| San Francisco Bread Review | Grain d'Or Pain de Campagne |
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| Summary | |
| Appearance : | Average |
| Taste : | Below average |
| Overall grade : | C |
| Pictures | |
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| The bread | |
| Click on the photo for larger view | |
| Bread name | Pain de Campagne |
| Baker | Grain d'Or, San Francisco |
| Purchased | Thursday, May 8, 2003, 1:30PM |
| From | Grain d'Or, 665 Market Street, San Francisco |
| Tested | Thursday, May 8, 2003, 7:30PM |
| Price | $3.60 |
| Weight | 21 oz. |
| Size (LxWxH) | 9.5" x 8" x 5" |
Appearance
The bread comes in a transparent plastic bag, which is not a good idea for this type of bread. It is a big round loaf, with a nice honey color. Interesting blooming on top, but the ridges are shallow, which can be suspicious. A few flour sprinklings. The bottom has a number of ridges and swirls, but looks mostly OK. The density is surprisingly low. The crust is not as hard as one would expect from its appearance. The outside smell is unexpected, not all that pleasant actually. At least I didn't really care for it. The cut was not that easy. The bottom resisted a bit. The first cut is not bad, but after that it is hard to have clean slices because the bread tends to collapse too easily. The inside appearance is OK, very white and fluffy. The inside smell is OK but unsatisfying.
Taste
The crust is unpleasantly chewy, and the taste is at best mediocre. The crumb has a good consistency, the taste is acceptable but not much to report on.
Conclusion
I've had a lot of good pains de campagne, and this is not one of them. In fact, I think the chewiness of the crust and the fluffiness of the crumb should disqualify it. Overall it strikes me as a relatively average industrial bread, not bad with not much to recommend it.