Questions about France

[Keith Talent]

How do the French pick their bakery of choice? Here's what I mean by that, there are so many boulangeries that at least four or five have to be equidistant from any given locale, how does Mounsier Bagette Buyer chose? They all seem to do a good business, and must have some differentiating characteristic that makes it the bakery of choice, the difference escaped my anglo eye, what is it? And why would you buy bread from the Monoprix?

And the pasteries are all made in house at every bakery? My daily Pain au Chocolat or Chauson au Pommes seemed quite similar from every single bakery, even in different towns, yet still maintained a in-house baked quality. Is it the French love of quantifeid standarization (AOC) compelling bakers to follow the state recipe and procedure?

And lastly, where are the specialty items made? In house as well? Most bakeries have the tarts and quiches and fancy cakes and cookies, these are all also baked in house?

And very lastly, as opposed to the previous lastly which would more accurately be titled second to lastly, does anyone else experience the typical North American germ-aphobia watching the bakery clerk handle cash, make change, grab bakery products and pack them? I considered it French flu innoculations, a little won't hurt and will make you stronger, but it is slightly disconcerting for someone who refuses to touch hotel bedspeads or blankets.

[raisab]

My My from your two posts, you did not seem to have a positive experience in France. Oh the shame of having money handled and then your bread! Your mussels had Barnacles.....! You know in all the years of traveling to france I have never had the problems you had or could it be you were looking for them? McDonalds is always a good option, they are standardized and always pretty sanitary. Bon Appetit!

[Bux]

I knew someone who wouldn't bathe in hotel bathtubs. Shower yes, bathtub no. I never asked about swimming pools. Travel must be difficult for someone who refuses to touch hotel blankets or bedspreads. It's true that in NY you hardly ever see anyone touch bread or other foods in a shop with their bare hands. The clerks all wear rubber gloves, the same ones they wear when they take your money and count your change. It might help keep them clean. It's best not to buy food from merchants whose hands you wouldn't shake if introduced and avoid doorknobs. When you buy a loaf of bread in a bakery, do you wash your hands after handling your payment and before touching the bread.

Most bakeries bake in house, but not all. There used to be a sharp difference between a boulangerie and a patisserie. That's less so today, at least at some levels. There really are traditional, almost standardized items you will find all over France, but there are also some incredibly creative pastry chefs, especially in Paris.

The monoprix is about the last place I'd buy bread, but Bon Marché and Galleries Lafayette both have great food departments. I still don't know that I'd buy bread there either.

Did you enjoy France? I mean apart from the comments you've made here so far.

[bleudauvergne]

Come now. Everyone's got their own take on things. Don't bash someone just because they noticed something is done differently and felt squeamish about it. Heck I sometimes give the French a really hard time just because I woke up on the wrong side of bed. Speaking of beds, I remove the hotel bedspreads everywhere I go, because they're more often than not made of super scotch rite teflon coated polyester. What other reason do I need?

About bakeries. The simple answer is that a good 98% of the people buying bread are buying it in their own neighborhood. Bread is roughly the same price everywhere. In France, as soon as you move into a neighborhood, you try every single bakery on the block, and you go back the one you like. Some people will go out of their way for a superior loaf of bread, but everyone has their limit. This limit to how far people will go for bread ensures that you're going to see a lot of bakeries everywhere. If you feel like you've got too many choices equidistant from where you're standing, perhaps you need to move. Take a tour of the block. If a bakery is clearly superior, there will be lines. Sometimes long ones. Get in the longest line.

I'd like to add that most bakeries don't touch the bread, they use little paper thingies to pick it up, which they hand you the bread with. You've got lots of choice. Choose a bakery that uses the paper thingies if it means a lot to you.

The specialty items are made in house, always, unless they are a depot.

[Keith Talent]

I guess I wasn't clear enough, I said "...does anyone else experience the typical North American germ-aphobia watching the bakery clerk handle cash, make change, grab bakery products and pack them? I considered it French flu innoculations, a little won't hurt and will make you stronger, but it is slightly disconcerting..." The money/hand/bread thing didn't turn me off one little bit, I just found it interesting when viewed from our (overly) hygeinic North Americaian perspective. If that happened anywhere at home, the bakery would be shut faster than I can eat an apricot tart, and then get back in line for another.

The blanket thing I will defend though. Seems kinda like wearing a random strangers sweater off the street. Or maybe I'm just being neurotic. Whatever. I'm not so far gone however that I've purchased the "Hotel bed liner" I saw for sale in the Skymall catalogue on the plane. That seems somewhat extreme.

And does anyone know why things seem remarakably consistant from bakery to bakery? Pain au chocolat is pain au chocolat pretty much everywhere.

And total respect for the bakers if they're turning out everything in those display cases in house, boogles the mind how hard (and efficiently) they're working while the rest of us are either carousing, or sleeping it off.

[Bux]

I was using the work "you," but referring to the abstract "one" rather than anyone in partucular to comment on how travelers react to staying in hotels. My comments about rubber gloves in the US was merely to note that rarely are they useful in stopping the spread of germs because of the way in which they are used. I doubt there's really much difference in health risk in buying a loaf of bread in NY or Paris and if inspectors were looking, they should be as disturbed by the way the gloves are used as when they're not used. When handling change and bread one purchase after the other, it really makes no difference if the salesclerk is wearing gloves.

The array of fine pastry in a small town patisserie can be impressive, although they all don't do such a uniformly impressive job these days. In the smal town of Pezenas, (some 7500, or less, inhabitants) there are several bakeries, but one in particular makes its own bread, croissants and a broad range of excellent pastries. It also makes an excellent assortment of chocolate bonbons in house. There are few places in NYC that could challenge it and I'm not even aware of one who could challenge it across the board.

[Druckenbrodt]

Dear Keith Talent

I think you have raised some good questions that I would also like answers to. And now you've started me thinking about the possibilities of hotel blankets, unfortunately I shall be forever cursed with niggling questions in future whenever I stay in hotels. Although I'm not one to talk on the subject of hygiene, being known to occasionally eat things I have dropped on the floor. Which probably explains my iron constitution. (I have not, yet, however, rescued ice-cream that has fallen on the pavement.)

Anyway back to the subject. Maybe you should have posted this in the baking section? I think it's generally accepted that there's been a gradual decline in baking standards in France for a long time. A lot of stuff doesn't even get made in-house anymore so I think you're absolutely right to question why a lot of stuff tastes the same. I'm not trying to suggest some sinister conspiracy theory where all those cute village bakeries secretly get pre prepared dough delivered to them at 4am from a central factory owned by evil capitalists. Or perhaps I am. I do suspect the frozen dough business is much more widely spread than most people realise. Also the post war fashion for white bread lead to sloppy baking practise since it was much easier (and more economic) to get away with allowing shorter times for your dough to prove than with all those lovely old traditional varieties of heavier brown bread. The problem with whacking bread in the oven that's only had an hour rather than, say, three or four, to prove, is that it doesn't taste as good, doesn't have the same elasticity or texture and it goes stale before you can even say 'pain de campagne'.

Personally I think it's very hard to work out who's making the good stuff and who isn't, even when you can see the bakers at work. And even bakeries where they bake their own bread often get the dough for their croissants etc delivered. It's partly because making patisserie requires additional space at the back of the shop, so it's more economic if all you have to do is buy it in and stick it in the oven. Of course that doesn't necessarily always mean it has to be bad quality either. Just a bit disappointing.

There are about five bakeries near me, all on the same street, all within twenty yards of eachother, none of which are particularly remarkable, but none of which lacks a steady stream of customers either. So I'm not sure if the queue theory always works either. I think the French simply eat a lot of bread.

If you do find a really great bakery, you have to tell all your friends about it and be sure to go there regularly. (If you live in France that is!)

My favourite bakery in Paris so far is on the rue Yves Toudic in Republique. Actually there are two good bakeries at opposite ends of the same street. My favourite is the fancy one (with a charming baker who comes and chats to his customers). They also make sublime lemon tarts. Although the more regular one is less expensive and also tastes very good.

The best croissant I've eaten in Paris came from Laduree.

[Keith Talent]

If the pastry items are using a dough from a commisary rather than making it from scratch, I say good for them. And please export the technology over here. Although there is an uncanny resemblence between items from dissimilar bakeries, the quality is undenialbly high. I'd gladly wager in a blind tasting that a pain au chocolat from any random bakery in Paris, or even the country for that matter, would be better than anything from any bakery here in North America. And at half the price, and twice as fresh.

And even if it's true and dough is coming from a fcatory, I'll refuse to beleive that the sweet little old lady, artfully dusted in flour and looking harried is perpetrating a fraud on the French pastery consuming public. Even if I'm wrong I'm far happier with the romantic image opposed to the hard truth and will gladly dwell in a state of cognitive dissonace rather than admit the facts. Denial, it's not just a river in Egypt.

[Bux]

I'll refuse to beleive that the sweet little old lady, artfully dusted in flour and looking harried is perpetrating a fraud on the French pastery consuming public. Even if I'm wrong I'm far happier with the romantic image opposed  to the hard truth and will gladly dwell in a state of cognitive dissonace rather than admit the facts. Denial, it's not just a river in Egypt.

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Did you get to shops such as Pierre Hermés on the rue Bonaparte? (Are there other shops like it?) The pastry is all his, although made off permises. It is as dust free as a jewelers, or perhaps as a hard drive assemlby plant.

[Keith Talent]

No - We were only in Paris two days this time, and the bulk of our time was spent tromping off to closed musuems (how long will the Orangerie be renovated? And Palais De Tokyo? Isn't this the kind of stuff guide books should share with you? And thus my reluctance to rely on them for restaurant recommendations when they can't even get basic info correct.) Did go to a great street market above the Palais De Tokyo though, so all was not wasted.

Quite honestly, I'm not that interested in "fancy". We do fancy pretty well here in North America. If I want to pay alot for a superior version of a pedestrian product, my options here in Vancouver are pretty wide. What I like is the tiny everyday shop, with product that would be the envy of 99.99% of bakers here, and admiring the fact that it's such a high uniform quality in any shop you happen into.

And here's why I don't understand having breakfast in your hotel in Paris. I get up, stroll out the front door, hit my local cafe for a coffee, then into the bakery for my morning pastry, and for ten minutes I'm a Parisian, just like everyone else around me, going through the routine of the day. I've had room service in a million other places in earth, there's only one place where I can actually be a Parisian, if only for a short time.

[Bux]

I suppose a real Parisian has his breakfast at home in his kitchen, but I also like to get out of my room and out of my hotel and have a coffee in a local bar or cafe. In my younger days I could sit for hours with my coffee, but nowadays I prefer to have it quckly at the bar with a croissant or two if I find a bar with good croissants.

I part company with you on the fancy. Not only do I like it from time to time, but very few places in NYC do fancy nearly was well as the French. Pierre Hermé's pastries are an excellent example. For the most part fancy is not a superior version of a pedestrian product in Paris. Not at the restaurant level or the patisserie level, but I also enjoy the good everyday shops. It's just that there are some real artists working in pastry in Paris. It's not just the execution, but the creation that's exciting. All in good time. There's more than enough to appreciate at all levels for many trips.

[bleudauvergne]

I'd like to add for the record that artisan bakeries and patisseries are required to make their own doughs. They do not get their dough from a common factory. It's against the law.

Another wonderful tidbit, Bux, about the bars serving croissants in the morning. Yes, I love that. When in Paris, we also get quick coffee at bars in the morning which commonly have baskets of croissants from a neighborhood bakery. One very cold morning in January we went in to a cafe for our morning coffee, and we asked if they had any pain au chcoloat on hand. No, but we'll get some, they replied, and the waiter left the cafe and got two pain au chocolat at the bakery three doors down, without having to wait in the line snaking out the door of the bakery. They cost us a euro each at the cafe. Nice way to avoid having to wait in line when it's cold out.

[John Talbott]

How do the French pick their bakery of choice? Here's what I mean by that, there are so many boulangeries that at least four or five have to be equidistant from any given locale, how does Mounsier Bagette Buyer chose? They all seem to do a good business, and must have some differentiating characteristic that makes it the bakery of choice, the difference escaped my anglo eye, what is it? And why would you buy bread from the Monoprix?

And very lastly, as opposed to the previous lastly which would more accurately be titled second to lastly, does anyone else experience the typical North American germ-aphobia watching the bakery clerk handle cash, make change, grab bakery products and pack them? I considered it French flu innoculations, a little won't hurt and will make you stronger, but it is slightly disconcerting for someone who refuses to touch hotel bedspeads or blankets.

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1. As an American in Paris, I can say I try each new bakery's bread as it opens and/or comes under a new owner because there is an enormous difference between Auchan industrial bread and artisanal bread.

2. As for Monoprix, mine makes its own, by that I mean bakes it, probably the dough is delivered by the gallon, and one of their breads is edible.

3. Boy, I'm pretty good about handwashing, but handling bread and other products has never bothered me.

[naguere]

I am alllways pleased when in France to see a sign up on the wall outside the boulangerie saying 'Bannette', with a sheaf of wheat displayed.

I believe it is a flour company who encourage bakers to use their flour and even run courses for them .

The result is a small baguette with pointy ends. Denser and chewier than the normal baguette the flavour is terrific

[cigalechanta]

This must be Donald Trump because i know Howard Hughes is dead.....or...is he?

[Druckenbrodt]

I wasn't aware about the law of buying dough from other suppliers/factories which is reassuring. Thank you for putting me straight, Bleu.

I do know however - because I worked at one point for a French brand of bakeries - that most of their patisserie dough was made in their own factory and then delivered to the different stores for baking. So I was making an ignorant assumption that it was but a small step from getting your dough made in your (own) factory to getting your dough from someone else's. Being made in a 'factory' doesn't necessarily make it worse necessarily either - the word 'factory' simply means a place where things are manufactured, usually in large quantities. It doesn't describe the manufacturing process. I know from experience that there are delicious things made to a very high standard in factories. I was just trying to come up with an answer to Keith Talent's question of why so much tastes the same.

I'm not familiar with baking standards in North America, but while I would argue that - in general - French baking standards are infinitely higher than in the UK, they are not all entirely, unquestionably the epitome of perfection in every instance.