American Toast

We finally bought a toaster. I know this doesn't seem like a big deal, but we hadn't had toast since mid-July. Bob's parents don't own a toaster, so for the two weeks we lived there, between the packing of our container and our flying out of O'Hare, we didn't have toast. And the temporary apartment we were in had a coffee maker but no toaster. When we finally moved into our place, we decided to wait till our kitchen was installed (another story for another day) before buying small appliances (except for a coffee maker--we needed coffee from our first day of arrival).

Seeing my family eat toast, one would think that toasted white bread was an American delicacy. We ate a whole loaf of bread the first day I brought the toaster home.

White bread is not popular in Germany. The Backereien (bakeries) make so many different breads, including Italian ciabatta and French baguettes, that there seems to be no need for basic white bread. But you can buy it in the supermarkets, and it is called "American Toast Bread." It's basically the same as Wonder Bread, except that it gets moldy the day after the expiration date. I once kept a loaf of Wonder Bread for a month after the expiration date, and it still had no mold.

We've also discovered that Aldi (yes, the same as in the US) sells American-style bacon. German bacon, or Speck, is more like prosciutto than what we would call bacon, so it's nice to have our eggs with toast and bacon again.