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I've heard this more than once in my life:

This hot weather really is suited for white bread. In the winter, we can eat the dark bread again.

And variations of that.

Is that based on any kind of logic/tradition? Why exactly is white bread "more suited" for hot weather than dark bread? Why does the kind of bread matter? Is there something I'm missing?

I might actually agree that it somehow seems to fit better, but I can't explain why exactly.

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  • Hi, and welcome to SA! Have a look at the Tour and Help Center when you get a chance. Would you be able to give a source for such a claim?
    – LSchoon
    Aug 16, 2020 at 13:47
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    Where I live, it's a pattern to eat hearty stews in the winter and salads and cold things in the summer. But you're not going to find science proving that these are suited. It's just what people pass along to each other. Aug 16, 2020 at 20:36
  • Never heard of such a tradition, but I could imagine it is more a sort of association as darker breads containing (also) rye flour are common in colder, northern European countries, while in southern Europe bread is usually made entirely from wheat flour. But this preferences are regional, not seasonal.
    – J. Mueller
    Aug 17, 2020 at 0:31
  • I have never heard that, and growing up in Denmark, we ate both dark/rye and white bread all year round... Sep 4, 2020 at 17:13
  • @KateGregory : and there are places like Korea where it's a tradition to eat hot foods in the summer (which helps make your sweat and to dilate blood vessels so you cool off faster). Really spicy foods help with the sweating, too.
    – Joe
    Oct 2, 2020 at 15:24

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Short answer: No. There does not appear to be any such tradition.

I got curious and googled around a bit, and couldn't find anything.

That, and being from a country that could easily get to -15c in winter and 25c in summer, so if anyone would have such a tradition, I think it might be us ;-)

Having said that, if OP knows of any places with such a tradition, it would be interesting to know...

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    I could see it being from an area that's hot all year long. If you could only grow wheat in the summer or fall, but went rancid by the next summer because of the heat, then you could have dark breads in the winter, but not in the summer. So it's no so much about heat cycles but is about growing seasons and storage lifetimes. Outside temperature might also have less direct effects -- if rising times were stunted by the cold, you might add some sugar to help the yeast, and if you're not using refined sugar, you'll end up with dark loaves in the winter.
    – Joe
    Oct 2, 2020 at 15:33

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