Bread

You have to be eating your way through Paris, Venice and Rome to realize that we really don't understand the importance of bread in the States. I can buy a sandwich at one of the stands in a metro station, and it will come on amazing bread I could only find at Panera (although personally, I think their bread is over-rated), or Zingerman's, or some specialty bistro. In Paris, people just walked around munching on baguettes, and why not?