It's difficult to imagine even the simplest of French cuisine without its bread ...
"If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens"
- Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Apart from the charming promenades, parks and cobbled streets of France, it's the humble baguette that's the best metaphor for the country of romance, food and wine.
It's difficult, impossible even, to imagine even the simplest of French cuisine without its selection of breads. In fact, bread is as much a part of the Parisian identity as the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe. And, if you happen to visit this gastronomy capital of the world, you will see people riding bikes or mopeds with baguettes strapped to their backs, or walking the streets, a baguette held casually under the arm.
Une baguette meaning stick or wand, its heftier cousin - pain Parisien, croissants and brioches are the natural and savoury complement to almost all kinds of food and are available just about anywhere today.
Steeped in history
Bread consumption is woven into the cultural and traditional mosaic of France. While the origin of French bread dates back thousands of years, bread experts claim the baguette came into being just before World War I, when the classic French loaf took two forms - the round miche, weighing about five pounds and the pain long - an eight inch by 30-inch loaf of the same weight. The baguette was available at neighbourhood bakeries so that people could buy it twice a day making this the most highly consumed product. "In fact, at the time, the indicator of the economic life in the market was measured by the price of a baguette," explains Damien Deslandes, Pastry Production Manager, Bread and Co, Dubai.
French food laws define bread as a product containing only the following four ingredients: water, flour, yeast and salt. The addition of any other ingredient to the basic recipe requires the baker to use a different name for the final product. The distinctive edge that French bread has lies in its inherent qualities - freshness and a good, hard crust.
High standards
The French are very particular that their bread, like other foods, meets high standards. In fact, a good baguette is likened to a work of art "In France no-one eats a baguette that is not done to perfection," reveals Alex Treffle, Executive Chef, French Bakery in Dubai. "If it's even slightly off the mark it's disposed off without any hesitation."
According to Chef Deslandes, "The inside (or mie in French) of a good baguette should be cream in colour and have large, irregular air holes with scoring marks that open up during baking, to display what should be a set of evenly spaced blooms. The diagonal slashes in the crust should be slightly darker at the edges and provide an escape route for the carbon dioxide given off during the fermentation process as the bread bakes. Crust colour is important, and very much a matter of personal taste. The perfect balance between the crust and the soft interior and voila! The result is a well-done, crusty and aromatic baguette".
"You know you have a perfect baguette if it's crunchy and tender under the crust alongside the knife cut, with a moist and chewy texture and a nutty, buttery flavour. The ideal weight is 300 g," says Deslandes.
While a variety of techniques are used today, experts agree it is really the old-fashioned way of baking that yields the best results. The dough is kneaded mechanically, but slowly, so the dough and the flavour aren't killed by overwork. The dough rises gradually, with plenty of rest between kneading. The best bakers schedule three bakings a day, to assure that the baguette, which contains no fat and can quickly go stale, will be at its peak.
Sylvain Gandon, Bakery Chef at the French Bakery, divulges a few tips: "What is most important is a good quality flour. The ingredients then need to be mixed and then baked correctly. The right temperature (230C) has to be selected, and for the bread to get the correct colour, the oven must have adequate steam."
It is said that if one were to draw up a list of unconquerable things on earth, standardising the French baguette would be one of them. The loaf has too many shapes and forms, all of which are equally popular.
From the thicker stick or flûte and the thinner loaf known as the ficelle, to the demi-baguette or half baguette well known for its versatility as an excellent sandwich host as well as petit pains and bouchons which are smaller rolls and make apt lunchtime snacks - the baguette is found in a delicious array.
Right way
Chef Olivier Le Goas, Bread and Viennese Production Manager, Advanced Baking Concept, Dubai, says creating a variety is possible, if one keeps a few factors in mind. "The dough needs to be fresh. That coupled with good steam and the right temperature and you can bake the bread in the shape you desire. Of course, a lot also depends on the ingenuity of the baker."
Today one can get more than 400 kinds of bread from the different regions in France. The more popular among them are pain de campagne (country bread), pain d'ail (garlic bread), pain aux cereals, pain aux noix et raisin (walnut and raisin bread), pain au citron (lemon bread), pain a la menthe (mint bread), pain au levain (sourdough bread), pain de mais (corn bread), pain de sarrasin (buckwheat bread), pain de seigle (rye bread), pain aux noix (nut bread) and pain a la chataigne (chestnut bread).
With a newer organic seeded variety for the 'health conscious' available, the traditional baguette has certainly come a long, long way!
