Comment by police-ical on 03/03/2025 at 15:18 UTC*

111 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)

View submission: Why does Europe do Loaves?

First, I would qualify the question. There is a considerable range of shapes of bread throughout Europe including small rolls, large round blobs, long thin baguettes, loops, braids, flatbreads, and near-flatbreads. A French crepe may well be the flattest bread the world knows. Meanwhile, loaves and buns exist throughout much of the rest of the world. But I think you're basically right that high loaves are often part of a newer European lineage. The flatbread is the original, simpler in construction and preparation, and still much loved around the world.

One important factor is how you bake. Tandoors and similar pit/conical/vertical ovens are relatively easy to construct but have no flat place to rest bread horizontally, so you're basically required to slap a flatbread against the interior wall. Likewise, griddled breads are inevitably relatively thin so that the entirety can cook without burning the surface. Thicker buns and loaves typically require a freestanding oven that can support bread while baking (though there are alternatives, like steamed buns in China.)

Also,all other things being equal, a large baking oven is a fairly complex, space-occupying, and expensive thing. It's a lot easier for peasants in a developing country to have a wood-burning stove or a tandoor than it is to have a full-sized oven. Moreover, if you don't live in a relatively cool climate like that seen in parts of Europe, routinely using an oven in the house means intolerably hot conditions much of the year. Flatbreads cook quickly and are often easily suited to outdoor ovens. Even within Europe, the warmer Mediterranean still leans toward flatter breads (pita, foccaccia/pizza.) Prior to the modern era and gas or electric ovens, many European peasants would have brought food to the village bakery to use one large/centralized oven.

This is also reflected even within the U.S., where the Southeast has historically favored frying over baking, as the quicker cook time and small stove don't heat the house as much in a muggy Southern summer. The one classic Southern baked bread is a soda-leavened biscuit, which is small enough to bake much quicker than a loaf.

In the modern era, the square Pullman loaf/pain de mie was popularized by the Industrial Revolution. Pain de mie itself is an older French style aimed at sandwiches and canapes, but Pullman himself was a railway man with a simple consideration: Squares stack efficiently, so you can fit more square bread on a train than round bread. Modern industrial baking uses a very different set of techniques to produce a uniform loaf with a soft crumb suitable for sandwiches, and again one where loaves being easy to align and stack is favorable.

Comment by police-ical on 03/03/2025 at 15:18 UTC*

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