Bread in Austria normally comes unsliced. We have a big honking serrated bread knife in our kitchen, and I am the only one in the family who can cut normal-looking slices with it.
The most common exceptions are “Toastbrot” (looks like square, white bread) and tramezzini bread, which looks roughly like toastbrot without the crust.
You can get sliced dark bread, but it’s fairly uncommon.
Bread is my favorite food. The question that I have to face whenever I come up against the business end of a bread knife is: Do I really want to limit myself to a normal looking slice or do I want a big honking hunk?
It’s true – at least when you bake your own or get some from a good bakery. Who wants a normal old slice? Clearly one wants hot buttered hunks. (ahem)
But who would ever want a hunk of the crap that we buy presliced?
When we came home from being away for two weeks, there was half a loaf of bread in the fridge, the kind that pretends to be real bread but is really breadfoodproduct. Oh sure, it’s full of seedy goodness and protein and everything, but IT WAS STILL SOFT AND FRESH when I opened it. It creeped me out. But we ate it.