German Bread: A Healthy Institution

The global crisis has been eating away at popular confidence in bankers, in managers, estate agents, politicians and even journalists. But not bakers, oh no, not bakers. Trust in at least one institution that has not crumbled: German bread.

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Loaves of bread, fresh from the wood-fired stove, cool on racks.

(© picture-alliance/ ZB )

These are booming, yeast-rising times for the 300 or so variations of German bread, the Vollkornbrot, the Roggenbrot and the legendary Pumpernickel. Bread sales were up again in Germany, the tenth year in succession; the business is worth 16.7 billion dollars and looks set to do well as long as Germans eat their weight – 87 kilos (192 pounds) – in bread and rolls every year. The average Frenchman eats his way through a mere 55 kilos (121 pounds) of annual flûte.

The dark grainy German bread is selling, so to speak, like hot cakes across the world and has become as much part of the national brand as BMW and Claudia Schiffer. At a time when high street shops are pulling down their shutters, German bakeries in Florida, in Canadian and Australian towns are struggling to keep up with orders. One particularly successful chain in Australia is run by a German of Turkish origin. “The concept,” says a spokesman for the company Lüneburger, “was inspired by Germany as the owner Ahmet Yaltirakli was born in Cologne.”

Lovers of German bread now often order online. Americans for example can have their bread sent by courier from a North Carolina outlet (the Gugelhupf Bakery) or from Fort Lauderdale in Florida. And how exotic it seems! There is the Five Grain roll, (cracked rye, linseeds, sesame and sunflower seeds, 25 percent wheat, 75 percent rye), the Black Forest (not the fabled creamy gateau but rather the equivalent of the German Roggenmischbrot, 30 percent wheat, 70 percent rye) and Muesli bread which mixes hazelnuts, honey, raisins and oats in whole wheat.

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Singer Tina Turner is a devoted fan of German bread.

(© picture-alliance/ dpa )

The textured heavy bread has become fashionable among celebrities. Tina Turner, the formidable 69-year-old singer who lived for many years outside Cologne attributes her fitness to the “German Miracle.” She has only two meals a day and the most important is the first one. “I eat a breakfast of banana, kiwi and melon and brown German bread, “she says. German actress Franka Potente, who spent a miserable year in Los Angeles, says she was desperate for proper German bread. European bakeries, sensing that a definite trend is emerging, have begun to send apprentices to Germany. Irish students for example are being sent several times a year to a master bakery school near Heidelberg.

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German rye bread

(© Colourbox)

I doubt though that all this dough-envy will lead to a massive export of German bakery culture. Ireland for example has only around seven bakeries for every 100,000 inhabitants. Germany has 47 per 100,000; it is quite simply impossible to walk a few streets without smelling hot bread. So other countries can imitate but they will not capture the real essence of a German baker, the combination of craftsmanship and serving a neighborhood.

And it is a natural food for troubled times. It is relatively cheap since the bread price has always been sensitive (bread riots in 1830 almost turned into a revolution). It can last long, several days (an EU attempt to control the salt content of German bread was quickly squashed). The local baker, one of the best informed people in the neighborhood, will also discreetly offer to take ten slices off a loaf so that a hard-up customer does not have to buy the whole thing. Kids can get free buns on Saturdays. For those ready to eat second-day bread, the price is cut to almost nothing. Some old loaves are made into bread crumbs so that customers can sprinkle them on their schnitzel.

Partly because of this sense that bread is the staple food for hard times, home baking has come back in fashion across Europe. German bread though is not an obvious candidate for the kitchen-top bread-making machines that are now seen in British middle class households. Pumpernickel is complicated to make – it is better professionally done, with each slice tightly wrapped – and even the simpler Roggenmischbrot requires hours of preparation work before being put in the oven. You cannot rush the kneading.

In some southern German villages, the locals have formed bread-making groups. They make the dough at home and then on Saturdays make use of a communal wood oven, a Holzofen, to do the baking. It is a social, gossipy event that underscores the fact that baking breeds a sense of togetherness and safety.

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A saleswoman shows off a soccer ball-shaped bread.

(© picture-alliance/ dpa )

Since the world soccer championships of 2006, bakers have been selling “Weltmeisterbrot” – world champion bread. “Why?” I asked my baker back then, “You haven’t won anything yet.” Although that wasn’t strictly true: Germany headed the list of the world’s top exporting nations. “Don’t know,” she snapped back, “why don’t you ask Jürgen Klinsmann, his father was a master baker.” Klinsmann was national trainer.

At that moment, right on cue, Klinsmann walked in. His team (which went on to win third place) was quartered in a luxury hotel down the road and he had come in to buy the right kind of bread for the boys. I nodded politely and fled, clutching my bag of still-warm World Champion rolls.

This is a shortened version of the original article written by Roger Boyes, Germany correspondent for the "LondonDaily Times." He has been living in Germany for 13 years and is author of the column "My Berlin" in the "Tagesspiegel." In his book "My dear Krauts" he describes the peculiarities of everyday life in Germany with typical British humor.

Copyright: Goethe-Institut