Sandwich Bread
In the Gilded Age, about 90% of the bread consumed in American homes was prepared by the homemaker, or their cook in those days of household servants. Specialty breads beyond the means of the housewife were obtained from the local bakery. By the time of the Great Depression, nearly all of the bread consumed in the home was baked in bread factories. This reversal marked a change in American diets which has only recently started to recede.
Part of the change was convenience and part was media driven fear. Bakers were often immigrants and mass producers of bread marketed their product as being produced in sanitized factories, rather than by an immigrant of unknown dedication to hygiene. The mass bread producers aggressively marketed their most profitable and easiest to produce product – white bread.
Indianapolis based Taggart Baking marketed their bread under the name Wonder Bread until 1925, when it sold the brand to Continental Baking. Continental introduced sliced bread (it was Wonder Cut) shortly thereafter, suspended the sale of sliced bread during World War II due to a steel shortage increasing the cost of blades, and returned to the production of sliced bread in 1945.
The refined white flour used by Wonder and other bakers produced a loaf which was consistent in texture and appearance, but nutritionally challenged. In the 1940s, spurred by the federal government, Wonder and others began enriching their bread with added minerals and vitamins. Niacin, riboflavin, iron, and folic acid were added. By the 1960s any grocery in the country had shelves full of breads which were virtually indistinguishable from others, regardless of where they were baked. Enriched white bread was consumed everywhere.
In recent years there has been a reversal which is gathering momentum where locally baked artisan breads are making a comeback. Home bread making has been making a comeback as well, both using bread machines and by hand. The grocery store loaf of enriched sliced white bread is still found everywhere, but it has much competition in the market as Americans once again change the ways they eat.