Name for end piece of bread?

[CalMeacham]

I’ve always called it the Heel, and so does everyone I know.

The only alternative name for it I’ve come across is from the book Family Words, where a woman volunteered that she called the “Bunce”, a word she said she made up so as to have something nicer than “Heel” to call it.

Family Words: A Dictionary of the Secret Language of Families (How America...

[ignorant_but_learning]

I make croutons out of my “heels”, or little pizza’s. I save about a weeks worth, -we go through 5 loaves a week at least, and on saturday, I make any different kind of pizza’s, from traditional to dessert–the “crusty” part of the heel is on the bottom, and it won’t leak! REALLY GOOD!

[gigi]

@Kalhoun

I called it a heel for 25 years. Then my son came home from school one day and informed me it’s called the “butt” of the bread. Works for me!

Same here, only I was 30-something and it wasn’t your son, but the SDMB.

Putka sounds a little too much like puta for me.

[Fear_Itself]

@Tahssa

I too call it the butt because it is smelly.

Does it not bother you that a piece of smelly bread is rubbing up against the slice next to it? What do you call the slice next to the smelly slice?

[Wile_E]

I, too, call it the heel. I refuse to call it butt.

[chrisk]

@brewha

I’ve always called it the butt. I’m not sure where that came from.

Does that mean that the loaf has a butt at both ends?

[dinahmoe]

@ignorant

As I said, heel for end of bread…MY BIG QUESTION is "Does anyone know how to make “BROWNIE CRUST” out of the whole pan of brownoies? You know how the whole family wants to cut around the pan to get the chewy edges? I want the whole PAN to be that “chewy, crunchy, fudgy” consistency! Help!

Try this. I bought one for my mother and she loves it.

[Quiddity_Glomfuster]

I’m liking ‘shpitzel’ myself. I know it’s formally ‘heel’ but I think ‘end crust’ pretty much gets the message across.

[Enright3]

@hekk

You know the first and last slices of bread? Some people call it the heel, or just “the end piece”. My family and my girlfriends’ family, however, call it a “Putka”, or “Pudka”.

My instincts tell me this is a Polish term, as both our families have lived on the south side for many generations (and are part Polish), but I can’t Google it because I’m sure that those spellings are wrong.

Can someone familiar with Polish confirm or deny the, er, Polish-ness of “putka”? I suppose it could be German or Yiddish as well…

I discovered this several years ago myself. I found it to be a regional thing. I’ve always called it the heel (I’m originally from Oklahoma). A good friend of mine from Pennsylvania always called it the crust.
E3

[CalMeacham]

My instincts tell me this is a Polish term, as both our families have lived on the south side for many generations (and are part Polish), but I can’t Google it because I’m sure that those spellings are wrong.

Can someone familiar with Polish confirm or deny the, er, Polish-ness of “putka”? I suppose it could be German or Yiddish as well…

I’m Polish on both sides, and I’ve never heard “putka” before in my life.

[corkboard]

I call it the “ass-end” or butt.

It smells? It smells like bread.

I was going to recommend bakersedge.com (for the chewy-brownie-edge-on-every-piece), but see I was beaten to the punch.

[Khadaji]

Count me in with the people who always called it the heal.

[sciguy]

@dinahmoe

Try this. I bought one for my mother and she loves it.

[GuinnessGuys] BRILLIANT! [/GG] I’m not sure if it’s worth $34 (plus whatever shipping is), but it’s a close call…

And as long as we’re still polling on bread terms, it’s “heel” for me.

[robcaro]

The “heel” by any other name is still a heel. Or so it has been for some 70+ years.

[Litoris]

MINE!

Seriously, I have always heard it called the “heel.”

[mnemosyne]

@dinahmoe

Try this. I bought one for my mother and she loves it.

I NEED…!!!

As for bread: I call it the crust on a loaf of sliced bread and the heel or the butt on a baguette style bread, mostly depending on who I’m talking to or who is around me at the time. Sometimes I’ll even simply call it the ends… I’m not very consistent!

[Nic2004]

@Fear Itself

Does it not bother you that a piece of smelly bread is rubbing up against the slice next to it? What do you call the slice next to the smelly slice?

<emphasis mine>
badchad?

[Roboto]

I’ll fight anyone who doesn’t call it the “heel.”

[Kat]

@essell

We always called it the Crust.
Depending on the context the word was used in we never had trouble distingishing between the crust on the end, and the crust around the outside.

Same here.

That’s all it is really, one big piece of crust.

[D.E.S.K.Top668]

My mum always reffered to the ends of a loaf as the “Toppers.”

Peace - DESK