Far, far, better for bread and cheese at least. Which I suspect means you haven't found where those are? (Cheeseboard in Berkeley, Cowgirl Creamery in the Ferry Building, Acme bread, Tartine as previously mentioned - some of these closed at the moment of course)
[I'm a cheese and bread snob from Switzerland FWIW - I could be somewhat convinced that the wholewheat bread choices are not perfect though]
A parent post was criticized for being too general, so I'll be extremely specific: cheese from the Whole Foods located at Park Place, San Mateo, California is crap compared to cheese from the cheese shop located on Rue Saint-Hélier, Rennes, France, and is also crap compared to cheese from the weekly farmer's market in Noyal-Châtillon, France.
The only decent cheeses at this Whole Foods are the safe choices like hard aged cheese. The more delicate cheeses to get right, like an Emmenthal de Savoie (you want it yellow, mellow and flavorful; not white, hard and tasteless) or many types of goat cheese, always disappoint.
Note that French supermarkets (Carrefour, Super U, etc) offer much worse cheese than Whole Foods. At least that was the case a decage ago - I haven't visited the cheese section of a French supermarket since, so I might be out of date. If you want good cheese you need to head for a cheese shop ("fromagerie") or a farmer's market (which might also supply good bread to pair with your cheese).
Well, I live in Berkeley, so I'm pretty damn spoiled when it comes to cheese shops. But I can see that being helpful if there are no cheese stores, import stores, or specialty foods stores in your town.
Sounds like you didn't get out much. Sometimes I wonder if it's a joke that I haven't been let in on, or just willful ignorance. I hear it not just with cheese, but also bread, beer, chocolate, etc. High quality versions of every single one of those can be found with _minimal_ effort. You have to deliberately choose not to notice all the breweries, bakeries, dairies, and chocolatiers.
"You can't get good ____ in the US!"
Which might be true if you only ever shop at a supermarket or your only exposure to food in the US is a meme, Hollywood production, or the crappy nonsensical 'American' aisles you have in your respective countries.
I used to live in France and am now in the Bay Area. Here are a few products I like:
- Milk: Straus non-homogenized organic whole milk
- Butter: Kerrygold salted
- Bread: Costco walnut raisin
Have you tried these already? They're fairly easy to find and won't cost an arm and a leg. If they're not good enough, there's fancier stuff available, such as Rodolphe Le Meunier butter, or Backhaus bakery in San Mateo which makes great pains au chocolat.
Cheese is still way behind for sure. There's too much variety and catching up will take decades. Local creameries seem mostly interested in making triple crème variations and establishing their brand. I'm sure some of them will be very successful this way, but from a consumer's perspective I don't think it will work out as well quality- and cost-wise as the French model of buying unbranded cheese from a specialized shop that hand-picks their regional suppliers.
Well it was Pasadena, so Mexican or McD were the options.
Go into an American supermarket and there are dozens of types (or at least shapes) of bread - all the same oversweet soft wonderloaf inside, and dozens of types (or colors) of cheese - that all taste the same.
When I lived there, live cheese was banned, pot is being legalized but Brie is illegal !!!!
Although I agree with you it's also worth pointing out that very often the bread and cheese _is_ the local food. Even in places that aren't known for their cheese, if you head to a market you might find an inexpensive, unique and rather tasty cheese.
Try the cheese counter at Whole Foods. YMMV. Some of the people there care about cheese, some are just there for a paycheck. I recommend the Humbolt Fog.
Most Whole Foods seems to have a huge cheese section with specialists as well and at least in California, both north and south, they are practically ubiquitous.
This. The selection of cheese at an expensive chain or a specialist gourmet food in the US is okay and comparable to what you find in European low-price chains (albeit at 2-3x the price). Try going to a gourmet cheese shop in France and get your mind blown. Even the butter is so good you'd eat it by the spoonful!
That's one of the things Europeans (anecdotally Germans and French) who work or study in North America complain about. Cheese quality and selection (and price!) here is crap. In fact, food quality here seems to be a notch lower.
The cheese is good quality. These are the real economics of the market in a major USA East Coast city. My friend's been profitable for decades. Grocers out here sell pretty good loaves as loss leaders; you can call something artisanal all day long, but if you're charging too much, you're not competitive.
There's lots of good cheese easily available. Say what you will about my neighboring state of Wisconsin, but you can find plenty of the non-industrial variety there.
And chocolate? Hershey's is your standard??? No wonder. Hershey's is crap!!! I thought everyone knew that but just ate it cause it's cheap.
Basically, if you limit your eating to mass produced, industrialized foods, crap's what you get, with few exceptions. It's like judging all American beer by pointing to Miller Lite!
[I'm a cheese and bread snob from Switzerland FWIW - I could be somewhat convinced that the wholewheat bread choices are not perfect though]
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