I only have anecdotal evidence that a few decades ago, people from Eastern Europe who visited USA complained that it was impossible to buy a non-sweet bread in an ordinary supermarket (if you really wanted some, you had to visit some ethnic food shop), but recently I have heard that ordinary supermarkets now also contain non-sweet bread.
(Low N. Maybe only applies to some parts of USA. Also, it is possible that both are true: supermarkets may have introduced a non-sweet bread as a special option, while increasing the amount of sugar in the average bread.)
Here in New York City, it is trivially easy to buy all sorts of non-sweet bread in pretty much any supermarket or grocery store. (Not necessarily in bodegas, though.)
In Germany, with the exception of things like raisin bread, which is more like a cake, really, sugar simply does not go in bread, period. (And I personally make my raisin bread without, after all, it already has raisins in it.) Maybe a third of a teaspoon to start the yeast, which then gets eaten up entirely, but that is that. It isn’t that it is possible to avoid it, it is that is seems ludicrous to find it. I remember the first time I had American bread and being deeply weirded out because it tasted sweet at all. It was as odd as being told that, I don’t know, Americans add vanilla or cinnamon to all of their bread. It is just weird and does not belong there.
And not just bread, there are so many dishes where Americans add sugar and it is just weird to me. Pickles should not contain sugar; they should taste sour from the natural fermentation, not sweet. Ketchup does not need added sugar; the tomatoes are already sweet. Juice does not need added sugar, it is incredibly sweet and should be diluted heavily with water before drinking. Balsamico vinegar does not need added sugar, it already contains grape must. Bitter chocolate should not contain sugar; it is supposed to be bitter, and for the sweetness, you have cocoa butter and vanilla.
And even in dishes where I would add sugar (or rather, sweetener) myself, the sheer quantity in American dishes is baffling to me. Be it lemonade or cake or cookies, I find American dishes almost sickly sweet. I once got an American baking book, and eventually realised I loved all the recipes if I literally halved the sugar, but found them inedible beforehand. Not just a health concern either, there are protein bars or protein shakes or meal replacement shakes or diet candy things which use calorie free sugar replacements, and I still find them ghastly sweet.
Horribly, these changes are beginning to drift over to Europe, and people are getting used to them. Glad we are countering it with a sugar tax, highlighting it in the nutrient index, and forcing people to declare added sugars.
Juice, as far as I know, does not tend to have sugar added to it. Where have you seen this?
The history of American ketchup, and the chain of events that led to it ending up with the ingredients that it has—including its sugar content—is fascinating, in fact. (As usual, it’s as much a story of technology, economics, and regulatory politics as it is of culinary art.)
As for chocolate: cocoa butter and vanilla are not sweet. (And chocolate-containing foods definitely need not include vanilla!)
Furthermore, chocolate tends to be labeled “bittersweet” (and not just “bitter”), as well as “semi-sweet” for a reason. There are also different grades of it. “Unsweetened” chocolate exists as well, and is available here along with the other sorts.
All of these forms of chocolate have their distinct culinary uses; they are not seamlessly replaceable with one another. You can do substitutions, but only to an extent; and recipe adjustments are needed in such cases.
One thing that few people realize (and this applies to much more than just chocolate) is that sugar plays a greater role in baking chemistry than merely providing the gustatory experience of sweetness; it also affects texture, rise, moistness, etc. In the case of almost all baked goods, you cannot simply adjust the amount of chocolate without changing more than just how sweet the final product is. (Even baking times may be affected by sugar content!)
And even in dishes where I would add sugar (or rather, sweetener) myself, the sheer quantity in American dishes is baffling to me. Be it lemonade or cake or cookies, I find American dishes almost sickly sweet.
This is very true.
I once got an American baking book, and eventually realised I loved all the recipes if I literally halved the sugar, but found them inedible beforehand.
This varies considerably between cookbook authors. (I have noted in particular that, e.g., Stella Parks tends to overload her recipes with sugar—indeed, often ending up with double what I’d find reasonable—while Christopher Kimball’s recipes have sugar amounts that tend to be almost exactly what I’d find ideal. I suspect this has something to do with their backgrounds—Parks is from Kentucky, while Kimball is from New York / Vermont—and hints at a general pattern of regional variation, within the United States, in how much sugar tends to be added to foods of all sorts.)
Isn’t this reverting in recent decades?
I only have anecdotal evidence that a few decades ago, people from Eastern Europe who visited USA complained that it was impossible to buy a non-sweet bread in an ordinary supermarket (if you really wanted some, you had to visit some ethnic food shop), but recently I have heard that ordinary supermarkets now also contain non-sweet bread.
(Low N. Maybe only applies to some parts of USA. Also, it is possible that both are true: supermarkets may have introduced a non-sweet bread as a special option, while increasing the amount of sugar in the average bread.)
Here in New York City, it is trivially easy to buy all sorts of non-sweet bread in pretty much any supermarket or grocery store. (Not necessarily in bodegas, though.)
In Germany, with the exception of things like raisin bread, which is more like a cake, really, sugar simply does not go in bread, period. (And I personally make my raisin bread without, after all, it already has raisins in it.) Maybe a third of a teaspoon to start the yeast, which then gets eaten up entirely, but that is that. It isn’t that it is possible to avoid it, it is that is seems ludicrous to find it. I remember the first time I had American bread and being deeply weirded out because it tasted sweet at all. It was as odd as being told that, I don’t know, Americans add vanilla or cinnamon to all of their bread. It is just weird and does not belong there.
And not just bread, there are so many dishes where Americans add sugar and it is just weird to me. Pickles should not contain sugar; they should taste sour from the natural fermentation, not sweet. Ketchup does not need added sugar; the tomatoes are already sweet. Juice does not need added sugar, it is incredibly sweet and should be diluted heavily with water before drinking. Balsamico vinegar does not need added sugar, it already contains grape must. Bitter chocolate should not contain sugar; it is supposed to be bitter, and for the sweetness, you have cocoa butter and vanilla.
And even in dishes where I would add sugar (or rather, sweetener) myself, the sheer quantity in American dishes is baffling to me. Be it lemonade or cake or cookies, I find American dishes almost sickly sweet. I once got an American baking book, and eventually realised I loved all the recipes if I literally halved the sugar, but found them inedible beforehand. Not just a health concern either, there are protein bars or protein shakes or meal replacement shakes or diet candy things which use calorie free sugar replacements, and I still find them ghastly sweet.
Horribly, these changes are beginning to drift over to Europe, and people are getting used to them. Glad we are countering it with a sugar tax, highlighting it in the nutrient index, and forcing people to declare added sugars.
Juice, as far as I know, does not tend to have sugar added to it. Where have you seen this?
The history of American ketchup, and the chain of events that led to it ending up with the ingredients that it has—including its sugar content—is fascinating, in fact. (As usual, it’s as much a story of technology, economics, and regulatory politics as it is of culinary art.)
As for chocolate: cocoa butter and vanilla are not sweet. (And chocolate-containing foods definitely need not include vanilla!)
Furthermore, chocolate tends to be labeled “bittersweet” (and not just “bitter”), as well as “semi-sweet” for a reason. There are also different grades of it. “Unsweetened” chocolate exists as well, and is available here along with the other sorts.
All of these forms of chocolate have their distinct culinary uses; they are not seamlessly replaceable with one another. You can do substitutions, but only to an extent; and recipe adjustments are needed in such cases.
One thing that few people realize (and this applies to much more than just chocolate) is that sugar plays a greater role in baking chemistry than merely providing the gustatory experience of sweetness; it also affects texture, rise, moistness, etc. In the case of almost all baked goods, you cannot simply adjust the amount of chocolate without changing more than just how sweet the final product is. (Even baking times may be affected by sugar content!)
This is very true.
This varies considerably between cookbook authors. (I have noted in particular that, e.g., Stella Parks tends to overload her recipes with sugar—indeed, often ending up with double what I’d find reasonable—while Christopher Kimball’s recipes have sugar amounts that tend to be almost exactly what I’d find ideal. I suspect this has something to do with their backgrounds—Parks is from Kentucky, while Kimball is from New York / Vermont—and hints at a general pattern of regional variation, within the United States, in how much sugar tends to be added to foods of all sorts.)