you just don’t bother to visit the stores that do care

When I asked which stores the commenter was referring to, I didn’t get a response.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to find good bread in America. There are bakeries like Radio Bakery in Brooklyn doing really cool and profound things with bread and pastries.

But few Americans live next door to a Radio Bakery. Even in New York City, these places are relatively rare compared to the Chipotles, Sweetgreens, and (God forbid) Le Pain Quotidiens that consume our street corners.

And for the rest of us within driving distance of a grocery store or (cough) Panera Bread, the bread isn’t great. Sure, Whole Foods is passable, but not everyone wants to spend around $10 for a loaf that will be good for only a day or two. And as I noted above, many of the Whole Foods sourdough loaves are not “real” sourdough by most standards.

Why are so many of us Americans happy to settle for worse quality? Especially when quality bread is relatively cheap and easy to make. A large bag of unrefined (no additives) and organic King Arthur bread flour is $10.95. That’s over 2,000 grams or 4+ loaves of bread.

The remaining sourdough ingredients are starter (water + all-purpose flour), water, and salt. That’s it!

Here’s your sign to give it a try.

Or at least scrutinize what type of bread you buy. As Americans become more conscious about where their food comes from and what’s added to it, bread should be no different. We may not have had revolutions because of bread, but that doesn’t mean we should settle for chemical shortcuts.

The shortcuts may save us time and they may make life easier, but this is where my new philosophy on sourdough bread converges with my overall philosophy on life — great things in this world are hard. And that’s a good thing. Great things should require a little more effort and time than average. That’s what makes them great.

We also only get one life and food is a big part of it. Why not make each experience count?

A few years ago I reviewed The Gastronomical Me by the great American food writer, MFK Fisher:

In The Gastronomical Me, MFK Fisher showed America and the world that food is not merely fuel or a list of ingredients, but something to be enjoyed. It is a vehicle to gain understanding about a person, place, or culture. Food captures memories and teaches us not only about history, but about ourselves. Hunger is not merely a craving, but something to be understood and embraced.

So don’t just go with “oh anything” for the next bread you buy. Have some respect for yourself and your family and demand the good stuff.

Or better yet, make it yourself.

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For more great writing, check out The Political Prism on Medium and be sure to follow my bread making journey (and other adventures!) on YouTube.