About a year ago I packed my bags and moved to England. More specifically, to a small town in Surrey to start my three years of English university experience. I decorated my room (trying my best to ignore the hideous curtains), plugged in my illegal travel adaptor, and was shocked at the state of the shared kitchen.

The next step in becoming a true Brit was my first-ever trip to Tesco with my flatmates. Everything was going well until we got to the bread aisle. The “bread aisle” is not the correct term, because apart from one sad-looking sourdough loaf, all there was, was tons of toast. White, thin, weirdly dimensioned toast. That was the moment I knew: I had made a mistake.

Coming from Germany I grew up eating bread for at least two out of my three meals a day: a nice thick slice of whole-grain together with some (unsalted!) butter and a good slice of gouda for breakfast, a poppy seed roll with ham as a snack and then maybe even the occasional toast, nicely toasted as part of a sandwich with salad, mustard, mayo and egg. Safe to say, I consider myself a bread expert.

I did end up buying some toast as there was no other choice. Maybe the British have some secret ingredient, that makes the toast incredible and makes all other types of bread redundant. I was not gonna give up so easily. However, in the next morning when I was dying of hunger, the toast fell short of my already low expectations. It was soggy, easy to bring out of shape, and simply did not taste good.

I was a bit offended that everyone around me called this piece of disappointment “bread”. Before I came here, I had spent all my days making fun of what Americans consider meals, but I never considered that something so similar was happening so close to my home country.

Yet, when it comes to food, I do not tend to give up easily. I opened my laptop, went on Google Maps and looked for “bakeries in my area”. Only one little dot popped up: a gas station. That’s when I lost hope for good — what do you mean your bakery is in a gas station? They surely could not be serious?! I had truly thought that bakeries were a universal thing. Their cosy atmosphere, created through the smell of freshly baked bread, the too loud voice of the baker, greeting his regulars, combined with the toughest choice you’ll have to face that day: a croissant still warm from the oven? Or maybe a Franzbrötchen? And yet, everyone thinks of the Germans as the stressed and hectic nation, when right here in England, people were buying their fresh bread at a gas station.

Well, that might be judged too harshly: at least you guys have Sunday roasts — and, wow, you truly did something right there. I was lucky to enjoy my first Sunday lunch a couple of months ago, and you wouldn’t believe it, right there on the appetiser plate was bread: real, true, authentic, delicious bread! I was so excited. I built up all my courage to ask the waiter where they got their bread from, but obviously he didn’t know. The roast was great, but it was overshadowed by that small slice of bread. It truly tastes like home.

A friend of mine, who also moved to the UK from Germany, made it a tradition to take an Uber and drive to a Danish bakery (“Ole & Steen”) in Windsor once a week. If I had the means to do the same, I probably would. Until I can afford it, I just visit her flat and we share a piece of bread and talk about all the things England cannot seem to get right.

© Anna Diedrichsen 2022