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

[ElectionsGuy]

The first and last options. I've never heard "heel" as a way to describe last slices of bread.

[Franzl]

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I would say "Rand", "Kanten" is what they would say in the North.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

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.

Very true; however, calling them ends avoids the ambiguity that comes with the word "crust".  I have never heard anyone call them "heels".

[Bacon King]

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I would say "Rand", "Kanten" is what they would say in the North.

the four German-speakers have now collectively used eight different words for this

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Like all non heathen speakers of English, I call it a crust. Because it is literally part of the crust. Anyone who finds this at all confusing runs a serious risk of drowning when they have a bath.

[Lief 🗽]

I don't have a word for it. But I put it right in the garbage, where it belongs.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

"The parts that I eat because my family won't and I don't like to be wasteful"

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't have a word for it. But I put it right in the garbage, where it belongs.

You will burn in Hell.

[angus]

Like all non heathen speakers of English, I call it a crust. Because it is literally part of the crust. Anyone who finds this at all confusing runs a serious risk of drowning when they have a bath.

piss off.  that's ambiguous, at best.  That doesn't distinguish the end pieces from all the other pieces, each of which has a bit of crust.  If you're going to be a snob, at least try to come off as a bit more sophisticated than the rest of us.

[SWE]

I don't have a word for it. But I put it right in the garbage, where it belongs.

[patrick1]

Heel.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

crusts

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

Heel (normal, etc, etc).

lol

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Heel. I sometimes call it the "end piece" when I can't think of the term.

I don't have a word for it. But I put it right in the garbage, where it belongs.

Also this. But I keep it in the bag and hope somebody else eats it so I don't feel guilty about the waste of food.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

piss off.  that's ambiguous, at best.  That doesn't distinguish the end pieces from all the other pieces, each of which has a bit of crust.  If you're going to be a snob, at least try to come off as a bit more sophisticated than the rest of us.

This isn't snobbery but The Truth. Cut the end of a loaf and the resulting slice is mostly crust. This makes it different from other slices.

[Goldwater]

Crust. I never realized so many people in my part of the country called them heels...

[angus]

piss off.  that's ambiguous, at best.  That doesn't distinguish the end pieces from all the other pieces, each of which has a bit of crust.  If you're going to be a snob, at least try to come off as a bit more sophisticated than the rest of us.

This isn't snobbery but The Truth. Cut the end of a loaf and the resulting slice is mostly crust. This makes it different from other slices.

It may perhaps depend upon the loaf.  I have noticed that some brands offer only a sliver on the end piece.  (Forgive my insistence upon the term, but it comes from my earliest recollections, and it really does seem to fit.)  Those breads seem to have instructed their bread-slicing-machine engineers to construct a device that simply removes crust from the outer edges--but not the other parts of the loaf, which I suppose informs my contentiousness--and leaves 24 equally-formed slices.  I generally purchase Arnold's Country Wheat Bread, not only because it tastes delicious, but also because the endpieces are not significantly less massive than the other pieces, which would suggest that the endpieces are decidedly not "mostly crust."  The crust, as I understand a crust to be defined, consists of at most a couple of millimeters of material on the outside of the loaf.  If the bread slices are about a centimeter in thickness, then the endpieces are mostly middle, in fact the overwhelming majority of the endpieces are middle, just like all the other pieces.  The simply have the advantage of also having an extra layer of crust. 

To call the endpieces crust would be tantamount to calling the continent of Australia "coastline."  Sure, the ratio of coastline to interior is greater for Australia than for any other continent, but it is disingenuous and misleading to call the entire continent a coastline simply because it has a greater ratio of coastline to interior than any other continent.  I, for one, like coastline.  Coastline is delicious.  If a piece of continent has a greater coastline-to-interior ratio than the average continent, then it is, to me, a savory and delicious continent.  It should be drenched in hummus and minced garlic and toasted and eaten with abandon.  It is a rare treat.  It is not coastline in its entirety, but because the coastline of such a morsel is never far away from the tongue, it is as gold nuggets among stones.  It is a favored slice of geography. 

[IceSpear]

Heel

[Joe Biden 2020]

I've always used the term "heel".  I eat them every once in a while.

[RR1997]

Crust. I never realized so many people in my part of the country called them heels...

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't have a word for it. But I put it right in the garbage, where it belongs.

That's a strange dialect of English you are using.  I've never heard the word 'garbage' being used as a synonym of 'mouth' before.

[Mr. Morden]

I didn't even realize there was any particular word for this.  I think I would just call them the first and last pieces.  If I had to go with one of these options, I guess "end pieces" sounds the least weird to me.

I mean, seriously.  What's next?  Are you going to tell me that those plastic things on the ends of shoelaces also have names?

[Cranberry]

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I would say "Rand", "Kanten" is what they would say in the North.

the four German-speakers have now collectively used eight different words for this

If we ask Hifly he certainly has another to offer

And now that I think of it, I have heard it called "Bouden" or "Boden" as well, similar to ZuWo's variant, just in my region's dialect

[angus]

Are you going to tell me that those plastic things on the ends of shoelaces also have names?

I think most people call it an aglet.  I call it a sleeve.  I've also heard them called tips, studs, and acuculae.  We should have a poll.

[muon2]

I grew up calling them heels. Such bread was almost always a traditional presliced sandwich loaf in a plastic bag and the heels were the kinds of pieces angus describes. It's been a very long time since I've bought that kind of loaf, and when I last did it was for cooking as part of another dish, and I probably thought of those slices that were mostly crust as heels.

For many years our dinner bread has been an unsliced loaf, baguette, or round, and if I have my way it has a hearty crust. The first slice is my favorite one as the crust is both tasty and makes a good support for mopping up savory sauces with the bread. However with unsliced bread I don't recall using heel to describe the first piece, it's usually the end or the first slice.