White Bread

Crab cake recipes, including some award winners, poured in for Madeline Reed of Baltimore who asked for a recipe similar to the "one from a tavern of 40 years ago. It was called Bartinfelder on Philadelphia Road. Also, I'd like any crab cake recipes from Marylanders," she wrote.Lisa Ayres, Baltimore, asked for a crab cake recipe similar to the one from the Blue Bell Restaurant in Fallston. "They have been closed for some time, but when I was a child they had the best crabs around," she wrote.

Spike Gjerde, executive chef and co-owner of Woodberry Kitchen, shows America how to make a soft-shell crab sandwich. He also tells America that no one in Baltimore refers to it as a soft-shell crab sandwich. Apparently, we all say "soft-crab sandwich. " I don't know about that. But I do know that Woodberry Kitchen 's soft-shell crab sandwich uses white bread, so it's automatically great. Spike's recipe for soft-shell crabs appears in the May issue of Esquire magazine, as part of its "Eat Like a Man" series.

While shopping the other day I ran into Steve, the bread man as he was stocking the shelves. Curious, I asked if he had noticed any trends in the type of bread folks are buying.He said he can hardly keep Pepperidge Farm's Seven Grain on the shelves. He said, that Seven Grain had gotten him off white bread. Now it's the only bread he eats.Pepperidge Farm's Seven Grain is a good first step for most Americans raised on white bread. Although enriched flour is its ,, first ingredient, it does contain enough wheat bran, rice bran and oat bran to bring its dietary fiber total to 1 gram per slice.

Senora McGuire says "We don't need anyone telling us what to eat" ( Readers Respond, June 7). I say Ms. McGuire must be walking around with her eyes shut. Two thirds of Americans are overweight, and half of those — more than one third of all Americans — are obese! And she thinks we don't need anyone telling us what to eat? Obviously, we do. She thinks "we are well educated on food. " Again I say, "Obviously not!" She says, "Is anyone really paying attention to what [First Lady Michelle Obama]

White bread, a mainstay of the American diet since at least the 1930s, is under attack. The Department of Agriculture is considering recommending that consumers drastically cut their consumption of fortified grains. They are used to enrich a wide variety of food products - particularly white bread, which is made from refined white flour. The refined grains sector already has been battered by the popularity of low-carbohydrate diets. White bread came under additional fire from a recent study released by Tufts University in Boston that links the consumption of such bread to wider waistlines.

Watch out, Wonder Bread. Sales of the unassuming but versatile tortilla are catching up to white bread, reflecting the growth of the nation's Hispanic population and the broadening of the American palate. "Tortillas have had steady growth 10 to 15 percent a year seemingly forever," said Irwin Steinberg, founding president of the 14-year-old Dallas-based Tortilla Industry Association. The popularity of wraps -- renamed flour tortillas that are sometimes flavored -- also helped boost the round, flat bread's share to 32 percent of the combined retail and food service market for bread, just behind white loaves at 34 percent, says a report from market researcher Mintel for the association.

What's in a name? When it comes to "lake trout" - that fried fish fare so unique to Baltimore it's almost a trademark - lies. Two for starters. Touted for decades on restaurant signs across the city, "lake trout" is filleted, breaded and deep-fried here at a clip of tons a week, then served up - usually in tin foil with two pieces of white bread - to customers who often assume that, based on its name, they are eating trout from a lake. But "lake trout" is neither. And if you are one of the few who already knows that, who has been told - perhaps by a frank fishmonger - that "lake trout" is actually "whiting," caught in the bay or ocean, well, that's not exactly right, either.

Spike Gjerde, executive chef and co-owner of Woodberry Kitchen, shows America how to make a soft-shell crab sandwich. He also tells America that no one in Baltimore refers to it as a soft-shell crab sandwich. Apparently, we all say "soft-crab sandwich. " I don't know about that. But I do know that Woodberry Kitchen 's soft-shell crab sandwich uses white bread, so it's automatically great. Spike's recipe for soft-shell crabs appears in the May issue of Esquire magazine, as part of its "Eat Like a Man" series.

I have to print a retraction.Several weeks ago, I said white bread contained no fiber. Judi Adams of the Wheat Foods Council pointed out to me that white bread does, in fact, contain 0.5 grams of soluble fiber per slice. (Soluble fiber is the kind you find in oat bran, which helps somewhat in lowering cholesterol.)While I do apologize for my technical error, I must admit to being somewhat puzzled by the critical nature of the letter I received.Why would the WFC care whether you choose white or whole wheat products when they're all made from wheat flour?

Lewis J. Ort, a baker turned philanthropist who endowed hospitals with the fortune he made by inventing a low-calorie white bread recipe, died Monday of complications from a stroke at his home in LaVale, a Cumberland suburb. He was 83. Mr. Ort, an entrepreneur who began his career in a family-owned bakery, anticipated a demand for diet products in the 1940s. He first sold a thinly sliced bread called Lite Diet, then devised a way of using fiber from soybean hulls to bake what was hailed as this country's first diet white bread.

It would be hard to concoct a better way to draw a crowd for a good cause on a cool, gray Sunday afternoon than grilled cheese sandwiches. The Mount Washington Tavern had to turn away more than 100 people after its Grilled Cheese Cook-Off sold out Sunday. The $10-a-ticket event raised $1,000 for Moveable Feast, a charity that delivers free, nutritious meals for people living with HIV/AIDS and breast cancer . Think crispy, buttery sourdough bread, smoked applewood bacon.

After reading the Baltimore Sun article "Do you want that politician to go?" (Oct. 20), I think most of us agree that, yes, we do. If Chick Levitt of Chick & Ruth's deli would like to save a little money, he can have one sandwich for two politicians. The O'Malley/Ehrlich sandwich would feature half-baked ham and lots of baloney on very white bread with humongous side servings of sour grapes and lots of donated cabbage. Most people would probably find this specialty hard to swallow, that's why it's served with a generous portion of whine to help us get it down.

A couple of months ago I asked readers on my blog, Dining@Large, to help me come up with a list of 100 Things Every Foodie Should Do in Baltimore. The only rule was that they be quintessentially Baltimore (and by Baltimore I meant Baltimore and the surrounding area). It wasn't enough to say "eat a crab cake." They had to be more specific. I got 150 comments, some with multiple suggestions. They were from people who have lived in Baltimore all their lives and others who have discovered what's new and great in the city.

The TastyKake truck comes three times a week to the corner store on North Mount Street, rumbling past drug dealers and piles of trash to fill the racks with cupcakes and cream-filled chocolate bars. The Utz man comes twice to deliver little bags of chips, each one containing about 20 percent of the recommended daily intake of fat. But if the owner of Blooming Sun Market, Grace Lyo, wants to sell fruits or vegetables, "I have to go to Sam's Club and get them myself." As public health researchers grapple with the alarmingly high rates of diabetes, obesity and heart disease in poor urban neighborhoods, they are turning their attention to corner stores.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- The food they sell may be flat, yet Herman Jacobs and his son Brian say that sales are anything but. The two own Tumaro's Gourmet Tortillas, which sells flavored varieties of the ancient staple to retailers and restaurants in the United States and around the world. In 11 years of business, the Jacobses watched as diners went through the low-carb craze, the wrap craze and the grains craze, each driving tortilla sales higher and higher. "People are using tortillas for more and more applications," said Brian Jacobs, 41. "We're really gaining momentum."

I have finally figured out what's wrong with this country. It's the frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We have now reached the point in our national cultural evolution where a significant number of adults do not have time or interest in making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for their children, so they buy them - $2.89 for four little, round PBJs with crimped edges - out of the ever-expanding frozen food section at the supermarket. The other day, at the Charles Street Safeway in Baltimore, a little old lady stood back near the dairy section, handing out samples of a product I have seen but refused to acknowledge - Smucker's Uncrustables.

SINCE THERE are only about six of us left in the entire country who still eat bread, I probably shouldn't have been surprised about what happened when my wife and I went to a local restaurant the other night. After we were seated, our server appeared with a basket of dinner rolls. "I don't know whether you still eat this stuff," she said, putting the basket on the table. Then she looked down at it the way you'd look at medical waste. Apparently, she figured us for two of the millions of diet zombies who have joined the low-carb cult.

MOM, making that brown bag lunch just got easier. The Sara Lee Corp. has found a way to bake crustless bread. That's right, a slice of bread without the crust that doesn't lose its shape and packs a more nutritious punch than a slice of white bread. For decades, kids have eaten around the crust, torn it off or convinced the lunch-makers at home to do away with those brown edges on their peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And moms usually complied. All it took was a few quick strokes of a knife.

HOLIDAY MEALS WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS aren't all that difficult to pull off. It's all the other meals that are the problem for me. Time is at a premium during Christmas and New Year's, and part of the reason is that everyone wants to eat, and that requires cooking. There are cookie exchanges and office parties and neighborhood gatherings, all of which require you to prepare food. (Every time I say, "Can I bring anything?" I wish I had kept my mouth shut.) And then the kids come home from college, acting like they haven't eaten since fall break.

SINCE THERE are only about six of us left in the entire country who still eat bread, I probably shouldn't have been surprised about what happened when my wife and I went to a local restaurant the other night. After we were seated, our server appeared with a basket of dinner rolls. "I don't know whether you still eat this stuff," she said, putting the basket on the table. Then she looked down at it the way you'd look at medical waste. Apparently, she figured us for two of the millions of diet zombies who have joined the low-carb cult.