Why Filipinos Don't Eat The Ends of a Tasty

In the olden days, whitebread, or Tasty as we know it today were baked vertically because of the spanish-style rack layout on brick "pugons" (open-fire ovens). The edges of the bread often touched the rather coalish surfaces of these racks as they were baked on their open-ended molds that were designed for expansion. The result would be that the color of the edges of the bread will be smeared with coal. As common sense dictates, people would slice them off and not eat them.

After the arrival of the Americans, the Bratford-Connolly(?) system was promoted for better baking efficiency, presenting horizontal mount racks instead of vertical ones, with the bread trays sealed on all four corners instead of two. The breakout of the second world war caused the destruction of the mostly antiquated spanish-era baking structures. It has even been reported that for some cases, the destruction of the old bakeries by Japanese occupying forces had been systematic - as rationed wheat was said to have been wasted on the older bakeries.

People however, have learned to stick with their ways and have long since forgotten why they have to avoid eating the edges of the common white bread loaf.

More recently though, there have been a lot of discussion regarding the actual efficacy of the spanish-style open-fire baking ovens and several novelty bakeries such as Pan de Raya in Tagaytay have started using the old method again, with more hygiene in mind of course. It's said that bread baked in such way contains more taste than the regular bread we are eating today.

The Tasty, to every bread, there's history.

Oh and yeah, 100% of what I said in this post is bullshit. Have a nice day.