Baguettes, the Staff of Life

The long thin French stick, or baguette, as it is called in France, is the archetypal loaf of bread, bought on a daily basis by almost every household in the country.

 

How the cost of your baguette is broken down.

It is made from wheat flour, bakers yeast, salt and water. Nothing else is permitted for a baguette de tradition, and it must be made from scratch every day at the bakery where it is to be sold. Many visitors comment that bread tastes quite different in France to their home country, and this is a big part of the reason -- no additives, which includes bread improvers, nutritional supplements, sugar, or flavouring elements, all of which are commonplace or even legal requirements in other countries.

 

Baguettes de tradition aux graines for sale in my local organic bakery.

A classic baguette costs around 90c and a baguette de tradition €1.05 or €1.10. A baguette is a very strictly defined weight of dough, and the price used to be regulated.

Baguettes aux graines (left) and a baguette aux sesames (right).

Ten percent of the cost of your baguette is the wheat flour itself, working out at just under 9c per unit. This fluctuates a bit as the local and global wheat harvests yield more or less in any given year, but the trend is upwards, as world demand for wheat goes up. French grown wheat is always preferred by professional French bakers, so it is always a crisis when the harvest is low here. For those of you interested in the agricultural details, French wheat is so called ‘spring wheat’, sown in the autumn, overwintering as grass and harvested in the late spring, early summer. Wheat varieties that grow like this are referred to as ‘soft’, meaning they are low in protein. Imported wheat tends to come from sunnier climates such as the Ukraine and Australia, so it is harder and does not produce entirely satisfactory bread as far as the French are concerned. 

A basket full of baguettes for sale at my village market.

Baguettes require a steam injection oven, and are a post First World War product, not the centuries old tradition they appear to be now. They are very difficult for the home baker to reproduce. And in France hardly anyone would bother. They prefer to support their professional boulangère, even (perhaps especially) during a pandemic.

Work at the boulangerie normally starts around 4:30 am, and the shop will open for sales of freshly baked bread at 6:30 am. At the boulangerie the shaped dough is laid out on linen cloths to prove for an hour and a half to two hours. They are then baked on the base of the oven, using indirect heat from below. No traditional French bakery produces gluten free products because there is wheat flour everywhere and contamination is inevitable.

Baguette, or its bigger cousin, pain, is eaten with every meal in France. At home it is sliced at the table as diners want it. Each individual puts their bread directly on the table or tablecloth, there is no side plate. The bread is not buttered, but used to sop up juices on the plate. It is an important part of the cheese course too, with cheese normally eaten on a piece of unbuttered bread.

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