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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.

M. Santistevan
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  • Hi, and welcome to SA! Have a look at the [Tour](https://cooking.stackexchange.com/tour) and [Help Center](https://cooking.stackexchange.com/help) when you get a chance. Would you be able to give a source for such a claim? – LSchoon Aug 16 '20 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. – Kate Gregory Aug 16 '20 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 '20 at 00:31
  • I have never heard that, and growing up in Denmark, we ate both dark/rye and white bread all year round... – Lars Panzerbjrn Sep 04 '20 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 02 '20 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...

Lars Panzerbjrn
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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 02 '20 at 15:33