(Pictured above, from top to bottom: Bread on Rack, 2017. L holds Bread for Viewing Purposes, 2017. Meal Spread with Bread in Foreground, 2017. All those mentioned/interviewed have been made anonymous for privacy reasons)

We had our first bread-event! 5 volunteers ate this bread with their meal and offered criticism. Our host, R, was kind enough to make a chili as well as some fantastic guac. P, also host, contributed some nice cheddar (available at Lidl this week!). I took their thoughts into account while writing my evaluation. At the next event, each volunteer will complete a written survey: email me if you want to be included!!

Name: Great name, very accurate, direct and straightforward, really gets the message across. Couldn’t ask for a better name really.

Eaten with: Chili (vegetarian), later also olive oil + salt

Price: 1.19 but a very large loaf! Great for events where can be eaten all at once, because I’m not sure how long it would last in the fridge/kitchen.

Packaging: none! Taken right off the rack in Lidl.

Appearance: Everyone agreed that this bread looks really, really good. Light brown, dusted with flour. Natural-seeming ridges on top, Smooth feel inside. No real holes in the bread (I’m told bread with lots of holes in it is a sign of high-quality???). Looks almost exactly like the “Roggenbrot” on the shelf below in a suspicious way.

Taste: Sour, a bit doughy? Rather plain? Perhaps missing something? Salt? Didn’t really feel like the bread could assert itself over the chili or even the olive oil.

Other attributes: This bread comes unsliced, meaning you can slice yourself and really get the feel you want. Great for sharing because each person can cut their slice according to their needs. Pretty thick as a bread, good for sopping up sauce but, again, felt was overpowered by the chili’s spice. Really would recommend eating this bread warm or partially toasted, as the flavor definitely came out more with the heat. It toasts evenly and the crust gets extra crusty when toasted. You can eat a lot of this bread.

Overall rating: 5/10

Price: 69 cents!

eaten with: avocado, later cheese, then with avocado again, then cheese again- several samples before the review

good for: cheap toast!

bad for: looking at. Stick to the eating.

qualities: actually such a great toast bread!! Wide, flat, thin, overall just a great toast shape and texture. It really fries / crisps up when toasted, especially on the edges, which is really nice. I love a toast that’s a bit hard to chew; after enough toasting, this bread really delivers in that category. Although maybe that’s more a comment on the nature of toast.

Haven’t yet had the nerve to eat this bread untoasted; just based on appearance, I feel a bit freaked out by that possibility. It is a somewhat grey-ish brown color, not the most reassuring of appearances. Also oily.

In terms of taste, we’re talking sweet. The package claims a nutty taste but I deeply disagree with that evaluation.

Environment/packaging: Thin, milky clear plastic bag. Incidentally, the bread on the packaging looks absolutely nothing like the bread in the bag. Also not sure I understand the purpose of putting an image of bread on a bag that you can easily look through to see the actual, ~real~, bread? And then who chose this clownish red / tan/ orange color scheme? I guess if you are selling a bread for 69 cents maybe you’re not putting that much effort into appearances.

The package also claims “Carefully chosen ingredients” which is a bit frustrating because I was just starting to really like this bread, and then they came out with this obvious lie, and now I’m skeptical of the entire bread project. Also, how much selection goes into bread ingredients? It seems there are like a few things you always have to throw in to make bread be bread, so selection might not play too much of a role there. It seems like they just really wanted to have something positive to put on the package. Just wish they had gone in another direction with that.

Overall rating: 6.25 out of 10. Really impressed with the toast quality to price ratio. Not convinced by taste but it’s unobtrusive enough to not be a huge factor. All in all, a great bread for those cheap-toast weeks.