Bakeries

One thing that I’ve fallen in love with in my last one week in Europe is the concept of the breakfast bakery. Every few hundred metres both in Barcelona and Amsterdam you have bakeries. These bakeries offer a large variety of bread products that are to be consumed as breakfast. Apart from this, the bakeries also offer coffee and tea so that one can have a complete breakfast in some of them.

And I say “breakfast” only figuratively – I’ve had lunch on three days of my trip so far in such bakeries – again it’s with bakery products such as pizza slices or sandwiches, followed by coffee (which I must say hasn’t been bad for most of the trip). If I’ve to move to Europe, the presence of such bakeries would be one very strong reason to do so!

I was wondering why we don’t have such bakeries in India. The problem is one of liquidity – a very small portion of India’s population wants to have croissants and doughnuts for breakfast – most people in Bangalore, for example, prefer idli-vada and dosa instead. And so you still have the “fast food” places in Bangalore (lots of them) that offer such foods and coffee. And you have plenty of them – all of which are very reasonably priced and offer excellent quality!

As I try to write more and more about economic concepts, I get further drawn to this whole concept of liquidity. And each time I write about it I claim that it’s an underappreciated concept in economics outside of financial economics!

Perhaps I should make a better effort in changing that!

3 thoughts on “Bakeries”

  1. A lot of them over here in Europe (Indians, non-Indians and that includes me) wonder – why we have to eat what is being served! without any alternatives.
    Breakfast isn’t such a big culture – hence bakeries are considered as a place for breakfast – something you quickly grab on the way! or buy bread before hand and eat it with Käse or Confiture in the morning.
    Forget Europe for a moment – Consider North India, there are neither fast food joints nor bakeries for breakfasts! What do they have? Bakeries in India are mostly for non-meal items! whereas in Europe it is perfectly normal to live your entire day with just bread! and they have loads of varieties though!
    It is a matter of habit cultivated over a period of time, according to me. The main reason why Indian fast food joints won’t survive in Europe – even if it does, it is down to tourists or just on weekends!

    1. Strongly agree with you. And I agree that north india sucks like crazy when it comes to breakfast. Ok so I’ve actually written about this on my blog before:

      http://www.noenthuda.com/2008/11/04/why-breakfast-is-an-integral-part-of-south-indian-cuisine-and-not-in-north-indian/

      And speaking of bakeries in India, I think it’s only in Bangalore that you find bakeries that bake bread freshly and on premises. Elsewhere they’re just “normal retailers”

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