I'm from Denmark, but emigrated at an early age to the U.S, I always hated butter until I came back to Denmark, so if you had asked me 20 years ago I would have said hell no, but now I have managed to taste some really good butters and maybe it is worth that much, just like a good cheese would be.
> if you had asked me 20 years ago I would have said hell no, but now I have managed to taste some really good butters and maybe it is worth that much, just like a good cheese would be.
I had the same thing occur with wine, I'm from California but I went to Catholic school so wine to me was this forced ritual thing that tasted horribly. I even did a short in upscale catering while paying for University and still didn't 'get' wine despite tasting what I was told was 'good wine' all the time. I like(d) aged single malt whisky and vodka.
But when I went to Italy and Croatia I learned how a cuisine can be entirely built around the seasons and that wine played a big part of its enhancement.
I've had really good butters from Switzerland while doing my apprenticeship, not sure the costs but it wouldn't surprise me if that was the rate, and despite my affinity for comparing seasonal/aged cheeses (especially with fruit) I simply couldn't tell the difference. It made logical sense for the same reason it does in cheese, the grazing and vegetation/feed pattern varies, but my palette couldn't tell the difference in finding the 'lavender and wild flower notes' these artisan guys went on about. Then again, I'm more of a olive oil person anyway, and that easily exceeds $50/liter so I understood their is a market for that and just nodded.
As a chef later in life I had the same experience as hearing the sommelier talk about 'after notes of butter scotch, and whiffs of toffy' when describing what I thought was a rather mediocre chardonnay during pre-service with food pairing once: a lot of is just branding, but I'm glad it exists as its a big part of restaurant sales. But I just shrugged it off, and never ordered it myself.
I'm basing this of San Francisco (I haven't been anywhere else). Presuming that SF is representative for the US, then IMO: tap water, milk, butter, bread and cheese in the US isn't that great. For me those things are what I basically live off every morning. The US has other things that are up to par or better than stuff in European countries, but those 5 things aren't that great unfortunately.
US people have complained about a lot of things where I lived when it comes to food, but not those five.
Tap water in Bay Area is terrible, but that is geologically dependent. California tap water generally is the worst I have tasted anywhere in the US. Tap water in the Pacific Northwest, for example, is delicious, clean, and usually lacks any chemical flavor. It is like drinking out of an alpine spring, which is pretty close to the reality.
Cheese is a case-by-case basis, the US produces some very good and unique proper cheeses. But I would give the edge to Europe. I would also agree that the default quality of butter is higher in much of Europe, though similar quality is produced in the US if you want it.
Bread is largely done better in the US in 2020. There was a time when that was most assuredly not the case, but it seems to be consistently the case today. I spend a large part of my life in Europe and the bread quality is not what I am used to in Seattle. Similar bread experiences exist in many other parts of the US. American bread has become remarkably good over the last few decades.
It can vary a fair bit, but I agree. Some places in the PNW get river water that is great, but then there's Portland, which draws from Bull Run, and that's really some great water right there.
For cheese produced on industrial scale, we even have a good source for that -- Tillamook cheese is pretty good.
If we're going to talk about the quality of river water then we should let Mark Twain have his say (from Life on the Mississippi):
"...and then they got to talking about differences betwixt ...clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The man they called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to drink than the clear water of the Ohio; he said if you let a pint of this yaller Mississippi water settle, you would have about a half to three- quarters of an inch of mud in the bottom, according to the stage of the river, and then it warn't no better than Ohio water - what you wanted to do was to keep it stirred up - and when the river was low, keep mud on hand to put in and thicken the water up the way it ought to be.
The Child of Calamity said that was so; he said there was nutritiousness in the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water could grow corn in his stomach if he wanted to. He says:
"You look at the graveyards; that tells the tale. Trees won't grow worth shucks in a Cincinnati graveyard, but in a Sent Louis graveyard they grow upwards of eight hundred foot high. It's all on account of the water the people drunk before they laid up. A Cincinnati corpse don't richen a soil any."
And they talked about how Ohio water didn't like to mix with Mississippi water. Ed said if you take the Mississippi on a rise when the Ohio is low, you'll find a wide band of clear water all the way down the east side of the Mississippi for a hundred mile or more, and the minute you get out a quarter of a mile from shore and pass the line, it is all thick and yaller the rest of the way across."
The Bay Area is a mixed bag for tap water. Some of the East Bay has great tap water, while head down to San Jose and you can only get worse by driving much farther south.
I've lived in both the PNW and the Bay Area and I can't tell the difference between the water in each location. It's great in both locations (north bay, SF proper, or peninsula). I won't speak to the south bay though
Having spent some time in Arizona, that's a place where the water quality and taste is horrible.
You bay area folks don't know how good you have it.
You're conflating a lot of things with sweeping generalizations. And, I've lived in CA for 40+ years, and know where the proverbial bodies are buried.
Bread, milk, cheese, and butter vary a lot, depending on where you get it and how it was produced. If you're lazy and only go to a corporate, generic supermarket, you're likely to only be able to buy inferior products or marginally-good products at high prices. If you go to farmers' markets, specialty, independent, Italian grocers, and other quality stores, you will have much better choices of superior products.
Tap water in California ranges from acceptable to terrible. Sacramento and Davis are notoriously bad with very high mineral content (hardness). An ion exchange water softener is a luxury in some areas and essential in others. Also, a multi-stage carbon + RO filter is a requirement for drinking water anywhere due to chemicals including chloramines. Another common improvement is a whole-house carbon block filter to catch chloramines that can damage RO membranes and produce undesirable odors at all water use points.
Rice from California should be avoided because it contains arsenic from the soil composition. As I don't completely trust the coffeemaker rice cooking method, it's better to get rice that's safer to consume in the first place.
Thanks for explaining my point, this is what I mean indeed. When I go to the super market and buy a random bread I can be rest assured it's of ok quality. When I go and buy a random bread in SF, I can be rest assured that it's sweet.
To get anything acceptable, I had to buy higher quality stuff in SF (like French bread or imported cheese).
Generic supermarkets in the US often have widely varying product quality in the same store. For instance, you can buy various types of "parmesan", US made or ersatz or Kraft or whatever, probably some of it's sawdust, but every place I've been to also has genuine and expensive parmigiano reggiano, as well as US made parmesan that's aged and relatively good quality.
Even specific brands will have different prices and quality, like for example the deli/produce section often has products sold by irregular weight that are better than the standardized packages elsewhere in the store.
The tap water comment surprises me - I've found SF water to be quite good, presumably due to its (major) source in Hetch Hetchy [1]. This does not apply to other nearby cities, e.g. East Bay.
Were you actually in SF? I moved here from Southern California, and the tap water in both apartments I've lived in has been extremely drinkable straight out of the tap. No chlorine or mineral taste at all. I'd go so far as to compare it to NYC tap water.
I was in downtown SF and also had the same experience in San Mateo. The water dispensed at the airport is also pretty vile, after a transatlantic flight when the chlorine had time to disperse it actually smells like swamp water.
I don't know then...everyone I've ever discussed it with has praised SF water. I'm really sensitive to the taste & smell of chlorine and minerals too. I don't know what could be responsible for the difference that you experienced.
I could taste too much earth in it. When I would look at some of people their own made filtering systems I'd see a lot of earth as well. The fact that you need a filtering system at all was a bit of a culture shock. I've seen exactly one family with a filtering system in my country and found it tough to taste any difference.
The only exception to this is water from the taps in Yosemite Park. That was amazing water.
The tap water in NYC is amazing. In two of the buildings I lived in there it was also the coldest tap water I’ve ever had.
I sometimes make butter from raw milk, which available in h th he state I live in now. It is very good. Most of the time I just keep finlandia or kerrygold around. I cook with Cabot butter.
New York City is very lucky in regards to its water supply, it mostly comes from the Catskills Mountains in upstate New York. They don't even have to filter it.
Bread...? Tartine, Acme, Semifreddi’s are all fantastic and highly available in SF. The Bay Area, kicked off by Chez Panisse unsurprisingly, has developed a great bread culture
If you like Tartine, you’ll probably like “the midwife and the baker”. For me, it’s a close call between the two (depends on the specific variety). You can get their stuff at some stores/farmers markets and the bakery itself in Mountain View (no storefront yet).
Manresa is good too. But I find something missing from them vs the other two bakeries (nitpicking here though).
Tartine's bread is good. Their ham and cheese croissant is next level by far the best savoury baked good I have had between Europe and North America. Every time I go back to have it I question if it can live up to my expectations. Every time it knocks them out of the park. I am already doubting that it will be that good when I go back to get it again...
I used to live in France and am now in the Bay Area. Here are a few products I like:
- Milk: Straus non-homogenized organic whole milk
- Butter: Kerrygold salted
- Bread: Costco walnut raisin
Have you tried these already? They're fairly easy to find and won't cost an arm and a leg. If they're not good enough, there's fancier stuff available, such as Rodolphe Le Meunier butter, or Backhaus bakery in San Mateo which makes great pains au chocolat.
Cheese is still way behind for sure. There's too much variety and catching up will take decades. Local creameries seem mostly interested in making triple crème variations and establishing their brand. I'm sure some of them will be very successful this way, but from a consumer's perspective I don't think it will work out as well quality- and cost-wise as the French model of buying unbranded cheese from a specialized shop that hand-picks their regional suppliers.
Another vote for Straus milk and Kerrygold butter. Regarding Straus, the difference between it and the second best is vast, for me. Nothing comes close.
>>> Presuming that SF is representative for the US, then IMO: tap water, milk, butter, bread and cheese in the US isn't that great.
For one, SF is NOT representative of the US. In fact, one of the best places food-wise.
However, of the five items you've listed, I'd agree with you on about 4.5. The SF's sourdough can compete with any sourdough, but an average village bakery in Europe beats it hands down on other varieties.
The thing with bread in Europe is that, in many countries, you can get quite good bread at a random cafe or shop at a train station selling sandwiches. You can get extremely good bread in the US but you have to seek it out and I'm pretty sure it gets harder once you get out of major cities, especially on the coasts.
Tap water varies by location, but also significantly by season.
At least in the Northeast, the all the accumulated detritus (e.g. dog feces) from the winter gets flushed into the reservoirs in the spring, and the water districts tend to spike the chlorine levels to sterilize the higher bacterial loads.
Apart from that, in NYC, we have three main reservoir systems, each with their own cleanliness and taste. When one is being worked on, the water taste can change significantly.
I live in Ames, IA (technically next town over now), and we have excellent tap water. To the point that someone created a website [1] to sell hats and shirts and such that just say "Ames Tap Water". It is objectively very good water.
Tap water I can see assigning a city value to but milk and butter have so much brand variation from your corner store, to big box grocer, to farmers market that I fail to see how such a city wide generalization can be accurate.
Many people regard SF as above average in water and bread. Water comes from Hetch Hetchy [1] and many of the regions best bakers are in SF, such as Acme [2].
A long history with sourdough (hence Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis, even though it didn't originate in California), and more recently a strong network of bakers and bakeries branching out from Chez Panisse starting in the 70's as noted in another comment.
Far, far, better for bread and cheese at least. Which I suspect means you haven't found where those are? (Cheeseboard in Berkeley, Cowgirl Creamery in the Ferry Building, Acme bread, Tartine as previously mentioned - some of these closed at the moment of course)
[I'm a cheese and bread snob from Switzerland FWIW - I could be somewhat convinced that the wholewheat bread choices are not perfect though]
On the other end of the scale, when I grew up in Korea our cheese tasted like congealed mayo with food coloring, and our "ham" was made of ground fish and flour. I didn't know the taste of an actual ham until I went to America for studying.
These days I think it's not as bad, though Korea's major beer brands are still all shit.
Interesting that they save on ham by using fish! In Germany & Austria it's the opposite, pork is super cheap and fish is expensive (they don't use ground pork to fake fish products tho).
The US produces some truly fabulous butter but you may not have had it. Industrial economy grade butter in the US can be quite poor, I don't like that either.
That seems to be a common theme with all food in the US. The stuff normal people get in the supermarket is absolutely terrible, but there are some _artisan_ manufacturers that are actually good compared to the stuff from other countries.
Which is pretty much my point, people get exposed to the low quality of the supermarkets in the U.S and think "I don't like that stuff" and as a consequence never try for the top quality.
It is a marketing problem. I think that Alton Brown did wonders with promoting US artisanal products. On Good Eats he often pitched small high quality producers of various ingredients.
I think it’s cultural. Based on the lack of popularity of quality foods, I would say a large portion of people don’t care or can’t afford to care about cooking or high quality food.
Although, that has changed a little bit in the last decade or so with “foodies” and taking pictures of your food/cooking becoming a thing.
I remember being a kid, and going out to restaurants was not something we looked forward to as American restaurants were bland tasting with garlic (probably powdered crap) being the most exotic spice in the restaurant’s ingredients. Maybe it was different for richer people or in SF/NYC.
And I will never understand the appeal of a diner.
Yeah, industry grade food in the US seems to generally have worse quality than industry grade food in Europe. But if you buy expensive stuff you can find high quality food almost everywhere.
That’s the same problem we have with beer. Why can’t we make decent industrial grade beer? I don’t want to drink a triple hopped chamomile infused artisanal IPA, I just want Budweiser not to suck so bad.
What? No it isn't, it's bog standard commodity butter. (UK)
It's marginally cheaper than Président, (3p/100g) and marginally more expensive than Country Life (5p/100g) on Ocado. Perhaps a better benchmark - Waitrose's own essentials one is 13p/100g cheaper, and Waitrose's 'Duchy Organic' is 1p/100g more expensive. i.e. it's in the range of everyday butters that people buy the same brand of every time because that's what they buy every time (because that's what they ...).
Lurpak is pretty good for supermarket butter. But at least in Aus you can easily get more artisanal butter at the local deli or whatever. Pepe Saya is popular.
I've had the same experience, but at home we usually had margarine or some other cheap butter replacement. My girlfriend insisted on getting real, salted butter and I have a newfound appreciation for it now.
