What do you call the first and last slices of a loaf of bread?

[tik 🪀✨]

My partner looked at me like I was from another country when I called those slices the "heels." I began thinking perhaps it was just a weird thing my family said. It certainly isn't. She calls them the crusts, which makes sense. I have no idea why we call them heels.



End Crust Heel Butt Nose Nothing Other

!!! Bonus Question Wow !!! If you never eat these slices please also vote for the last option.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

My partner looked at me like I was from another country when I called those slices the "heels." I began thinking perhaps it was just a weird thing my family said. It certainly isn't. She calls them the crusts, which makes sense. I have no idea why we call them heels.



End Crust Heel Butt Nose Nothing Other

!!! Bonus Question Wow !!! If you never eat these slices please also vote for the last option.

Crust I guess.  I just call it the good part.

[memphis]

The end pieces are the best part of the loaf.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Ends

[dead0man]

Heel

and I use them as hot dog buns or feed them to the dogs...unless it's winter, then they go to the birds.

[tik 🪀✨]

After thinking about it for more than five seconds, calling it the heel makes perfect sense if you're not talking about the generic, square shaped loaves.

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Crust or end piece.

[Mopsus]

I call them "rumps", but I'm probably the only one. Not that it matters what they're called, since I always end up feeding them to the birds anyway.

[King]

bird feed

[Tender Branson]

Scheaschz (in local dialect)

(if you want to listen how it is pronounced, click on the audio-file in this link, next to the word Scheaschz, 3rd from the bottom)

"Scherz" in the regular Austro-Bavarian writing.

"Scherz" is generally used to refer to this in the Austrian/Bavarian dialect areas. A Northern-German would probably use something else (we need to ask Franzl, because I actually have no clue what they use there).

In fact, "Scherz" here means 2 things: the bread-related end-stuff and "joke".

In English, I'd probably use "tail-(end)".

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

End pieces

[Cranberry]

"Rampfdl" in local dialect, but unfortunately I don't have such a fancy file like Tender has...

Pronounce it like the "ra" in "ramen noodles", and good luck with the "mpfdl" (the p isn't pronounced heavily, but it's still audible... It's hard to explain it )

In High German I'd say "Ende" or something like that, but I have no clue what they call it...

I do know Tender's word, but no one uses it here, even though we're just ~100 kilometres apart

In English I'd probably say "end" or "end piece" or something like that

[angus]

I voted for end, although I usually say the "end piece."  I also voted for heel because I've heard that one as well. 

I rather enjoy them, actually, and I save the first one till I get to the other end of the package and use them together.  Toasted, of course, with tuna, copious mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, and sliced fresh jalapeño from my garden.  For grilled cheese, the variety with no mayonnaise or other condiment, to be served with tomato soup, I turn them inside out and use the outer side hold together the melted cheese.

[Mr. Illini]

It's the heel, and I typically do not eat them. That said, I had never thought of feeding them to the birds and will do that from now on. I have mostly thrown them out in the past.

[angus]

I've been inspired by this thread to learn more.  A few (unconfirmed) tidbits:

Apparently if a woman prefers the endpiece when she's pregnant then she's going to have a boy.

Among the German-speaking (PennsylfaniDeutsch) residents of Lancaster County, it is called Schpitzel.

Centuries ago, when a new loaf was taken from the oven, bread was often sliced lengthwise (perpendicular to the way it is commonly sliced now), and the first slice from the top of the loaf was given to the person of the highest social standing.  Hence the term 'upper crust' to describe such a person.

Grunchsteak, humpfermumber, krunka, and bottom are also words used to denote the endpiece.

M-W.com defines heel as "one of the crusty ends of a loaf of bread" which would imply that "crusty end" is another expression for this part of the loaf.

Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine in 1912.  He called them, quite simply, "crusts."  

In 1943, the federal government imposed a ban on sliced bread.  The ban was imposed on January 18 as a wartime conservation matter.  Only bakeries complied, but some other distributors did not.   New York Area Supervisor of the Food Distribution Administration John Conaboy wrote in February that "to protect the cooperating bakeries against the unfair competition of those who continue to slice their own bread, we are prepared to take stern measures if necessary."  After many complaints, the ban was rescinded on March 8 of the same year.  No word yet on how Conaboy might have referred to the endpieces.

We actually do feed ours to the waterfowl sometimes, although I prefer to give them Graham Crackers when we have those.  The local geese, swan, and ducks seem to enjoy them, but as far as I can tell they use the same word to describe both Graham Crackers and endpieces.  

I should probably get back to work now...

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

The ends.  All slices of bread have crust.

[Tender Branson]

"Rampfdl" in local dialect, but unfortunately I don't have such a fancy file like Tender has...

Pronounce it like the "ra" in "ramen noodles", and good luck with the "mpfdl" (the p isn't pronounced heavily, but it's still audible... It's hard to explain it )

In High German I'd say "Ende" or something like that, but I have no clue what they call it...

I do know Tender's word, but no one uses it here, even though we're just ~100 kilometres apart

In English I'd probably say "end" or "end piece" or something like that

"Rampfdl" ?

Never heard of that one.

And you are not even in the Alemannic-German speaking area, which means we should have more or less the same name for that thing ...

[Cranberry]

"Rampfdl" in local dialect, but unfortunately I don't have such a fancy file like Tender has...

Pronounce it like the "ra" in "ramen noodles", and good luck with the "mpfdl" (the p isn't pronounced heavily, but it's still audible... It's hard to explain it )

In High German I'd say "Ende" or something like that, but I have no clue what they call it...

I do know Tender's word, but no one uses it here, even though we're just ~100 kilometres apart

In English I'd probably say "end" or "end piece" or something like that

"Rampfdl" ?

Never heard of that one.

And you are not even in the Alemannic-German speaking area, which means we should have more or less the same name for that thing ...

Haha, yeah that's a word unique to my immediate area

I have no clue how they call it down in the Unterland, probably same as you there.

[dead0man]

In 1943, the federal government imposed a ban on sliced bread.  The ban was imposed on January 18 as a wartime conservation matter.  Only bakeries complied, but some other distributors did not.   New York Area Supervisor of the Food Distribution Administration John Conaboy wrote in February that "to protect the cooperating bakeries against the unfair competition of those who continue to slice their own bread, we are prepared to take stern measures if necessary."  After many complaints, the ban was rescinded on March 8 of the same year.  No word yet on how Conaboy might have referred to the endpieces.

Any idea for the purpose of the ban?  I can't think of a (good) reason.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

In 1943, the federal government imposed a ban on sliced bread.  The ban was imposed on January 18 as a wartime conservation matter.  Only bakeries complied, but some other distributors did not.   New York Area Supervisor of the Food Distribution Administration John Conaboy wrote in February that "to protect the cooperating bakeries against the unfair competition of those who continue to slice their own bread, we are prepared to take stern measures if necessary."  After many complaints, the ban was rescinded on March 8 of the same year.  No word yet on how Conaboy might have referred to the endpieces.

Any idea for the purpose of the ban?  I can't think of a (good) reason.

It would enable the slicers at commercial bakeries to be recycled for other things than need steel.  Also would have enabled the tooling used to make and maintain the slicers to be repurposed or recycled.  Probably wouldn't have yielded all that much metal and a number of those wartime recycling drives were more effective as propaganda than actual useful material.

The ends.  All slices of bread have crust.

And the ends have more crust than the inner pieces.  I generally call them the crusts, but I have heard heels often enough that it isn't strange.

[ZuWo]

Depends on the person I talk to. The word I picked up from my parents is Bödeli, derived from Bode (Standard German Boden "ground, floor, bottom") with the diminutive suffix -li. However, this is a dialectally restricted and somewhat outdated word so I guess I tend to use the neutral Aschnitt when talking to people around my age or not from my dialect area.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I have never heard of anyone calling them anything other than the 'Crusts'. 'Ends' makes sense, but heels? Oh you Americans and your language...

[Bacon King]

I love how there's already been like six German words for the end piece mentioned in this thread

[memphis]

I love how there's already been like six German words for the end piece mentioned in this thread

Knowing the Germans (or Austrians), there's probably a very specific usage for each of them.

[Oakvale]

Heel (normal, etc, etc).