Extreme example

That crust is smoother than my...............................





























...face. What a beauty. NOT. Wow. I'm at a loss for words. Thanks for 'opening my vision' <---chinese phrase. Wow.

How well did it score?

The laughing smiley stops here.

[quote=Danubian]There was a time when bread like this would have won a bread show. NOt only did the tinned bread look like that but even viennas were made in this fashion, can you imagine that? The very first time I saw these types of examples was as an apprentice and I was horrified!
[/quote]

The time is NOW and the place is Malaysia. You won't believe how popular soft smooth sweet (SSS which can mean something else) Japanese-style loaves are. Recently, a bakery introduced a giant loaf selling at a premium and people buy. Go figure. I guess they don't know or realise what goes into them.

Puhh...the loaf looks like plastic. I can still see the mechanical moulding process engraved in the crumb of the bread, and the crust looks very pale...almost synthetic. It doesn't look very appetizing to me.

no wonder there was a "revolution"...how could it get worse, The loaf demonstrates the worst of everything we talk about doesnt it?....and to think then we were expected to eat that!...it is the limit of the "Bread as object" mentality.

TP i had an interesting time in a kitchen in the old Singapore.....we were eating brown rice and local food and pu-erh tea,while the locals in the guest house kitchen were eating that fairy bread and sweet white instant coffee....they couldnt believe it...neither could we.

Was chatting with a friend today. She was saying other than the basic salty, sweet, bitter, sour, she can't tell whether or how the same kind of food tastes better in one restaurant to the other. Sure I know different people have different likes or dislikes, but, this is something new. Is it because of a lack of interest in the things they put into their mouth? Eat to live?

I'm considered quite an oddity amongst the parents of my children's friends. They tend to eat within their social/racial comfort zone, and are constantly intrigued by my children's snack box and with what my children tell them we eat for our meals at home. Worse still, with household help (hailing from the poorer neighbouring countries) so cheap, most homes (again, I'm the odd one out....don't have a maid) leave the cooking to their help. The close minds and the direction our country is heading is frightening, no thanks to 'certain' policies which constrict growth and thinking in too many ways.

To the general folks, brown rice is considered 'inferior', tastes of the husks which masks the intrinsic fragrance of the polished rice. Well, I'm not a tea or coffee connoisseur, but, pu-erh has a wide range of pricing/grade and has a less refined, almost peasant taste, ...at least to me, but I love it...somehow I can drink (a lot of) it without suffering heart palpitations compared to western teas. And, like my friend above, not many people have discerning tastebuds, they are more excited by 'first' tastes, the first notes that hit them. Pretty breads sell, subject to beauty being in the eyes of the beholder. I'm sad that these are the same people who don't bother about the source of their food, and, what processes and additives goes into the making.

Having said all that, as I see new organic outlets slowly appearing, there must be people who are concerned about health. The scare is half of these outlets jump into the bandwagon to make a quick buck, without understanding or caring about the full concept of going organic. With laws being lax here, there are even fresh produce which are not strictly organic but passing off as though it is. *shudder*

Oh well...one step at a time.