NL vs. DE: Flour
Friday 21 August 2009 at 06:26 am One of the things that can tell you a lot about different cultures is a view into a typical supermarket. Today's topic is flour. Every once in a while I like to do some baking and currently I am experimenting with different types of breads. Breads, as you may know, require all sorts of different types of flour and German recipes are very specific. For example, there isn't just one type of "white" flour, there is a number system that tells you how finely the flour was ground. For example, I use three different kinds: Type 405 (quite fine, good for cakes), 550 (my standard for bread), 1050 (often to be mixed with 550 to make a more diverse bread dough), and then whole wheat (1600). Then of course there are different types of rye flour, spelt, corn, organic and non-organic types, etc. Hence, a typical supermarket flour shelf looks like this one:
It's a little hard to see but the whole range of flour being sold here didn't even fit into one image and there are more flours to the left. Also there are a number of different companies selling different brands here - you can see this by the color on the packaging. Nevertheless, there are all the ones I named above and more to be seen in this picture.
Now let's look at the Dutch equivalent from a typical supermarket:
I marked the flour in the picture with a green circle. In this image you see white flour, white flour with baking powder, whole wheat flour, corn flour, and flour mixes for bread. Everything above that shelf are baking mixes for everything from pancakes to cakes, muffins, waffles, & breads. I must admit, though, that the size of the shelf with baking mixes is about the same size as in the German supermarket I went to (and much bigger than at Safeway in Canada) but this seems to be a trend in our supermarket. The amount of pre-made, read-to-cook food is quite remarkable. Now, I don't know if this is Dutch thing in general or if it's just a sign of us living in a city mostly inhabited by students, but it's quite noticable that few meals or baked goods here seem to be made from scratch.
