So why are baguettes in France so much better?

[AlexBernardo]

I know we have great artisanal bakers here in the States. Every big city in the US has a slew of them. But every time I go to France, whether in Paris, Provence or Burgundy, the baguettes taste so much better. Crispier crust, sweeter, not as hard to chew, and also tend to taste good much longer. It doesn't matter where I pick it up-a train station, a patiserrie, a deli. or a restaurant-they all taste better than Stateside.

So what gives?

Alex Bernardo

[Franky2Times]

Americans never learned how to make bread. This is the land of Wonder Bread and Sourdough. In France, boulangers are real professionals and as such, are treated with respect. People there will not eat any bread that is not made on the same day. It really is an art or a very skilled trade learned over many years. Unfortunately, in this country, we settle for much less quality 'cause we don't care. And don't start telling me anything about Balthazar, please.

[mongo_jones]

Americans never learned how to make bread. This is the land of Wonder Bread and Sourdough. In France, boulangers are real professionals and as such, are treated with respect. People there will not eat any bread that is not made on the same day. It really is an art or a very skilled trade learned over many years. Unfortunately, in this country, we settle for much less quality 'cause we don't care. And don't start telling me anything about Balthazar, please.

or it might be the water. or the wheat. or maybe the french bakers sneer at their dough in a way they never teach their american acolytes.

[jackal10]

Two reasons:

a) The flour. French flour is much softer than US bread flours

b) Baguettes are designed to be eaten within a short time of baking. Local artisanal boulangeries bake small batches all day, and people buy and eat them at the next meal, if not sooner. They stale within a few hours. This does not fit with the US food distribution industry or consumption pattern. The compromises needed to make a product last mean its a different loaf. Even supermarkets with in-store bakeries have to make compromises (flour improvers, lower hydration, part-baked frozen etc) to make a loaf that can be baked with the equipment or labour available, that achieves the necessary economic economy of scale, and that lasts until the customer eats it.

[John Whiting]

People there will not eat any bread that is not made on the same day.

Unless, of course, it's pain levain (like Poilane's) which is good for at least a week.

The bagette must be eaten on the same day because it is a compromise recipe invented in the 1920s as a response to labor legislation that protected bakers from having to go to work before a certain hour in the morning. Everyone knows that, the longer it takes bread to rise, and the less artificially added yeast, the better it will be. Consumers in France are gradually rediscovering this.

The bagette is a halfway house between Wonderbread/Mother's Pride and natural rising.

[balex]

More or less what jack said above -- in Paris you buy bread twice a day. That is why you have bakers about every 100 yds throughout the city. Why you also have lingerie shops every 100 yds is a different question.

In other places without this infrastructure you have to have a loaf that lasts a bit longer. In London, Maison Blanc does a decent baguette -- still a way off the real thing but at least recognizably the same type of bread.

[bleudauvergne]

I have to add that it has little to do with the skill of the baker.

Franky2Times comment is like saying bagels are so much better in Brooklyn because the bagel makers in other parts of the country don't know what they're doing and don't care. That's kind of silly.

When I was in Beijing, there was someone there who had opened a bagelry. After she had trouble producing good bagels there, she researched every possible aspect about bagel making. She already had the training, having made bagels in Brooklyn in the past. She found out it was the water. Brooklyn tap water makes the bagels so good there. Once she realized that and having actually considered importing brooklyn tap water, she then resigned herself to makeing the best possible facsimile of the bagel she could given her circumstances. The product was really good. We would drive across town to sit in one of the only coffee shops in Beijing to munch on a real bagel (with real coffee!). But they would never be exactly the same as the Brooklyn bagel.

If we could re-create at will (or through training) every wonderful gastronomic experience we wanted, and it was that simple, French baguette wouldn't be so special, in my opinion. Some gastronomic experiences are place specific. French baguette is one of them (especially in Paris...)

We are in Lyon and we rarely eat baguette, mainly because if we did buy it twice daily we'd be the size of hippos within a few months. We usually get more substantial specialty breads that we can eat for two or three days, and not feel like we've got to finish it off. You can buy a half baguette, but it's not smiled upon as a regular practice, especially by the boulangers here... Every baker has his own names, but our favorite at our baker is called pain de champs, which is a substantial loaf and has a mixture of grades and types of flours. It includes a smattering of different grains in the crust - mmmm.

It should be noted that the specialty breads are really the product that supports the boulangers in France, since the boulanger is forced to sell baguette at a government regulated price which gives almost no profit margin. (Regulation created to allow everyone, regardless of their degree of poverty, the right to have bread at every meal.)

edited for clarity

Edited April 10, 2004 by bleudauvergne (log)

[balex]

It should be noted that the specialty breads are really the product that supports the boulangers in France, since the boulanger is forced to sell baguette at a government regulated price which gives almost no profit margin. (Regulation created to allow everyone, regardless of their degree of poverty, the right to have bread at every meal.)

edited for clarity

Good point. I normally buy "baguette tradition" which is better and not regulated in price (the two factors are correlated )

[bleudauvergne]

That is why you have bakers about every 100 yds throughout the city. Why you also have lingerie shops every 100 yds is a different question.

balex, it is not a different question at all. The two (boulangeries and lingerie shops) are actually intricately related. One is to remind us not to buy the other.

[bleachboy]

I'm not so sure about this. (Disclaimer: Never Been To France) Wasn't there an essay in one of Jeffrey Steingarten's books about how bakers from the US won some sort of French baguette contest a couple of years in a row?

[Fat Guy]

I'm with Whiting: what's so great about French baguettes? I think they suck. If I'm looking for basic white bread in New York, I have ton of better choices at anyplace that sells Eli's or Amy's bread, without even getting into the better artisanal bakeries. I have no use for baguettes and to me, saying baguettes in France are better than baguettes in New York is about as relevant and meaningful as saying McDonald's in the US is better than McDonald's in Europe. The only baguettes I like are the "l'ancien" sourdough variety, which are as good at Pain Quotidien in New York as they are at Pain Quotidien in Europe.

[Fat Guy]

Americans never learned how to make bread. This is the land of Wonder Bread and Sourdough.

Sourdough is the pinnacle of bread baking. Any serious baker will tell you that breads made with commercial laboratory-grown yeast are inferior. And to disagree with Whiting's characterization just a bit, I don't see the baguette as halfway between Wonder Bread and sourdough. I see it as Wonder Bread's better-dressed, slightly more presentable sibling.

[balmagowry]

When I was in Beijing, there was someone there who had opened a bagelry.  After she had trouble producing good bagels there, she researched every possible aspect about bagel making.  She already had the training, having made bagels in Brooklyn in the past.  She found out it was the water.  Brooklyn tap water makes the bagels so good there.  Once she realized that and having actually considered importing brooklyn tap water, she then resigned herself to makeing the best possible facsimile of the bagel she could given her circumstances.  The product was really good.

NYC tap water is some of the best in the world - and of course by definition the ultimate for bagel-making. I can see where it might have been impractical to import it to Beijing; but a few years back I remember reading about someone doing exactly that in Denver. I think it was a homesick NYC expat - opened his own bagelry and sold New York bagels made with real New York water, and made a lot of other NYC expats very happy. (Also introduced Denverites to the Genuine Article, spoiling them for any lesser form.) My oldest friend from grade school is half-French and lives in the south of France, and every August she comes back to NY wanting ONE THING - a real bagel.

[Fat Guy]

So why for all of bagel history have the bagels in New Jersey, and in the parts of New York that don't get serviced from the Croton reservoir system, been just as good as the ones in the city? I suspect the water explanation is really a statement of "there's some factor we can't identify that's screwing up our bagels, so we're going with water as our final guess."

[Pumpkin Lover]

Why you also have lingerie shops every 100 yds is a different question.

I read everywhere that a baguette is a phallic symbol. If a girl/guy is always lugging around baguettes, she/he might be reminded of a little somethin' somethin', and ya know... she/he might want to do some extra shopping.

**TMI NSFW JOKEY-JOKE**

Although it's disturbing to think that a baguette, as a phallic symbol, takes hours to get hard.

Ba-dum-shuh.

[Mabelline]

My step-grampa was a German from Dusseldorf, who'd made it to America 3 years before WW1. He had been a master baker in Germany, and it is also a national pride issue there also. There are are like 30-40 kinds of breads to master, including some truly beautiful 'artisanal' breads. I remember one as a child that looked like a 2 1/2'stalk of wheat, and a large sun that was rays and facial features. As a child I was totally convinced he was a wizard!

[Fat Guy]

Not that I've been everywhere in the world, but of the places I've been it's not even close: the best bread is in Northern California. They have a bread culture out there that's truly remarkable. The sheer quantity and variety of good bread in that region makes it hard to eat anything else.

[Mabelline]

The thing that disturbs me about all the jawwing about breads is the fact that everyone else is acting like us here in the States, Canada, or Mexico have no tastebuds. Back off... a bit at least! I think we can tell good bread from bad..duh...I guess we don't use bread as much, or of a quality as everyone else----not.

French baguettes--they are good in France. Fajitas, they are good in Texas. Nuff said..by me...

[Fat Guy]

I'd go farther, Mabelline: the joke is on France. While Americans have been busy learning about good bread, the French have been equally busy forgetting about it.

[artisanbaker]

i can't remember all the points i'd like to make but here goes:

why is the bread better in france?

that's subjective, isn't it? In mexico they like sugar in their bread. if they taste a loaf from france, they might not think it's "good." *we must respect each others tastes and encourage diversity.*

personally, i've yet to have a baguette in america that i've thought is as good as some french ones. you have to look hard in france, but i would be willing to supply some references of bakeries that i think make spectacular baguettes. julien in paris makes one of the best baguettes i've ever had.

part of the reason the baguette is so good is simply the mastery of fabrication/fermentation, the wheat variety and earth it's grown on, the milling, the oven used.

regarding the competition: these are not based on just taste alone; there are MANY factors that play in.

we in america can make wonderful, even spectacular baguettes in our own right. i've made some great ones and my colleagues have as well. BUT, i've yet to have a baguette in america as good as the one at julien that spring morning.

ps. if you ask the french why their baguettes are better they might say that it's because the flour is not pasteurised! hehehe

[artisanbaker]

i must add that with respect to my comments about respect each others tastes, i must say that i've had wonderful yeasted breads and wonderful sourdough breads. i can't say that one is a better bread.

it depends on what i'm eating it *with.*

regards,

rob

[Jason Perlow]

Not that I've been everywhere in the world, but of the places I've been it's not even close: the best bread is in Northern California. They have a bread culture out there that's truly remarkable. The sheer quantity and variety of good bread in that region makes it hard to eat anything else.

Newark, baby. Half the businesses in Ironbound are bakeries, practically.

BTW Balthazar Bakery in Englewood NJ, which supplies many top restaurants in Manhattan with baked goods (including Balthazar itself) makes some KICKASS baguettes. But their real area of expertise is their croissants and brioche. They use like an entire stick of butter in each croissant, I kid you not. Next time you are in the area, you need to go there.

EDIT: Added link to Balthazar Bakery thread.

Edited April 11, 2004 by Jason Perlow (log)

[merstar]

Jason, thanks for the recommendation. Will Balthazar sell to the public in small quantities or is it strictly for the restaurant industry?

[Jason Perlow]

Jason, thanks for the recommendation. Will Balthazar sell to the public in small quantities or is it strictly for the restaurant industry?

They have a retail store there that you can buy pretty much everything they make.

[Louisa Chu]

Rob - very diplomatic of you - and I defer to you on the baking facts - as that is your metier. Steven - I'm sorry - but you're really PISSING me off here - I EXPECT more from you. The idea that baguettes in France are NOT good is an OLD idea - not historically old - but about TEN years old. You CAN get a GOOD baguette in just about ANY boulangerie - in just about any quartier - thanks to the Banette and Retrodor campaigns - started by millers to improve the quality of baguettes through better flour, education, etc. - which was all ultimately to improve sales of their flour - and it's worked - on all levels. Serious props should be given to Steven Kaplan too - the American who helped save French bread. As Rob's said - baguettes chez Julien are considered one of the greats - as are the baguettes chez Poujauran - GREAT baguettes, NOT great service - and chez Ganachaud. I also LOVE the signature baguette at Maison Kayser - the Baguette Monge. A simply GOOD baguette is so good - especially when warm - that just the yeasty aroma alone will compel you to tear into it while walking down the street.