Why is there no really good bread in india?

crvlvr

Martin (you don't deserve the "ji") Are you suggesting that that Indian consumer is any dumber than his western counterpart?

Martinji

Obviously not! I just have to look around myself:-)
I am just sad that also india falls for it!
please kindly add the ji again, thanks!

adunut

I agree with Martinji on this. A retail store bread is unedible. Most of the regular bakeries are also sub standard. If you do happen to be in Hyderabad one bakery to try would be the one in QMart in Banjara Hills.

unclelach

For several years there was an excellent cafe in Palolem named "Brown Bread". The cafe's success arose from satisfying visitors' cravings for north european style bread.

I suspect the place has gone or changed it's name and I haven't been back to check. If somebody knows if there is still such a place in Palolem please post here.

From a search on flickr, there is now a "German Bakery". May be the old place renamed?

abracax

They make wonderful home-made bread every day at Mojo Plantation (Rainforest Retreat). India has all the ingredients - ragi bread is fabulous - but most Indians just can't be arsed to wait for the yeasty beasties to do their work. Then again, you can't beat a nice paratha....

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mairangi_vice

The problem with mass produced indian bread is that they add too much sugar and use high sugar yeast, resulting in bread that is dense and sweet by western standards. This is what many indians want though as it is often treated as a 'sweet' to oppose the indian style breads.

The best bread I have found is from either a shop in the foodcourt at inorbit mall in Mumbai, or from the new french bakery on ttk road here in Chennai. The quality of both places is equal to what you would get in the supermarket back home, and much more expensive.

nayan

Bread is treated as a short-cut convenience breakfast item, to be eaten with butter or jam. Its never used as a part of lunch or dinner. So I guess people are not very particular about the taste.
there is a growing demand for brown bread/wholegrain bread in the metroes these days fueled by yuppies. Breadtalk - inside Q-mart in hyderabad sells nice(and very expensive)breads.
Anyway..... give me a chapatti anyday.... hot from the tawa... puffed up with hot air.....(craving for lunch already)

puchoo

There are a few bakeries , some know some not which are pretty good and might just have stuff that you are looking for...


for me personally i love the bread we get here and really dont crave for much more. It is essentially used as a breakfast item and once in a while maybe for dinner...in which case , more often than not, its garlic bread which is the requirement which my wife makes at home..

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vinayverma

No doubt there is a growing demand for whole wheat, whole grain, multi grain etc 'healthy' breads in India.
I also agree with Opoponax that India is primarily a Indian bread eating country.
I remember 12-13 years back going to my fav neighbourhood bakery run by mother and daughter team in heart of Jorbagh selling breads in brown paper bags which looked strange (not white). when I asked her, she said it is a whole wheat bread made of wheat flour and not maida (which makes the white bread). I went 'oh its like lot of rotis in a bag which can be stored for few days '. Also in Hindi breads are also called 'double roti' why? maybe it is meant to be eaten two slices at a time with something between the two slices.
I have been eating whole wheat breads since last 7-8 years now and I never got them from a super market or from a mass producing brands cause there was no mass market to get these big players interested. It was always from small tucked away, niche little know secret place in town.
I remember people driving 40 minutes one way to get to my neighbourhood bakery to buy these healthy breads.
So the demand was always there but not big enough to have these available through a well oiled distribution system to retail outlets, stores etc.
Then resurgence of ayurvedic/organic food and new age yoga gurus who all spoke against the breads, fast food and colas. Result, either people reduced eating white breads or started looking at healthy alternatives. I saw my local bakery starting to make breads like Daliya bread, Soya Bread, Rayee Bread, Ragi mix bread, Multi grain bread with Gram flour etc. which I've not found in any of the western cities. so again while people in metro went healthy but not the way towards traditional western whole grain breads.
These breads again were produced by niche bakeries in metros and priced much above any mass produced white breads.
Then few years back one of the popular brands of bread came out with Brown bread (stone grinded wheat bread with more fibre etc..)at the price shade above the white bread price. It ran advertisements across popular dailies and people took the bait. Soon other rival brands launched their own versions of 'brown bread'. Still in many restaurants/cafes one can find the guy at the counter asking 'white bread ot brown bread?'.
This grew in popularity as many those who could not afford highly priced healthy breads from bakeries were able to get a 'healthy brown bread' packet from the nearby store. but it sucked and I'm sure even if it was healthier than the white one, it was far from those being produced by the local bakeries which during this time had grown many fold.
last month again one the leading brands in North India has launched variety of healthy breads with 'No sugar' which are Daliya Bread, Soya Bread, Multi grain bread etc. Surely this was done looking at the popularity of these local bakeries in offering these.
Again I'm sure, they'll never be as good as these bakeries and the old timers, early adopters etc will not move to buy these off the self from a store but what this may do is increase the health awareness and increase the market for 'healthy breads'.

All said, I still think that the market for these healthy, whole grain breads are not very big to justify a mass production while maintaining the quality, taste etc and price. Looking at a normal upper middle class house in a metro (I guess North and west of India are more bread eaters than in south) they still have bread as breakfast for no more than 3-4 times a week other days its more of an Indian breakfast (healthy or not, noone cares much).
Setting up something for catering to tourists would be a difficult task as many Indians in metros, donot venture into a typical touristy areas to eat and with tourist population varying with the season, steady revenue generation could be a challenge.

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snonymous

Have you tried City Bakery at Prabhadevi in Mumbai. Their breads are superb especially the unsliced wholewheat loaf [in many shapes], the only authentic croissants, range of danish pastries, and the ubiquitous but excellent Mumbai "PAO" which can give the finest Italian ciabatta a good run for its money. They also do a very good chocolate donut.

Having said that, I agree that by and large, India does not know how to make proper bread. We do however make excellent cakes and biscuits - our eggless cakes and biscuits are as good as any "egg" products, for this you have to sample Ovenpicks eggless chocolate and Dutch chocolate truffle cakes. Ovenpick outlets are in several locations in Mumbai.

All the bakeries in Ooty make the finest flakiest puff pastry ever, their puffs and butter biscuits are yummy.

Here Im trying to shed some weight and all this bakery talk makes me hungry.

htid

Martinji, my girlfriend is German so I am in Germany quite often, and to be honest German bread is hardly the best thing ever itself As much as I like Germany, the food (especially the brea) just can't compared to Indian food!

AvidTrekker

Some very good international quality breads are available at The Bake House at Kemp's Corner.

Anyone tried these out?

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alexvisentin

You probably haven't been to Italy,where bread is equal if not better than french baguette, as far as wine is concerned it is quite astonishing what you say.American wine(especially californian) is almost all oaked and certainly a far cry from french, italian a i would add new zealand wine.There is some decent white wine in germany too.

Dilliwala

Refined rice, refined sugar, all imported ideas - from the West.

Mussoorie/Landour, Almora/Kasar Devi and Nainital/Snow View are the only places I've found 'real' bread, locally baked.

Prashant.M

Rotis and Chapatis are made from whole Wheat. I think a couple of generations back we used to eat brown rice. I don't why people switched to white rice as brown rice is tastier.

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