You've seen the French sauntering around with slender baguettes under their arms or sporting jaunty berets as they pedal bicycles laden with crusty bread.
Those cinematic scenes are nice, but when you really get down to business -- as my countrymen are inclined to do -- it's obvious that the world's best bread comes from Germany. Here, bread literally sustains our culture.
Germans have more bakeries and eat more varieties of bread than most other countries in the world (although we might not go toe-to-toe with France on the bakery count).
According to the bread register of the German Institute for Bread (of course there is such a thing), there are now more than 3,200 officially recognized types of bread in the country. And German bread culture was officially added by UNESCO to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2015.
A key German term rests upon those hearty loaves: one of the words for work is Broterwerb, literally "gaining one's bread."
Bread is a staple for most meals in Germany: at breakfast, break-time (sometimes called Pausenbrot, or "break bread") and dinner or Abendbrot, literally the "bread of the evening."
"It sells like sliced bread" is a German proverb describing fast-selling items.
Bread even stars on TV: a talking loaf named Bernd has become a popular character among German children. The comedy series "Bernd das Brot." hosted by the titular character, has been airing on the children's channel KI.KA since 2000.
Oh, and the German postal system even has a stamp with a "German bread culture" slogan that went on sale in 2018.
So why are Germans so mad about loafs, pretzels and rolls?
