Easy crust it: the science and history of sliced bread

Easy crust it: the science and history of sliced bread.

Not since the young, two dimensional child asked the wise old owl how many licks it took to get to the centre of the tootsie pop, or Lil' Kim for that matter, did people stand up and demand the answer to the age old question , “How many slices of bread make up a loaf?” This reporter cuts to the crust and diligently researched till the yeast literally rose to find the answer. Bread is one of the oldest, and delicious, prepared foods and can be made from several types of grains such as wheat, barley, buckwheat, cornmeal, millet, oates, quinoa, rice,and rye. Sliced bread, or a loaf of bread which has been pre-sliced, either manually or robotically and packaged for convenience and freshness, is an everyday staple in most house holds. Before getting into the technicalities of slicing bread, let's revisit the past and discover the trials and tribuations the world had to endure on the path to perfection.

According to Beth Hensperger's Bread Made Easy, “bread should never be cut with anything but a long stainless steel knife to avoid tearing the beautiful, tender interior and hacking at the crust.” However, after years of using one knife to cut a loaf of bread, people from all walks of life were crying out for a more convient way to get perfectly sliced bread without all the headache. Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine. His original prototype from 1917 was destroyed in a fire, a fire that was not set by baking bread. The diagram below is his revised and finally patented version from 1928. This machine was a surprising five feet long and three feet high, which raises the question – was Mr. Rohwedder making bread for giants or did he not know the difference between inches and feet

The first actual slice of bread was cut on July 7^th, 1928 by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Missouri and that loaf was packaged as the "Kleen Maid Sliced Bread". Apparently spelling was not important to this company. However, slogans were important, as the not-quite popular phrase "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped” was coined. Sadly, this did not catch on. Frank Bench, a personal friend of Rohwedder, took a chance on his friend's machine and it proved to be a success. The Chillicothe Baking Company increased its bread sales by 2,000 percent in two weeks. All across America people were making sandwiches by the thousands. However, there was actually a resistance to pre-sliced bread after the novelty wore off. Less than half of the American populartion still preferred to bake their own loaves and some critics complained that the bread did not stay as fresh as long as a whole loaf. The next baker on the scene was Gustav Papendick who bought Rohwedder's work in progress and attempted to turn it into a masterpiece. Papendick, or Good Ole Pappy as he was never lovingly called, came up with a way of keeping the slices of bread together so that they could be wrapped. After trying rubber bands and metal pins, he finally settled on a piece of cardboard, which had been invented in the 1870s.

Then Wonder Bread hit the shelves and forever changed the way we see and eat those glorious loaves of leven yeast today. Known as “the greatest thing since sliced bread”, Wonder Bread was the first mass-marketer of sliced bread as a product. These pieces of uniformly sliced bread “were like blank canvases, just waiting to be covered with jellies, preserves, butter or the new jarred peanut butter that was now available in stores.” (Gdula 37). Then, on January 18^th, 1943, the world changed. U.S. Officials imposed a short-lived ban on sliced bread as a wartime conservation measure. Ordered by Claude R. Wickard (the Food Administrator under the Franklin Delano Roosevelt adminstration). Scrap metal was badly needed for everything from guns and tanks to ships and bombers and so in order to preserve the liberty of the United States and the world they had to halt the production and repair of the slicers. Less than a week later, New York City mayor LaGuardia suggested that bakeries should continue to use their own bread-slicing machines but that newers one not be purchased.

An open letter to the publishers at the New York Times pleaded the case of many desperate housewives “I should like to let you know how important sliced bread is to the morale and saneness of a household. My husband and four children are all in a rush during and after breakfast. Without ready-sliced bread I must do the slicing for toast—two pieces for each one—that's ten. For their lunches I must cut by hand at least twenty slices, for two sandwiches apiece. Afterward I make my own toast. Twenty-two slices of bread to be cut in a hurry!”

Now that the history lesson is over, let's get down to the science. As slicing bread is not an exact science, though some critics believe it should be offered in the core curriculum of Le Cordon Bleu culinary institute, one must take the thick or thinness of the slices of bread into account. On average, there are 20 slices of bread in a loaf, in order to make an even 10 sandwiches. However, since an average slice of bread is approximately 1once (or 28.3 grams), a 1.5 lb loaf of bread should therefore contain 24 slices of evenly sliced bread. This theory can be de-bunked though when the variety of bread in brough t into question as certain loaves are more dense than others.

I quickly discovered this when I hit the asiles of the groceries stores. Here are my findings

Bread Table No. 1

Brand	Weight	# of Slices
POM White Sandwich	675g	17
Hearth Oven -Wheat	24g	14
Sara Lee Honey Wheat	567g	20
Wonder bread	680g	26
Weston Super Toast Whole Wheat	570	19

Bread Table No. 2

(RecipeHut.com)

Type of Bread	Lbs	Slices	Inches Thick	Without End Crusts	Photo
White Bread	1 lb	17	5/8 inch	X
White Bread	1 lb	23	1/2-inch	X
White Bread	2 lb	28	1/2	X
Whole Wheat	1 lb	16	5/8-inch	X
Rye	1 lb	19	5/8 inch	X

Any way you slice it, sliced bread is an important part of our daily diet. Clearly, marketing has a large impact on the packaging and selling of bread. Customers are drawn to thickly sliced, fluffy loaves but due to economic restrictions opt for thinly sliced, mass produced pre-packaged loaves. The shape of the loaf and consistency of each grain type are also factors to consider. The dense the bread, the smaller the loaf, the fewer number of slices. In a perfect world, each loaf, would consist of each slices to last one (1) person a week. Say, 2 slices of toast in the morning (2 X 7 = 14) plus enough to make lunches for a few week days (2 X 3 {seriously, I don't have a sandwich every day!} = 6) resulting in 20 slices of bread per loaf. Most mass produced varieties of bread will give you that number – but are you willing to sacrifice flavour for quantity?

Bibliography

Burton, Bill. “Liberty: Best Thing Since Sliced Bread.” Bay City Weekly, January 25, 2001.

Gdula, Steven. The Warmest Room in the House. Bloomsbury, New York, 2008.

Hensperger, Beth. Bread Made Easy: A Baker's First Bread Book. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, 2000.

Levenstein, Harvey. Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America. University of California Press, 2003.

Morris, Evan, "Ever Wonder Where the First Sliced Bread and Other Famous Foods got Their Names?" Reader's Digest, January 2006.

"Ready-Sliced Bread Favored," The New York Times, January 26, 1943, p. 8

Ripley, Catherine Stortz. “A 'Slice' of History: Inventor's Son Returns to Where Sliced Bread Began” http://www.homeofslicedbread.com/

Temple, Will (2008-07-05). "Sliced bread 'a world first'". news.com.au.

Wenske, Paul. "History of sliced bread little known on 75th anniversary". Kansas City Star, July 28, 2003

http://www.puzzookies.com/SlilcedBread.html