Last Tuesday, I walked into my usual grocery store to pick up a loaf of sourdough. I have been buying bread at this location since 1994, back when you could park your truck anywhere on the lot and the sourdough was just bread, not a lifestyle brand.
I stood in front of the bakery shelf for twenty minutes. I counted four different types of “ancient grain” loaves, three “heirloom” sourdough options, and something called a “mountain-inspired rustic boule” that cost seventeen dollars. I asked the clerk if they had any normal bread, and he looked at me like I had asked if they sold bags of gravel.
When did a loaf of bread become a financial instrument? I am all for supporting local bakers, but I am starting to feel like I need to apply for a second mortgage just to make a sandwich. If I am going to pay twenty dollars for a crust, I expect the wheat to have been serenaded by a choir of angels while it grew in the Gallatin Valley.
I spoke with my neighbor, Gary, who has lived in the valley since before the interstate was finished. He told me he has stopped buying bread entirely and has taken up foraging for wild yeast in the Bridgers. He says if he’s going to work for his crust, he’s not doing it at a register.
It isn’t just the bread, of course. It is the packaging. Everything now comes in a paper bag with a wax seal and a story about a farmer named Barnaby who hand-massages his rye. I don’t need a narrative arc to eat a piece of toast. I just want a loaf that doesn’t require a co-signer.
Some people tell me this is just progress. They say the town is growing and the tastes are becoming more sophisticated. But sophistication, in my experience, usually just means paying more for the same amount of flour. If we keep moving in this direction, the only things left in the produce aisle will be gold-leafed carrots and organic air.
I went home and looked at my old bread machine from 1998. It’s covered in dust, but it still works perfectly fine. It doesn’t ask for my credit score, and it doesn’t try to tell me the story of where