Shannon wrote to us with an interesting question. She says, "My friend and I are debating whether the heel of the bread is good to eat with sandwiches. I think it's fine; he says no way. I also think the heel of artisanal breads is one of the better parts, and he disagrees there too."
What about you? Do you eat the heel of the bread — alone or in sandwiches?
If you don't eat it, you can save it for breadcrumbs!
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Comments (37)
When I was little, I called it "the butt of the bread" heh. Wouldn't touch it! Nowadays things are different - just depends on the loaf and the use.
LOL - my husband always eats the end because no one else in the house likes it! My 7-year-old gets mad if anyone forgets that she won't eat the end.
Though now that I've started making my own bread, I do enjoy the end. Especially with a slice of very good cheese on top.
I have always loved the heel. In fact, I save the heels so I can make a heel sandwich!
the heel makes the best toast!
The heel is the best part! I wouldn't sully it with sandwich fixins though - just a little butter and salt. YUM!
The heel is what you snack on on the way home from the grocery store or while making the sandwich!
If it's a crusty baguette like in the pic, no we toss that, it's way too chewy. For regular sliced bread, I use the heel if that's all that's left, but if there's enough slices I toss them (my dad would be so mad if he knew LOL). Sometimes I turn them "inside out" and make my son a grilled cheese, he has no idea.
The heel - in a supermarket loaf - is the most structurally sound part of the loaf, so I am happy to use it anytime. It's often a larger slice, too.
We always called it the "butt" too. It's my favourite part of the bread! 80% more crust! My partner eats more sandwiches than I do and always saves the ends for me. :D
This is how I know my partner loves me - they almost always save the bread butt for me to eat. I used to hate it as a kid but I always want to eat it now, even if it's stale or chewy. I just get to gnaw on it for longer that way!
We all will eat them at my house. For the kids, I just flip it so the soft side faces out of the sandwich and no one has yet noticed.
Heels, or ends, are the best part of any bread. Also how about some corner love? Corner piece of (rectangle) pizza, corners of cornbread, heck, corner piece of dressing...yum. (Middles are only best if you're talking dinner rolls or cinnamon rolls.)
My mom taught me to save the heels of store bought loaves for breadcrumbs! However, I don't usually do that because I buy wheat bread with all kinds of seeds floating around and I don't like how they taste as breadcrumbs.
When I bake bread, the heel is my favorite part!
when i was a kid, my mom & i would fight over it. now my bf & i fight over it. it's the best part!
I let the heel of the bread get rock hard, then I give it to my rabbit to gnaw on (her teeth don't stop growing). I know, weird. But she loves it.
@lasomnambule - Corner brownies. No contest.
With store bought loaves, I am not partial to the heel, but will use it for peanut butter toast when it comes down to the end.
With all other types of bread I might stab you with a fork if you try to get it away from me. A crusty heel is good just walkin' around the house.
My husband's Italian family calls it the "cula" (yep, that's Italian for butt) and it's coveted and squabbled over. He always gives it to me though, so like @ranyart it is a token of affection in our family.
the end of the bread has always been my favorite part! i come from a family of crust-lovers.
I use the heel when making a sandwich but I always eat it with some sort of spread - peanut butter, jam, or hummus! That's what really crusty bread is good for!
If it's a store bought processed loaf, then I use the end just like any other slice (though no one else in my house will eat them). If it's homemade, or store bought crusty bread, then I'll only eat it if I have some kind of dip to go with it, otherwise it's just too chewy. Oddly enough though, this is when my girlfriend will jump in and take the end.
Her kids are so bad that they will take the extra effort to cut out the middle of brownies or cake when we have them. I myself prefer the edges there.
I've never liked them, regardless of the type of bread. But I do think it's wasteful to waste them, so I freeze them and use them for casseroles. Yum!
My favorite part of a loaf of bread (NOT presliced bread though. I give the ends to the birds cause no one wants to eat those!) For a sandwich, non-end pieces I prefer, but if a loaf of bread is around, bet I cut the ends off first to nibble on.
Growing up my dad made bread-machine bread all of the time. And the two ends of the bread are vastly different: one is dry and mangled by removing it from the kneading mechanism (what I called the heel, and never ate) and the other is light, puffy, and perfectly golden (I called this one the toe of the bread and it was my favorite part).
It is the best part of a nice, crusty loaf of bread!
I never liked the ends of sandwich style store bought bread when I was a child, but I'll eat them now, on the rare occasions I buy sandwich loaf.
Yep, I've always enjoyed it as much as the rest of the bread, but in a different way. Good with a good, sharp crumbly cheese or butter.
I even eat the end loaves from bagged bread.
It's the best part. My husband and I must be compatible--he doesn't like the heels and I love them. No waste in our house.
I always eat the ends first! When I buy sliced bread (rare), I actually look forward to opening the bag and making an ends-only sandwich! They're the best :) Also, I just think that the ends of crusty breads have the best ratio of crust to soft inside. It must be inherited, because my mom feels exactly the same way.
Presliced bread gets tossed or turned into croutons, but I love the heel on almost any other kind of bread. Grill it a wee bit on a ban, slap on a tiny smattering of butter... delish!
The heel is fabulous! It makes for a great soup-dipping instrument!
When I was growing up, my family had the practice of keeping the first heel of the loaf in the bag as a protection against the bread drying out. You'd just slip all the middle pieces out from under it (or cut middle pieces out if you have an unsliced loaf), then re-seal the bag, with the first heel on top. It kept looking like a shorter and shorter loaf. Then when all the middle pieces were gone, we three kids would fight over who got the two heels.
Oh I do that with the heel too -- use it as a sort of cap for the rest of a loaf.
My husband's family, for reasons never explained, call the heel the pope's nose.
i cannot believe people actually throw out bread when you can make croutons or crumbs with it.
when i was little, it was always the uncontested privilege of the person who went to buy the bread to gnaw on the heel. nothing beats a chewy crusty heel of a loaf of fresh rye bread. throw it out? you've got to be kidding me!
The heel from a crusty loaf is always eaten as is or with butter in my household. It's treated as the delicious thing it is.
Yet when it's a loaf of sliced sandwich bread we call it the end instead and that sits around waiting to soften up a container of brown sugar, get made into croutons or breadcrumbs, or used for emergency sandwiches if we run out of bread.
Hahahaha, the butt is teh same crust as the rest of the loaf!!
In our family we all wanted the butt. Best bit always doesnt matter what loaf! The better the loaf the better the butt!
I love the heels, i eat them with a little butter, I prefer crust over the insides so it's awesome to me! I don't usually get sliced sandwich bread, but if i do, that's cut up in strips and dipped in hummus for a snack :)
@lasomnambule - My sister always took the middle cinnamon roll when we were growing up! I wanted it just because she did I think.
My dad always ate the heel and would be mad that we were wasting food if we threw it away. That said, it normally goes in the trash at my house, unless it's really nice bread.
homemade I eat them while still warm...I will sometimes eat all 6 from a batch of three loaves before I freeze it. generic supermarket bread? No.
Lol. In my family it's called the "toto" which means "tit". And yes it was fought over because it had more crust area. I don't eat it in sliced bread though.