So why are baguettes in France so much better?

[Mabelline]

Yep, and when they went through that epic reorganization of bread making, where'd they get their wheat from?! The U.S., or was your precious Poilane lying? Our wheat is the finest in the world, and bread makers, pasta makers, WHATEVER, are on record testifying to the same. I am sick of us getting dissed. Our food is of a quality unmatched in history, and the last bastion of what can be said against it now is "But it's not our quality," well bullshit. We can taste and our food is good,so there you are.

[Lesley C]

You can track down a flute Gana at any good boulangerie in France. They're excellent. Sure if you buy your baguette at Leclerc, Casino or Lyon supermarkets you'll be disappointed. But to compare the best baguettes in France to California sourdogh is just silly. California sourdough is too sour.

Let's give the French their due: a good French baguette is a thing of beauty, taste-wise, crust-wise and mie-wise (so is Poujauran, but that's a whole other thread).

[tigerwoman]

I personally love baguettes (and don't love sourdough)

I think it is a matter of taste, but even though I am not supposed to eat wheat or yeasted products, last summer in Paris my main concern was not upscale dining but eating croissants and baguettes and frankly it was worth it.

In NYC Tomcat bakery makes a good baguette - nice and chewy stales within a day - it also makes good crostinis and croutons. Unfortunately Tomcat only sells directly via wholesale but there are places that sell it retail, I amsure they would direct you ifyou called the sales office. Here is Queens I know that Bonelle Bakery on Ascan Avenue in Forest HIlls sells Tomcat bread. Rahita picks it up herself daily from Long Island City

I too am finding your comments offensive FG, your taste doesnt denote the ultimate expertise, it's really a personal thing.

And according to my niece who bakes bread and now lives in France, the flour does make a difference. Just a note, the way the flour is milled is different, as may be the mix of strains. And bagels and bread in NYC do taste different. What's that old story about the Stella Dora Bakery trying to move to the south in the 60's or 70's and having to move back to the Bronx ultimately.

[Mabelline]

Say what you will, I stand with FG. I think there are breads in California as fine as any in France. So hang me. WTF. I use bread as a transport for other foods...so do I get excommunicated from the bread society, or what?? Do I just have to eat tortillas now, what gives? Who the Hell are all you folks, deciding what tastes good?

[Fat Guy]

The term sourdough simply means "a leaven consisting of dough in which fermentation is active." (Merriam-Webster.) In other words, sourdough bread is bread that is risen by yeast cultures that are active in dough, as opposed to crapola industrial yeasts that are added as a powder or goo. Sourdough bread does not inherently taste sour. Some of it does -- as in "San Francisco sourdough," which is a specific style of sourdough that does have a sour taste -- and some of it nobody would describe as the slightest bit sour. You can even make a sourdough baguette.

I have never had bread made with commercial yeast that is as good as good sourdough bread. Never, not once. The reason is simple: in breadmaking, as in many types of cooking, it takes time for excellent flavor and texture to develop. If you make bread in just a few hours with commercial yeast, it will not have the flavor of bread that has risen long and slow with sourdough. Bring on the taste tests, and prepare to be offended again and again and again.

[Jason Perlow]

Okay, thanks!

Here's the existing eG thread.

[mamster]

I think FG is right, sort of, and for an extended and loving explanation of why wild yeast makes better bread, read The Bread Builders by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott.

That said, there is a lot of excellent product made with commercial yeast or mixed-method, and not all of it is made with efficiency or the bottom line in mind. The best bakery in Seattle is Grand Central; I guess it's our equivalent to Acme or Tom Cat, in that it turns out a lot of bread and manages to keep quality high. Last year I toured their factory with head baker Robert Holland and we walked through how their various loaves are made. Some of the loaves are made with 100% wild yeast, some with 100% Red Star active dry yeast, and some with a mixture of the two.

An aside: you could tell Robert was a pro because he could not stop himself from fondling every rising loaf we came across. When we got to the sourdough starter, which is fed several times a day and lives in a big plastic trashcan, he dipped his finger in and licked it clean, and encouraged me to do the same. It was quite delicious.

There is nothing stopping GC from using levain in all of their loaves. But their biggest seller is the Como loaf, which is basically an Italian-style loaf made with a large percentage of preferment (biga) and no levain. At the other end of the spectrum, they make a sour white (not that sour, really) with nothing but levain. Both loaves are excellent, but I like the Como better.

I'd argue that the more important difference than sourdough vs commercial yeast is bread made with preferment vs bread made without. Among other advantages, preferment gives time for flour-dwelling bacteria to get in on the action, like in a sourdough loaf.

Down in Portland, Ken's Artisan (the bakery Jim Dixon profiled in his Beard-nominated piece) makes three breads that I buy whenever I'm in Portland: the levain-based Country Blonde (white) and Country Brown (pain de campagne, which I'd put up against Poilane any day), and also a baguette, which I believe he bakes twice daily. The baguette was the first of Ken's breads I tried, and I could tell right away how serious he was based on that. It's good bread. (It's a baguette a l'ancienne style, not Wonder Bread, obviously.)

So I won't hesitate, Monsier le Gros, to stand with you and say that most bread out there is crap, but I'm not convinced that sourdough/commercial yeast is the key distinction, except in that only serious bakers are going to bother with sourdough at all.

[Fat Guy]

Nice article from Mamster in The Daily Gullet on Bread Baking.

And I agree with his improvement on my comments.

Edited April 11, 2004 by Fat Guy (log)

[Fat Guy]

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?

Not that the results of baking competitions mean much for the consumer, but the last one of these competitions (they hold them every three years) was won by the Japanese. The Americans came in second and the French did not make the top three. That was the 2002 Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. The US team took first place in the previous competition, in 1999. The 2005 competition is coming up in . . . 2005.

[Jonathan Day]

A minor clarification: in French, baguette, strictly speaking, refers only to the shape of the bread. Harry Potter, in the French version of the stories, wields une baguette magique, a magic wand. So you can have a baguette made from white flour and commercial yeast, from other flours, or from a levain (sourdough). One chain of bakeries, le petrin Ribeirou, specialises in this levain bread -- they make baguettes as well as other shapes.

There has been a renaissance in breadmaking in France over the last decade, with a lot more public interest in bread quality, pains au levain and the like. To ignore that is as silly as to ignore the industrialising decline that preceded it.

I have no doubt that the best breads available in the US rival the best available in France, so the New York / Paris competition may be a tough one. To me it seems far more difficult to find good or great bread in small towns in the US than in towns and villages of corresponding size and economic activity in France...but I have not verified this claim in any systematic way.

[HKDave]

A good baguette is all about freshness, not ethnic origin. I'm about as far away from both the US and France as you can get, but in my building, there's a local Chinese-staffed bakery that does excellent baguettes. The 'secret', as best I can tell, is that they bake them 3 times a day, and I know the times they come out of the oven, and make sure I buy and eat them while they're still warm. They're not any good after even 1/2 day. Bread stales very fast here.

I can also buy cheap, nasty perservative-rich supermarket baguettes here that are every bit as bad as the worst you can buy in the US.....

[Fat Guy]

Jonathan: I think I noted above that it's possible to make a sourdough baguette, and in an earlier post I mentioned the l'Ancien baguettes that I favor. The standard French baguette, however, is a quick-risen bread made from white flour and commercial yeast and it's just not particularly good. If it's fermented overnight, it can be pretty good. If it's made with sourdough, it can be very good, but it's not the standard French baguette. It's a product that doesn't have anything to do with the query Alex presented to us.

[Jonathan Day]

Is there really such a thing as a standard French baguette? To John Whiting's point about regulations and laws designed to control bread manufacture, the only relevant laws I have found (on http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr) referring to bread are

LOI n° 44-206 du 22 avril 1944, "RELATIVE AU TRAVAIL DE NUIT DANS LA BOULANGERIE", which permits the prefect of any region to authorise bakery workers to work at night, between 2200 and 0400, "in order to ensure the supply of bread to the people of the region". The workers are entitled to a 25% overtime payment.

and

Décret n° 93-1074 du 13 septembre 1993, which specifies that

• "pain maison" can only be used to describe bread that is kneaded, shaped and baked on the premises in which it was sold
  
• "pain de tradition française", "pain traditionnel français", "pain traditionnel de France" or equivalent terms, can only be used to describe bread (in any shape) composed exclusively of wheat flour, water, salt and yeast, which can either be commercial yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) or natural levain. These breads can contain up to 2% (by weight of flour) fava bean flour, 0.5% of soya flour, and 0.3% of malted wheat flour.
  

There is also a strict definition of "levain".

The Décret also cancels a number of earlier rulings, e.g. about the composition of flour, about taxes on bread, and other financial regulations.

There may be other rules -- France is full of rules -- so this may not be complete. But is the price of a "standard baguette" still fixed by law? Many similar laws have been cancelled over the years.

Also, Steven, what do you mean by a "quick rise"? One hour? Four? Eight? The baker from which I usually buy bread (including baguettes normales) works through the night. And there is a wide range of quality in baguettes normales, amongst the 30-some bakers in or around the village. The baguette you buy at the local supermarket isn't that tasty -- although these have improved immeasurably. The baguette at one of the better bakeries is very good indeed.

So I'm not sure that a blanket statement about the quality of a "standard French baguette" means very much -- in France, at least.

[Fat Guy]

I'd be very interested to see some statistics on the rising times and production methods for baguettes in France today. No doubt there are a lot more artisanal baguettes being produced today than there were in 1990 -- artisanal baking has been an international success story -- but is it truly the case that a randomly selected baguette in France has a particularly good chance of being a good baguette even by baguette standards?

To cut to the chase, Jonathan, are you saying you would actually choose one of these "very good indeed" baguettes -- for example one made via overnight fermentation like that American guy taught the French about -- over a nice non-baguette loaf of sourdough bread? I could live to be a hundred and twenty and never be tempted to make that choice.

[maxmillan]

When I visited France I ate as much pastry and baguette I could find. The baguette had a thin crunchy crust with a soft velvety inside.

There is only two or three bread bakeries in Vancouver BC that I can say has good baguettes. In my school we used a convection oven (not the best for bread baking.) We threw in ice cubes so that the steam would give the bread a nice thin crunchy crust.

I also made baguettes from a natural starter I made with strawberries. I swear I can taste a hint of strawberries from the bread made from it. A friend who is allergic to bread was able to eat my bread with no ill effect. Go figure.

In response to the first entry of this thread, France do have different flour. I understand their flour must pass a strict standard, which is rather high, before it can be sold. This goes for their butter, which is, by far, superior to any North American butter I can find. Hence, the most delicious croissants.

Also, France uses starters that are centuries old. Unfortunately, a lot of bakers are going commercial and use commerical yeast.

One of my favorite bakery imports his flour and butter from Europe. You can certainly taste the difference. His shelves are empty before closing.

[Jonathan Day]

I'd be very interested to see some statistics on the rising times and production methods for baguettes in France today. No doubt there are a lot more artisanal baguettes being produced today than there were in 1990 -- artisanal baking has been an international success story -- but is it truly the case that a randomly selected baguette in France has a particularly good chance of being a good baguette even by baguette standards?

Must...tread...carefully...here...

Not sure what you mean by "baguette standards", as if these are somehow maintained at a low level. It also depends on whether you are shopping at bakeries or in supermarkets. But assuming that this means "standards for non-levain bread" or just "standards for bread", then yes, I would say (1) that there is a reasonably high, say 40%, likelihood of a randomly selected baguette having been completely made on premises and having had a slow rise; (2) that it will taste good: crispy crust, flavourful crumb, etc.

To cut to the chase, Jonathan, are you saying you would actually choose one of these "very good indeed" baguettes -- for example one made via overnight fermentation like that American guy taught the French about -- over a nice non-baguette loaf of sourdough bread? I could live to be a hundred and twenty and never be tempted to make that choice.

I don't know the history here. Raymond Calvel seems to have had a lot to do with the improvement of baking standards, and he isn't American. I'll do more research on this. Who is the American guy you're referring to?

First, as noted earlier, "baguette" is simply the shape. I often buy sourdough (levain) baguettes, and non-levain boules (round loaves).

Second, I generally prefer sourdough breads, as they have more character and complexity. But it's very pleasant to be able to buy different kinds of breads: white, whole-grains, sourdoughs, ordinarily leavened loaves. I would hate to be confined to one sort only. Part of the pleasure of buying bread in France (equally in New York City, or San Francisco) is the variety available.

So I would sometimes choose that overnight "very good indeed" bread (baguette shaped or not) over the sourdough (baguette or not).

By the way: my guess is that a lot of the "levain bread" made both in the US and in France is actually leavened with a combination of natural sourdough and commercial yeast.

[Jonathan Day]

Here's a very interesting website, from the Institut National de la Boulangerie Pâtisserie (INBP): "We are an educational organisation for adults, open to artisan bakers and patissiers, non-professionals who wish to learn the trade, and anyone working in the bakery-patisserie sector."

They sponsor a range of long and short courses, mostly at their centre in Rouen.

See http://www.inbp.com.

More relevant to some of the issues raised above is http://www.canelle.com, the "information portal" of INBP which offers a range of professional recipes and a history of French breadmaking. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to have an English translation attached.

Recipe examples:

Traditional bread from a levain

Traditional bread made from a "poolish" -- the "poolish" ferments for 15 hours before being used.

Rustic levain bread.

Just about all of these have a longish rise -- even the "modern" baguette gets two rises of 1.5 hours each.

The history, which goes back in some detail from BC 8000 to the present: http://www.cannelle.com/CULTURE/histoirebo...stoirepre.shtml. Among other things, it describes the rise of bread taxes and price controls in 1885, the move toward a short kneading and a long rise in the late 1930s, a period described as "la grande epoque" of French breadmaking. It then describes a move toward industrialisation and shortening of the rising time, followed by a return starting in the 1960s toward slower rises. It confirms that taxes and price controls on bread were completely eliminated in 1986.

Well worth reading.

[picaman]

To cut to the chase, Jonathan, are you saying you would actually choose one of these "very good indeed" baguettes -- for example one made via overnight fermentation like that American guy taught the French about -- over a nice non-baguette loaf of sourdough bread? I could live to be a hundred and twenty and never be tempted to make that choice.

As tigerwoman said, it comes down to a matter of personal taste. I just got back from a week's vacation in Paris, where a couple of lunches were spent eating and comparing bread from Poilane, Maison Kayser and Poujouran. Admittedly this was subjective sampling by a non-expert, but I had gotten very good advice on each baker's specialty.

There certainly is a wide variation in tastes of sourdoughs, as the result is dependent on multiple factors, mainly the locality where the airborne yeast accumulates. My partner Kirk, who was at one time a professional baker, constantly bakes bread (of which I am a very happy beneficiary ) and uses different starters of various ages and localities, including one he's gotten going here in New York. I do appreciate and like the range of flavors of various sourdoughs.

I prefer, however, the differences that are there in baguettes of various provenance. Admittedly the differences are not so obvious as one would sense in two different loaves of sourdough, but that's exactly why I prefer a well-made baguette. There's a cleanness of flavor, and the lack of complexity is to my mind its selling point. Why does a flavor need to be more complex to be superior? I'd rather have the epitome of a simply-done and clean flavor.

And, for me, I get that from a French baguette.

Which of the three listed above did I prefer? I'm not starting that war--I liked them all equally

Jamie

[Fat Guy]

Jonathan, I'm talking about Steven Kaplan, "the American who saved the French baguette." Every once in awhile there's a big newspaper feature on him. Here's one from The Independent in March '04. Incidentally, he seems to agree almost exactly with your statistical assessment, assuming it is circumscribed by one assumption:

"The bad news is that half of small bakeries in Paris are producing baguettes de tradition which are, quite frankly, awful. The good news is that even these bad, traditional baguettes are a hundred times better than standard, white baguettes."

Note the use of the term "standard" by the world's foremost baguette authority, as distinguished from longer-risen "baguettes de tradition" and, presumably, "l'ancien" sourdough types.

[slowday]

"The bad news is that half of small bakeries in Paris are producing baguettes de tradition which are, quite frankly, awful. The good news is that even these bad, traditional baguettes are a hundred times better than standard, white baguettes."

In the article it says he has visited half of the bakeries in Paris so I'm assuming he's talking about the bakeries he has sampled that are making traditional baguettes which are better than the standard white baguettes. So who is making the standard white baguettes?

slowday

[Fat Guy]

Most bakeries make both, don't they?

[SethG]

Steve, if I read you correctly to suggest that Pain a l'Ancienne baguettes get their depth of flavor from a sourdough method, then I think you're mistaken. I believe these breads are so special because of a delayed fermentation technique; the ingredients are mixed cold and then refrigerated, allowing the development of certain sugars before the (commercial) yeast is allowed to act on the dough at all.

At any rate, I think the debate about whether sourdough or French baguettes are better is a silly enterprise. It's like asking whether Bordeaux or Burgundy is better. The answer depends on your preference, on whether you want to consume the product by itself or with other foods, and on what those foods are. Personally, I hope I always have the option of choosing either one.

The original question in this thread remains. Why are baguettes better in France than in the U.S.A? In general, I think most people who've had both would have to agree that they are better in France, or in Paris at least. I can think of more than one book in which I've seen some authority or other say "I never thought a true French baguette was possible in the U.S. until I visited so-and-so..." The point being that while you may find the occasional spectacular baguette in the U.S., it isn't as frequent as in Paris.

The flour probably has something to do with it, but I suspect it's mostly that the French are just steeped in the tradition that created these breads.

[Fat Guy]

I don't know the standardized terminology for "Pain a l'Ancienne" and what it can and can't be. I do know the ones I get from Pain Quotidien -- a Belgian (?) chain you can find all over New York -- are the way they are because they're made from a sourdough "mother" and are slowly fermented. I suppose you could make a similar product with a levain based on commercial yeast, and some of the chemistry would be the same, but it wouldn't have the flavor of the sourdough, which is just a lot more complex than the laboratory-generated yeast.

But speaking to your larger point: the French are emphatically not steeped in that tradition. The overwhelming majority of the French population -- those who grew up post-WWII -- never knew good bread growing up, and the baguettes they knew were cottony and awful. If anything, the French are learning from scratch, and while there have been documented improvements I think it's far too generous to say the so-called Renaissance is in anything but early stages.

[mamster]

And I agree with his improvement on my comments.

Oh, that was just too easy.

[SethG]

I'm sure I don't have the experience that you (and others) have in France, and the bread certainly suffered a decline (which my wife and I were shocked by when we visited Southwest France last year). But I think you overstate the devastation. It takes nothing away from the supreme achievements of the artisanal bread movement in the U.S. to say that France is a country that has an ingrained bread culture the U.S.A. can only hope to have some day.