Is it me, or is it the bread?

I've lately (over the last several years) found it hard to find sourdough bread that is as it was in my youth - crispy crust, chewy innards, and SOUR.
I'm a Bay Area native and I'm lamenting the apparent loss of a culinary icon.
60 years ago (give or take a bit) when I started to appreciate what I was eating, our family had "Sour French bread" with our spaghetti on Saturday. Of course the bakery name was Italian, and the loaf was a long loaf - 2 pounds IIRC - and had all the attributes above. You could smell the sour.
Now, I know my smeller ain't what it useter be. But I'll be diddled if I can find anything really like the stuff that was baked in San Leandro!
Colombo is the only brand name that seems to have survived - and it's a pale ghost of its former self. I've tried every artisan bakery from Mendocino County to Watsonville. Many of them make very good bread, but nobody has hit all the numbers.
Nobody's sour enough for one point. (That may be my antiquity showing.)
Most folks don't get the crust crisp. Acme overbakes. Are the others afraid of getting sued for cutting someone's gums?
Many have a soft core texture that will tear if the butter isn't really soft.

Ye olde curmudgeon,

John

John,
Have you tried the Costeaux Bakery in Healdsburg?
-Shaji

No, I haven't, Shaji. I'll give it a look.

John

[Jenise]

Great sourdough is one of the treats I grew up on--Dad would often bring loaves home from Little Joe's in downtown L.A. Don't know who baked them for them, but they were the real deal with that moist stretchy interior, big holes, and a rockin' crust that nothing closer to home could match. And good as it was, the bread was even more sour in San Francisco. Interesting to consider that it might not be as good as it used to be. I'm sure I'd still be impressed, coming as I do from a place where the best sourdough is actually a supermarket bakery's IF you reheat/recrisp it once you get it home.

Ye olde curmudgeon,

John

Hi John, well from one curmudgeon to another, I feel your pain. I think you are right on about the sour dough, in fact, I wonder where the sour went. I think the crisp crust went by the wayside when folks began suing because they broke a tooth, or the coffee was too hot or all the other silly things they sue for these days. I have said for a few years now, that I recently went back into my cooking files and cooked many things from the 50's, 60's and 70's that I loved and then our kids love. They just don't taste the same because the ingredients are not the same. It is that plain and simple. The ingredients used to be better. I do favor La Brea Bakery breads, have you tried them? I get them at two local supermarkets. They are shipped in raw and the stores cook the breads on site. They are warm and fresh when put out for sale. The baguettes are very good and I do crisp them up in the oven. I do look for the bags that say "sour" on them.

I have to agree with the rest of the curmudgeons and agree that the French bread I remember from years ago does not exist in the bay area or any other area of CA that I'm aware of .

Karen, Lou:

I'm vindicated!

I've tried LaBrea, Sumano's (Watsonville), Raymond's (Santa Cruz) Sonoma Bakery (I think that's the name) and several others that just flew south out of my mind for the winter. Besides Acme and Colombo. I went up toward Healdsburg before Christmas and one of the places I wanted to stop at was closed, and I "need" some quality white wine for cracked crab (which is why I also "need" some really great sourdough) so I can see if Coteaux is open tomorrow or Tuesday.
To my taste, Colombo is closest to my recollection. I peek in the bags, and look for a darker than average loaf, because it's less likely to be soft.

I do indeed fear that fear of lawyers has affected the quality of bread.
I haven't tried, living 1/3 of the world away, but I bet you can't get an English Crusty Loaf that was the star of a pub lunch when I was there in the early 70s.

My Colorado sister just made some sourdough "French" bread and said she likes it. Maybe I'll have to become a sourdough starter gardener.

As a sad afterthought, Cosentino's Market in San Jose is closing its doors next month. <weeping real tears> I've found three good grocery stores here in Santa Rosa, but it takes all three of them to sum up to almost as good as Cosentino's.
But I can get better crab here than I ever found in Silly Valley. So there!!

John

Shaji,
I found Costeaux sour French at the Oliver's market in Rincon Valley today. I hadn't noticed it at their market on Stony Point Rd. Tried it tonight with turkey soup left over from Thanksgiving.
It's the first one that has the right crust, and it also has good texture. However, it's just average sour. It lacks the real old-fashioned San Francisco tang. Dang!

John

:cry:

I think I found it!!
I saw a Pullman loaf of sour french bread from Full Circle Baking Company in Penngrove, at Oliver's Market. I bought it because I like sliced sour french bread for toast in the morning, and sandwiches occasionally. It was the Real Thing (tm)!
So I went down to Penngrove (it's a nice drive if you go down Petaluma Hill Road rather than the freeway), and went in. They do retail, but it's obviously a sideline. I rang the bell and someone came in from the other room. I explained what I wanted and bought a round loaf (1 lb 4 oz) and brought it home. They also make a baguette, but apparently not a classic long loaf or a batard.
To my surprise, there was fresh crab available yesterday (we've had a couple of inches of rain and it's been fairly windy, with trees blown down and blocking roads), so I had cracked crab, Caesar salad and french bread for supper yesterday, and I managed to eat about 1/6 of the loaf. Crusty and chewy both, nice coarse texture, and sour enough.
Tonight I had what I call "spaghetti". This rendition used fresh tagliatelle with a meat, mushroom and tomato sauce developed from my grandmother's recipe. She wasn't Italian, but one of her sisters was a professional cook who worked for a family in Pacific Heights in San Francisco.
So, "spaghetti', salad and Full Circle Sourdough Round. I had some Raymond's (Santa Cruz) sourdough in the freezer, so I did a comparison. Crust and texture were clearly in Full Circle's favor. The Raymond's crumb was much finer and softer, and the crust didn't have the depth and structure of the Full Circle.
And the Full Circle, though not overtly more sour, had a much more distinctive tang and a long aftertaste that made a bite of salad as a follow-on truly enjoyable.

So now I have my bread!

John

That's great news, John. I'll have to look out for it when I'm in the Bay Area next month. Do you know if their bread is marketed in the Bay Area? I too have those indelible memories of Colombo (and Toscana and Larraburu) loaves from my youth.

Mark Lipton

I don't know, Mark. I know that some of their breads are available at G&G (Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park) and Oliver's Market (2 in Santa Rosa and one in Cotati, I think).
Colombo is available in the Bay Area - Whole Foods and Safeway are places to look. Raymond's is also pretty good, but you saw my criticism of it.

John