Happy Birthday, Sliced Bread

TWIT would like to wish a very happy 83rd birthday to sliced bread. Yep, I know it might be hard to believe but sliced bread was first sold way back in 1928. When it was first sold, it was advertised as “the greatest step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.” This led to the popular phrase “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

We owe a big thank you to inventor Otto Frederick Rohwedder for developing the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine. Actually, he built a prototype of the machine in 1912, but it was destroyed in a fire and it wasn’t until 16 years later that Rohwedder had a full working maching ready.
Our family seldom uses the phrase “sliced bread”; instead, we refer to it as “light bread.” I remember my grandparents, and and my favorite great-aunt and great-uncle calling it "light bread", so naturally I grew up thinking that everybody should call it that.  This originated in the South a few generations ago. Back in the day, the only bread that people had was loaf bread that you baked at home or got from the bakery or biscuits. Then came sliced bread. People started calling it “light bread” not because of the light, white color of the bread, but because it was made with yeast and was lighter in weight than other breads. To this day, my family and I still use the phrase “light bread” when referring to sliced bread.