Of course there's the cost difference, but then again that goes both ways - I can find avocados, strawberries, etc. here of a quality and at a price you'd be hard pressed to find in France. Tbh, I'd argue that as far as meat/seafood/etc. is concerned, you can get better quality in SF than you can in 90% of France, where your main option will be an Intermarché or a Carrefour.
I'd also argue that the pastries you find at Tartine/Four Barrel/etc. (they typically source from a variety of bakeries from around the bay) are way beyond, in quality, what you'd find in 90% of French bakeries (the glory days of master bakers are long gone, and a lot of it is frozen crap these days, although it's been getting better in the last few years). I suspect that by this point there are more world class bakers by square kilometer in the Bay Area than there are in France, perhaps with the exception of Paris/Lyon (quite a few that I've met went to France to study baking though, so our national pride isn't completely destroyed). I bake my own bread and can buy freshly milled flour from the The Mill, which would also be hard to find in France unless you had personal connections.
But of course, I haven't gotten to the main part - which is the insane diversity of food stores and restaurants here. No matter what kind of south american, african, middle eastern, asian cuisine you want to make/eat, you'll be able to find it. That is not the case at all in France.
This was all very different from the more "corn on the cob & chicken nuggets eaten in front of the TV" USA I had known until then.
I spent some months working in Houston a while back, and this drove me crazy! I mean, why on earth would you sweeten bread?!
Another thing that struck me was how many ingredients everything seemed to have - you could pick up just about any item in a grocery store, and it was pretty much guaranteed to contain 10-30 ingredients. Even the bread.
> Basic cheese in the US
This too - most cheese was of the horrible processed variety, with little flavour and an odd texture. And of course, dozens of ingredients. And of course, there was sugar in it.
Another thing - corn syrup. Not content with putting sugar in everything, corn syrup was added too.
In the last few years, I've started making my own sourdough bread (salt, water, flour, homegrown sourdough yeast) with no chemicals and I'm loving it. I can't remember the last time I've bought bread. (Dutch-oven method)
>most cheese was of the horrible processed variety
I had this experience as well, but in the last few years, things have massively improved IMHO. Don't go the deli section (where they cut cheese), go to the area where there's brie/english-chedder etc. However Wisconsin has really stepped up to the plate and now creates very reasonable European styles cheeses (of course, more expensive). It's worth trying it again if you've not done recently.
The only exception is hot-cross-buns during Easter. :)
I am defending "bad" bread because no one ever does, and it's really not comparable to "real" bread because the uses are different. It's cheaper, last much longer, and is better suited for sandwiches and toast because of the square shape.
It doesn't have to be that bad, it doesn't have to have lot's of sugar and corn syrup in it, and it doesn't have to have 20+ ingredients.
This is my experience as well.
Nonsense. There is nothing wrong with machine kneading, many European countries (but not all!) manage to produce quality loaves at an industrial scale. Can a good baker produce even better bread in small batches? Almost certainly yes. But even there I'm not convinced that it's the kneading specifically, as opposed to general attention to the whole process.
Presumably that's made without human involvement in each loaf.
Low-end: LIDL, VOMAR
Lower-middle: Dirk van der Broek
Middle: Albert Heijn, Jumbo
Middle—high: EkoPlaza, Landmarkt
High-end: Marqt
I buy my bread from Vlaamsch Broodhuys—an upscale bakery chain—as there’s one by my home.
Diverse good breads are easily accessible in the Netherlands, I find. Back in the US, getting good bread is requires research and a drive. In my college town, both of the only two good artisanal bakeries were started by Europeans who were too fed up with American bread culture!
As a Dutch person living in Amsterdam, I completely agree. I noticed when I visited SF a few times (and California in general) that:
- Vegetables are more expensive
- Bread is sweetened (there goes my breakdfast)
- Bread sucks (yep, I said it, basic bread should be thrown into the thrash can)
- Basic cheese in the US is a new species, and I am afraid of it
I went around these 2 issues by buying the highest quality French bread and imported cheese (how I missed actual France with their actual French bread... :'( ). While it was expensive, I could at least make a breakfast that I eat in Amsterdam (bread with cheese with butter, unsweetened).
The butter was normal. I have to give the US that.
Though, I do like what you guys can do with oatmeal. It taught me that the normal Dutch breakfast is uninspiring as hell, haha. So all in all, it was reall a positive experience, but it's so much nicer when you meet American people showing how they eat breakfast rather than traveling around in the country and simply guessing how to eat normal (normal being unsweetened / healthy -- I find that normal...).
Also, I found the US amazing with certain dinner options (e.g. sushi burito's).