Generally, when a food is described as lost, it is no longer good enough to eat. Not bread. Stale bread has plenty of practical uses, which poor cooks around the world discovered centuries ago. Bread’s airy crumb, even when dry, easily soaks up eggs, milk, water, or stock. There’s a whole genre of dishes made with leftover bread that include meat loaves, soups, salads, and savory and sweet puddings.
How many other foods past their pull date can claim popular spinoffs such as French toast (known in France as pain perdu, or lost bread), English bread and butter pudding, Spanish gazpacho, the Italian soup ribollita and the salad panzanella, and Lebanese fattoush, a salad made with toasted pita? In its most minute form, there are bread crumbs, indispensible for coating chicken pieces, fish fillets, pork and veal cutlets, and more. Baked mac and cheese owes its delectable crusty topping to a layer of crumbs. And for as long as housewives have been worried about having enough food to feed their families, bits of bread have performed the noble job of stretching meat for homey loaves and meatballs.
