As a European I've noticed a few major differences when it comes to European baking versus American baking.
First off, in America it's apparently difficult to even find a place to buy fresh yeast. This is a baking staple in Europe. And buying "cake mixes" and such isn't a thing here. If you're baking, it's made from scratch always.
Also, we don't have "self-rising flour", we just mix in baking powder. Vanilla essence is rare, instead vanilla sugar is used. "Cooking spray" is not a thing, also we don't share the American paranoia over eating raw eggs. Baking with Kitchen Aids and such machines is also seen as a very American thing.
What are some more regional differences when it comes to cooking and baking?
>>7774858
Eu here, definitely second the yeast thing.
If you include breads, the biggest topic becomes sourdough. I feel like Europe is the only region were sourdough is still made. The rest of the world seems to use industrial yeast, bicarbonate, and lab made enzymes to leaven breads. Here even many breads made like that are made to taste like sourdough.
White bread is a separate and less healthy product group. I was amazed to find an English mate eating toast and calling it bread. "I didn't toast it, therefore it isn't toast bread", while chewing on sliced flour sponge.
White bread gets stale in hours unless propped up with chemicals. It grew out of a sense of luxury that stems from the middle ages. It has always been linked to impurities of questionable health effect: chalk, aluminium oxides, even lead. Calling it 'bread' and qualifying all other breads seems ludicrous.
I have taken to making my own bread these last few years. It took me a while, but by now I get it right most of the time. And I marvel at this culture of buying bread from vendors that run factories on super market supply chains. It just seems so needlessly complicated, expensive, unhealthy, and the flavor is bad.
Bread is the basis of a traditional diet in these parts. This has changed the last 20 years, but it is still pretty deeply seated in family habits. To fill that niche with an inferior product is hard to understand.
But I think there's 2 reasons: Families where every adult works see baking as a chore, not something that happens in the kitchen while you're busy with other things. And secondly there is no industrial way to make and deliver fresh bread to large populations beyond what was already happening millennia ago. There's just no shareholder value to it, it is a community job. So it gets marginalized to be replaced with a supply chain which can be monetized more readily.
But it's insane. I pay less for quality ingredients to 5 breads than I do for 1 inferior ready made bread.
Flour types come into mind.
>>7775008
I have wheat, whole wheat, whole rye, corn meal, and tapioca on my shelves. Neither has added leaven or any ingredients to list. My cheapass market also carries spelt and barley.
You can get mixes, but those are marketed as specific lazy-housewive products. There's cupcake mixes, chocolate chip cookie mixes, lemon or chocolate cake, etc.
Still EU btw
>>7774858
I agree with the kitchen aids and machines, but everything else is just typical euro vs. american bullshit.
Are you saying you could walk into any supermarket and not find cake mix? I've been all over Europe and things like cake mix, self raising flour and vanilla essence are readily availible.
I try to cook more in keeping with meals of the 1500s for a week at camp each year. It is getting really hard to source ingredients. Farmers still sell their produce directly, although it's commercial seed. But butchers have become a real rarity. Market chains have replaced them even in rural regions. Even fire wood is an issue.
I shudder to think how the appearance of discounters is impacting third world regions that rely on what I do at camp for their existence.
>>7774858
>Also, we don't have "self-rising flour"
Yes we do.
Oh wait you're an Ameriburger pretending to be European despite not even owning a passport.
>>7775097
Or maybe it could be Europe is big and there are differences even within our continent?
>>7775112
>Make a blanket statement
>Get called on its inaccuracy
>Get butthurt
Or maybe you could know what you're talking about before you talk shit.
>>7775121
Are you being serious? You're saying there aren't regional difference in Europe? ...Really?
>>7775128
>Also, we don't have "self-rising flour"
I wasn't the dipshit who made the absolute claim that "we don't have "self-rising flour" [in Europe]" when you mean "We don't get self-rising flour in my ex-Soviet flyover country". Sorry.
>>7775097
While we do have self-raising flour in Italy, that's not it. That's just soft flour, which is meant for cakes. It doesn't have chemical leavening added to it and I don't think any other company besides Spadoni even makes self-raising flour in Italy. I've certainly never seen any marks other than Spadoni.
>>7774858
I've been in the US over 15 years now. When I first got here, I would get fresh yeast from the bakery. It was quite cheap. Now, it's become pretty common. At least in NY and other cities in its immediate sphere of influence.
Another thing was that various flours have only recently become common. When I first got here, short of going to a special distributor, buying online or asking the bakery to hook you up, soft flour and plain flour were all that was available here. In the south, there was a third type, too: biscuit flour, which I understand is halfway between soft and plain.
Also, "vanilla sugar" isn't vanilla. It's vanillin. It's artificial. At least, it is in Switzerland, Italy and France. Perhaps elsewhere, too. The mark most use in Italy is Pane Degli Angeli, which is a baking powder flavoured with vanillin.
Bake mixes are available in most of EU (also CH) but somewhat uncommon in Italy. Even France uses them a bunch.
>>7775143
We can get it outside of Italy if that helps.
Is fresh yeast just a block of starter? I keep my own starter anyways.
>>7775151
I know you can get self-raising flour outside of Italy, but Anon specifically posted an Italian brand of soft flour and claimed it was self-raising flour.
Brits and Irish in particular are quite fond of the stuff.
>>7775165
>The British
>The Irish
>European
>>7775165
>As a European
>we don't have "self-rising flour"
>Britain
>Ireland
>Not Europe
Okay Nige
>>7775170
Both countries accept the Euro as currency, one using it exclusively and the other in special regions and in tourist centres. Both are part of the EU. Both are European nations.
>>7775187
Are you completely retarded or do you just have shit reading comprehension skills?
>>7775160
Starter is Yeast and lactobacillus in a stable culture. Fresh yeast is just yeast. It does not add a sour flavor and you will need less salt when baking.
>>7774858
>also we don't share the American paranoia over eating raw eggs
doesn't that have more to do with differing farm methods that result in a shorter overall shelf life in US farmed eggs?
>>7775196
>You can't get self-rising flour in Europe
>Okay sure you can get self-rising flour in Europe but you're retarded
Okay
>>7775200
I've heard it has to do with how eggs are washed in the US v the EU, but I'm not sure and CBF to look it up to be certain.
>>7774858
>America it's apparently difficult to even find a place to buy fresh yeast
No it's not, I've seen cakes of yeast at literally every grocery store I've ever gone to when I buy yeast.
>buying "cake mixes" and such isn't a thing here.
Yes it is, cake mixes do exist in Europe and Europeans do use them.
> we don't have "self-rising flour",
Yes, you do.
>Vanilla essence is rare,
No it isn't. Vanilla extracts are available all over the world, including Europe.
>"Cooking spray" is not a thing
Cooking spray is a "thing" in literally every modern, first-world country.
>American paranoia over eating raw eggs
People in America eat raw eggs all the time.
>Baking with Kitchen Aids and such machines is also seen as a very American thing
It's a very everywhere thing. Stand mixers and bread machines are used all over the world.
Basically what I'm getting from your post is that you have an exceedingly closed-minded idea of how the world works, based on the fact that you probably live in some impoverished village in the middle of nowhere in some garbage eastern European shithole of a country.
Either that or more likely, you're just a troll and I was actually bored enough to take the bait and write this detailed of a reply to your shitpost.
>>7775203
Shit reading comprehension skills it is, then. You think I'm OP, don't you?
I never said you couldn't get it. Quite the opposite.
So yeah: lrn2comprehension
>>7775214
This is all accurate. OP is full of shit or lives in a really shitty part of Europe.
Except for the eggs thing. Americans are generally weirder about their eggs.
>>7774858
What do you mean by fresh yeast? Cause I can buy yeast packets at any supermarket and never heard of self rising flour
>>7775214
To be fair, no one uses self rising flour, vanilla aroma isn't extracted from vanilla plants, cooking spray is about as common as hand sanitizer or steam cookers: professionals only, I wouldn't eat US made commercial eggs raw, and non US kitchens are much less temples of consumerism.
But keep posting about other posters, that always helps on 4chan.
>>7775269
Yeast packets are dry yeast. Fresh yeast is faster and much more potent.
>>7774858
in america we don't bend over for muslims and let them fuck out women.
we also aren't poor and pay 70% of our wages to taxes
we also have freedom
it really makes you think
>>7775290
>we also aren't poor
>>7774858
>As a European
From which country? I call yourself European when it's convenient for you.
>>7775297
>cuckhold
>>7774858
>red star
GOMMUNISM
GET THE FUG OUT :DDD
>>7774858
In my opinion cooking spray should be a thing. Sure, it's a bit more processed but heating anything much over 100 degrees produces so many carcinogens that worrying about that is useless.
Glad our eggs stay fresh out of the fridge though.
>>7774995
You can make 5 loaves of bread for less that 1.25$ CAD?
Because that's how much I pay per loaf.
The main reason I hate baking my own bread is slicing it. Presliced bread is evenly cut, something I have trouble doing.
And while I admit there is probably kernels of truth in your post, get your tinfoil hat off.
>>7775481
A quarter per loaf? That isn't bread.
An industrially baked loaf costs about 70¢.
A 'bakery' loaf can run you 2.50, and that's not the artisan kind.
My sourdough rye with sunflower seeds is better than anything I could buy, and I have 20 delicatessen places within 3 blocks. It costs me about 50¢ to make. Add 15 minutes of my time spread over 2 days, and there you are.
Have you ever smelled fresh sourdough rye?
Tinfoil makes you easier to track, dummy.
>>7774858
>using a mixer is an american thing
Haha wut? That post is almost as bad as the Americans telling everyone else how things go down in their respective countries.
I'm from Korea and my observations are that no one really uses self rising flour because recipes never account for it besides the shlock you get in Semi-Homemade cookbook aisle.
Fresh yeast as you describe is in every decent sized grocery store by the milk, though the yeast in freeze dried packaging is genetically the same anyway...
Cake mixes seem to be popular because the moistening products like xanthan gum and the such aren't readily available to the home baker or more importantly not particularly accounted for in recipes. Americans are sticklers for recipes, at least the ones I know.
You are right in vanilla essence and eggs though how do you account for the amount in the sugar? Also Americans have pasteurized eggs they use in the event they need raw eggs for a recipe and many more simply don't care. I'm guessing the caveats towards salmonella are from potentially litigious people.
>>7774995
>White bread gets stale in hours unless propped up with chemicals. It grew out of a sense of luxury that stems from the middle ages. It has always been linked to impurities of questionable health effect: chalk, aluminium oxides, even lead. Calling it 'bread' and qualifying all other breads seems ludicrous.
we don't do that dumbass
all bread is qualified. White bread, wheat bread, rye bread, sweet bread
they all come with a qualifier, not just the non whites.
>>7774858
they do sourdough in the san francisco area and vermont. probably in other liberal havens as well.
>>7775112
>Europe
>Big
Lol.
>>7775197
I think he meant proofed yeast, not starter.
>>7775214
Where in the grocery store do you find fresh yeast? I live in US and haven't been able to find anything besides dried packets. Dairy section? Deli? I'd love to try a different yeast...
>>7775923
Not him but they keep it by the dairy where I live, call ahead. Found out my meat department has suet on the cheap every other Tuesday that way.
>>7775970
What is suet? We have that here but birds eat it and I don't think we are talking about the same thing...
>>7775280
how do you know what US kitchens are like
how do you know what any kind of kitchens are like that aren't in your country
why are you making generalizations over such massive areas
>>7775973
Animal fat taken off of the organs. Very good shit to cook/bake with.
>>7775973
Hard fat found around the kidneys. Used in baking.
>>7774858
How do i get my bread to not taste yeasty?
Its definitely more yeasty than bread that I get in a bakery, is it because i'm using dried yeast?
>>7776070
or do i suck ass at baking
maybe i knead for too long or something
>>7776070
Add less yeast and don't let it rise for as long.
>>7776127
is fresh yeast any better
Italian here
Nobody in Italy uses cookbooks
They are an invention of Americans with no culinary flair, or creative ability to think of new recipes and ideas for themselves
The word for 'recipe' in Italian is actually the same as the word for creativity- Recipima- and when you have a recipe you are having a creativity. Therefore a cookbook cannot exist here. In fact we have a word for cook 'Embar' and a word for book 'Esmente', and the words togther form the English 'Embaresment'. That is how that word originated in fact, so the Italian for being humiliated is literally using a cookbook
Only Americans and Brits need books to tell them how to cook. Only they could be so retarded that they need paper to understand when their spaghetti al tonno has the correct amount of salmon or when their Tiramasu needs early gray rather than mocha. Fucking fat morons, I hate all americans so much. When an Italian chef writes a cookbook for Americans and Brits we congratulate them for fooling the fatass idiots. The word for 'tricking americans and brits with a cookbook when we don't habe them in Italy' is 'Recipe'.
>>7776143
thanks for the italian pasta
>>7775897
culture wise americans are tinier than trumps hands
>>7775029
>Are you saying you could walk into any supermarket and not find cake mix? I've been all over Europe and things like cake mix, self raising flour and vanilla essence are readily availible.
You can certainly get cake mix in Yuro grocery stores (at least here in Austria). Vanilla essence? Not so much. It's really just vanilla sugar and whole vanilla beans here. I mean sure, you can find it in specialty stores nowadays, but not in your average supermarket.
I don't think I've ever seen self-rising flour sold over here.
>>7774858
thats a big generalization, europe is very diverse.
portugal here, you can get fresh yeast but only recently it has widely available in supermarkets, there are cake mixes for sale, never used one personally because I know how to bake but I assume people buy them or they wouldn't be in the shelves. I don't think I have ever seen vanilla sugar for sale, vanilla essence is fairly common.
>>7776143
Apparently everyone in italy has been using the same cookbook for the past 60+ years because the best selling cookbooks are ones from that long ago
Recipmia my ass, i'm pretty sure that's latin for bullshit
>>7774858
>First off, in America it's apparently difficult to even find a place to buy fresh yeast.
Yeah, extremely difficult if you live under a rock and have never set foot in a grocery store. Literally anywhere you can buy groceries is going to stock bricks, jars or boxes of individual portion packets.
Even WalMart or Kroger stock shit like this.
Delete your thread and kill yourself.
>>7774858
Youre so wrong. I live in Amsterdam and there are cake mixes, oil or butter-based cooking sprays and vanilla essence bottles in every goddamn supermarket. Alao my friends who like baking all have an Kitchen Aids. Fuck off.
In Sweden it's easy to find both vanilla extract and sugar.
I don't understand all the different kinds of cream I read about in recipes like heavy cream and double cream, dunno if they're different names for the same thing or what. I'm sure I've come across more but I don't remember.
I've never seen buttermilk, Wikipedia says it's uncommon here.
>>7776288
>I've never seen buttermilk
You poor sod.
>>7774858
I live in flyover country and even my chain grocery has Red Star.
>>7776294
It's apparently sold in supermarkets in Denmark and Finland but rare here
>>7776022
It's pretty obvious hos the "normal" american household kitchen looks like.
>>7776270
Dutch here, this is wrong.
>>7776311
is it? because I live in the US and don't think it is
could you maybe enlighten me?
>>7774858
>First off, in America it's apparently difficult to even find a place to buy fresh yeast
Generally they harvest that from their bodies or from people at the bus stop.
>>7776022
You get on a plane and travel. Try it. Stay a year, get to know the people. It's fun.
>>7776326
/r9k/ pls
>>7775128
What? Can't you read?
Jesus christ, not even that guy
>>7775214
>Cooking spray is a "thing" in literally every modern, first-world country.
Not really because it's shit Literally anything else is better, minus the convenience factor.
>>7776288
>I've never seen buttermilk
Russia here, haven't seen buttermilk even once.
Whey and whey-based drinks, on the other hand, are easily available anywhere.
>>7776294
how widespread is buttermilk? I don't think I've ever seen around the mediterranean region, primarily italy and croatia.
In Germany Buttermilch is in every market.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPM3wPhaMvE
It is marketed as health food. It covers a few basic nutrients for bone development and is forced upon children (or mixed with fruits and sugar). It isn't as commonly used as milk, butter, cream, or yogurt, but it is very common.
I use it instead of yogurt to make fruit lassi if the summer gets too hot for snacks. It's also great for marinading chicken because it contains an enzyme that tenderizes poultry.
>>7776143
>every Italian recipe is some combination of cheese, pasta, tomatoes, and meat
>feel the need to insult Americans when they want reference for cooking something more complex
>>7774858
>What are some more regional differences when it comes to cooking and baking?
I'm no baker, but I can tell you outright that there's just about as many differences between what you've listed and between regions of the US in terms of general ingredient availablity.
Fellow European here.
As much as I enjoy making fun of the retarded amerifats, the following is simply wrong:
>>7774858
>And buying "cake mixes" and such isn't a thing here. If you're baking, it's made from scratch always.
And why does every supermarked have tons of such mixes? You can even get a pancake dough premade in a fucking bottle. pancake dough. The easist dough there is! I hope that the percentage of people using that shit is still rather low, but unfortunately this stuff, and the animals that buy and eat it, does exits.
>Baking with Kitchen Aids and such machines is also seen as a very American thing.
Vorwerk Thermomix, nigger! Never heard of that thing? Essentially, billions of European housewives are buying a kitchen aid magic machine for over € 1000 by a German vacuum cleaner manufacturer.
>>7776608
What's it do to be worth 1k?
>>7776621
magic!
fuck me if I know. It is a totally insane trend.
>>7776626
>magic cooking machine
Sign me the fuck up
>>7776608
>Vorwerk Thermomix
>look it up
>korean housewives have also been buying a knock off of that shit for close to the same price
Christ, the meme gadgets will never end.
>>7776621
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yr_etbfZtQ
>>7776316
I'm also Dutch, just not a poorfag living outside of the Randstad. Get off the internet and farm my produce, poorfag peasant.
A lot of things like self-rising flour are still in place due to the war and food shortages. It's the same with American cheese, which is just oil + stabilizers + food colouring.
But I think it's somewhat unfair to compare America to Europe when it comes to things like baking. Europe has the best bread and baked goods in the world. America does other things a lot better.
America is a country for great contrasts actually when it comes to food. I was on a road trip around the west coast recently and the food found in cities is vastly different to that found in smaller towns and rural areas. It almost feels opposite to what is happening in Europe where rural food is often fresh and healthy local cuisine as compared to the cities that have more pre-made food. In America the rural areas are significantly poorer and the people eat pre-made things a lot more. Due to the way food is produced by giant corporations in America there's less emphasis on quality and more on quantity. Same thing is slowly happening in Europe though, this is a very very worrying issue.
>>7774858
>fresh yeast
Yeast is a fucking fungus. I think you mean 'dried yeast'.
Sourdough is a distinctly American thing, because 'you jus keep summa tha dough affer!' is as far as you get in a country that's barely advanced culturally since they set out in wagon trains.
>>7777832
>I think you mean 'dried yeast'.
No, he/she means fresh yeast. Every supermarket in the US sells dry yeast. It' the fresh/wet stuff that's harder to find in the US.
>>Sourdough is a distinctly American thing
not really. The French call a sourdough starter a "poolish" because apparently they got the idea from the Poles (polish).
>>7777841
Bread was leavened in ancient Egypt. Towelheads win again.
>Murricans will never know the joy of crushing fresh yeast with their fingers down the baking bowl
One of the best childhoods memories from baking saffron buns with my mother
>>7777885
>saffron buns
go on...
>>7777907
Lussekatter. Eaten for Christmas in Sweden, they're divine.
The black things are raisins. The bread is so soft, it melts in your mouth. And the smell of saffron is will make your dick go hard
>>7777885
nobody on /ck/ washes their hands. or if they do, it's just with water.
>>7777885
>being proud of having to crush up yeast by hand
I have two different sourdough starters and plenty of instant powdered yeast around, aside from various cultures used for homebrewing.
The only thing a block of yeast is good for is throwing down the toilet.
(No, seriously though. Buy yeast cakes from restaurant/bakery supply places and put it down your toilet/sink every few months. It cleans that shit right out and you'll never have clogged pipes. Got that tip from a baking old-timer who owns a bread company that's the biggest in the State.)
>>7775214
Well, for me the OP seems fairly reasonable.
Just because things are available don't mean that they are used to the extent that they do in the places they originate.
Is it true electronic kettles are rare in America?
As a European I've not entered a home where there isn't one. It's like not having a toaster, a coffee maker or an oven or something. It's just a must-have.
But an American one told me you guys just boil your water in a pot like savages
>>7778442
What is the benefit of an electric kettle compared to a stove top kettle? Just seems like a unitasker to me.
>>7778451
Its much faster. But then again.. So is the microwave and a glass bowl.
>>7778442
I have never been in a house with an electric kettle. We don't drink tea constantly and there is no need for one
>>7778464
You motherfucker, I'll report you to The Queen's Royal Hot Beverage Ministry and have your tea license taken away, you bitch.
>>7778442
That's because the US electric system runs off of 110 V and European systems run on 220 V. It's faster for Americans to use stovetop kettles, especially if they have gas stoves.
>>7778470
TFW you realize you are still on the correct side of the Atlantic ocean.
>>7778475
It might have been the cheapo hostel kettle but in my experience it is about the same.
>>7778475
>american ''''education''''
double the voltage doesn't mean the water boils twice as fast
>>7778464
Depends how much tea you're making, doesn't it? My aunt has a hot water dispenser next to her tap that provides boiling water on demand, if you really want tea right away.
>>7776143
None of this is true.
