Thursday, May 18, 2006

Franz Franz Squishy White Bread

Premium White
AdRi is completely and totally entranced with a story in today’s Oregonian about Franz bakery. Portland classic, they’ve been churning out bread for 100 years, and AdRi has fond childhood memories of the Franz bread man in rural Washington County. At NE 11th and Davis Street, they’ve made 5 city blocks their home with a bread factory extraordinaire. AdRi is reading me some facts: in 1906 they renamed it to Franz Bakery. Prior to that it was Ann Arbor Bakery. (Don’t ask. I don’t want to ask.) In 1930 Franz began selling its bread in wax paper. (Oh oh. Have I told you how much of a fan AdRi is of wax paper?) Here’s a fact AdRi wants you to know….6000 buns or rolls are baked in 8 minutes at the Franz Bakery. The typical American consumes 53 lbs of bread per year. (She finished that fact sharing with the statement: so take that and smoke it. That’s my girl!)

If you want to see that sign go round and round and round, here's the thrilling movie....

6 comments:

brett said...

whity say - yay whitebread....

there are so many other horrible cultural saying i could say, but it won't go on.

in my childhood, it was the 7 UP sign off I84 which is now a budweiser sign. also, Janzen on NE Sandy was a landmark.

the franz distribution locale on Fremont appears to be going the way of the dodo, as it has a bankruptcy sale sign up. hmmmm

CrackerLilo said...

In Orlando, there's the Merita bread company, which also makes mostly squishy white bread. Smells so good to pass when you drive!!! But Merita's sign isn't nearly so cool, nor do they use the wax paper. (Yes, I'm a design geek, too.)

Kathryn said...

Our school takes the kids there for a field trip when they are in second grade. They LOVE it!

Rozanne said...

Oh.My.God.

I was totally planning on writing up a blog post on the Franz bakery for one of my "eat local" posts, but first the Oregonian beats me to it, and now you!

Seriously, great post on Franz and fantastic that you took the movie of the revolving loaf of the whitest of all white breads! I love that ding-dong thing! It's one of my favorite Portland sights.

Anonymous said...

Franz bread, the good bread, flavor beyond compare.

'Member that song? AdRi probably does. :)


~K!

Anonymous said...

When your on the go and your feeling low franz bread is the loaf with life,
Franz bread the good bread
theres alot of life in every loaf.