Croutons

Packaged croutons may lead the way in useless foods sold at the supermarket. For the price of a box of croutons you can buy a loaf of good bread, let it get stale, and make the equivalent of five boxes of terrific croutons, without chemistry-class additives—just olive oil and salt.

Croutons, of course, are one of the many ways to use up leftover day-old bread (bread pudding, bread crumbs, and bread salad are some others), and to make really good ones you need the kind of bread that