I have to take some time to talk about bread because let’s face it, it might be the food I consume the most. Whether I’m slathering it in goat’s cheese for a luncheon sandwich or biting into a semi-sweat breakfast pastry or using a chunk of it to soak up leftover sauce or soup, I just might be in love with all forms of yeasty and unleavened bread alike.

In Los Angeles I’ve been fortunate enough to be just down the block from the famous La Brea Bakery and able to frequent the off-beat but delightful Panaderias lining so many of this city’s streets, but nothing can compare to Germany. In Berlin I was in bread heaven. Between the bakeries on every corner and the seemingly seventeen different ways to order a roll in the same language, I unearthed not a dark history or a fascinating government or even a trendy street culture, but the epicenter of hearty, grainy breads. You get a crusty roll with your currywurst, you get a dark slab with your morning coffee, and you get a basket of it to nibble on while you contemplate your cake choices in the afternoon. You even have a distinctive type of half-bread half-donut, an effigy of the culture named after the city itself, and if you travel all the way to Berlin and don’t consume at least one Berliner, you are a bigger fool than you think.

Europe in general has the sort of carbohydrate stamina I admire, whether the Italians are using slices like a utensil or the French are creating courses dedicated bread, and I’ve always been head over heels for the European idea of a balanced breakfast: coffee, bread, and a myriad of smears including but not limited to fruit jams, nut spreads like nutella, numerous cheeses of varying consistencies, and fats like butter or olive oil, with a few cucumbers, tomatoes, and sliced oranges thrown on the side. What more could one want first thing in the morning?

Of course German bread is of a grainier variety, and you’ll find they specialise in über-elastic ryes and tantalising fried morsels, and a few other French-style look-alikes that one bite into will reveal are anything but standard. That dry-looking croissant hosts a gooey filling of apple and golden sultana, while that spongey danish is actually enveloped in a firm layer of carmelised sugar. Bread can even harbour more talents than your belligerently drunk mate. Hence the German idiom: at least bread can mold. What can you do? For one as enamoured with bread as I, the whole bread culture of Germany is impossible to avoid indulging in. And indulge I did, only to find the bread alone was worth the trip.

Sure I wax poetic about something as innane as bread, but you don’t have to buy my love of German bread at face value. You don’t have to take my word for it. Take Gridskipper’s. Or better yet, tell me about your own bread adventures in the comments section.