Germany is known for a lot of things, and in the food sector this means beer, beer, followed by beer and then Brot (bread) and Wurst (sausage). 

Even though beer is said to be liquid bread, today’s post is about the sort of bread you can slice with your knife. 

In most countries if you talk about bread you are talking about something like this, a white, soft, dry sort of grain product.

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2013/01/08/01/49/toast-74375_960_720.jpg
[pic CC0](https://pixabay.com/de/toastbrot-toast-wei%C3%9Fbrot-74375/)

In Germany we say this is toastbread and won’t touch it until we have finished baking it in the toaster. 

In Germany there are literally thousands of types of bread. But a lot have been lost in the last decades with the supermarkets and discounters starting to offer “freshly baked bread” (no, it’s not, as with toastbread it was half-baked in a factory far away and you just give it the last heat), which made a lot of bakers close their shops. 
Germans still say they prefer the bread from the baker, but since they are in the supermarket already and it costs only half the money...
Interestingly there is no picture of a supermarket bread shelf on Pixabay. I think that may be an unconscious guilt at work here in the photographers. 
But back to: 

## The thousands of types of bread. 

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/08/12/15/21/bread-1588904_960_720.jpg
[pic CC0](https://pixabay.com/de/brot-lebensmittel-k%C3%B6rniges-brot-1588904/)

First differences are in the form of the bread: You can bake them small or big, round, oval, high, low, like a square or like a strange brick called Kastenbrot. 

Then it is important what flour you take. Wheat type 550 is taken for white bread while type 1050 is the basis for every other type. The “glue” in it is needed for the bread to hold together. 
But if you have at least one third of “glue” flour you can add any other type of flour you want. Rye is very widespread. Sometimes you find spelt bread where the spelt is either added or replaces the wheat. 
Then every breads needs water, a bit of salt and sugar and of course yeast. Never forget the yeast. Trust me. There are cheaper ways to get bricks for your house. 

Some Germans (including me) also love to add grains to their bread. You can eat bread with sesame,  sunflower seeds, linseed and much more. You can even eat bread with added potato or carrot. 
The more meat-centered US citizens on their bases here do prefer bread with added meat though. 

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2014/04/26/20/40/mastomys-332686_960_720.jpg
[pic CC0](https://pixabay.com/de/vielzitzenm%C3%A4use-m%C3%A4use-nager-332686/)


## A typical German Bread day

When a German wakes up and has done all the usual things in the bathroom, the mind wanders to the important question on what to eat. 
Two thirds prefer hearty stuff like salami and other sausages while one third (like me) cannot stuff that stuff in the morning and put marmalade and other sweets on their bread. 

Which bread?

Again there is no definite answer, but maybe because there is a “sweet” in every family the morning is *the*  time for white bread. 
White bread is a bit like toastbread. But instead of being soft, dry and without any harder shell it is even more soft, less dry, sweet tasting and sports a crunching outer shell. Literally just thinking about super-fresh white bread makes me drool. Give me a moment to dry my mouth, please. You can meditate on a picture of such a bread in the time.

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/02/29/14/48/wheat-bread-1228602_960_720.jpg
[pic CC0](https://pixabay.com/de/weizenbrot-brot-nahrungsmittel-1228602/) 

I am back!

Are you hungry?
That happens to a lot of people I have heard, especially in the middle of the day where we Germans traditionally have our warm main meal. But often the work makes it hard to get your hands on a good warm meal. Even if you would have the time, going to a restaurant every day is prohibitively expensive. We are not all multi-millionaires after all. 

But the German is ingenious. He is inventive. He loves sausage and bread and *of course* has made a combination of that a staple of his lunch time. 
Open your eyes to the wonderful, nay heavenly Bratwurst!

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2015/03/23/09/02/sausage-685772_960_720.jpg
[pic CC0](https://pixabay.com/de/wurst-senf-lebensmittel-essen-685772/)

Ah, drooling again!
That meal called “Bratwurst” is also an example of the beauty of German language. 

First you have the part that gives the meal the name: the grilled (Brat-) sausage (-Wurst).

Then the Brötchen. Brötchen literally means small bread. -chen and -lein make all things small (-chen und -lein machen alle Dinge klein!) is what we learn in kindergarten. 

Last part in the trio is the mustard. We wouldn’t be Germans if we would not be able to bicker about our favorite food, so we have two names for mustard: Mostrich and Senf. 
Which one is the correct name is something you, as a foreigner, should carefully avoid to guess. Just say what the person in front of you in the line at the “Bratwurstbude” has said if he was not corrected by the seller with a sentence like “But this is called Mostrich, not Senf!”

And then you finally are able to eat the ultimate German snack: A fantastic fresh bun, giving a slight sweet and crunch to the final product, combined with the grilling aroma of the meaty hot Wurst and the spicy taste of the mustard!

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/12/01/12/55/siegessaule-1875215_960_720.jpg
[pic CC0](https://pixabay.com/de/siegess%C3%A4ule-berlin-hauptstadt-1875215/)


Last but not least the German eats bread in the evening. Of course. Here the trend is towards the heavier, darker breads and not much sweets. There is no way you could have your evening meal without bread. 
Sliced sausage or cheese are the things we normally put on the buttered loaf of bread. 

 
**What is a “typical” dish in your country? Do you like bread?**



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