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Good luck.
The delicious irony of this is that the campaign is being directed in part by the commercial bakeries -- the very same people responsible for the decline of French bread to begin with. After the Second World War, the traditional, sourdough-leavened, long-fermentation baguette was replaced by machine-made bread full of additives that strengthened the dough against the rough handling of mechanization and shortened the rise time. The result: lifeless baguettes that tasted like cotton.
The commercial bakers would like nothing better than to see the French return to their earlier levels of bread consumption. That would be -- are you ready for this -- a whopping THREE baguettes per person per day in 1900!! As recently as 1970 the French still averaged an entire baguettes per person, and the current level is about half a loaf. Which is still a lot of bread by American standards.
You can find my own artisan baguettes recipe here, if this posting has made you hungry.
I had no idea that the french consume so much bread! Thanks for the fantastic recipe btw.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that you should say that because I was in France last year. We went to a bakery that was recommended by the owner of the apartment that we stayed at. It wasn't the cheapest place we had been to, but we tried it on his recommendation.
ReplyDeleteWe bought 2 baguettes there at different times and both times they were razor sharp and even difficult to cut with the knife. I wasn't sure if standards or fallen or if they were taking us for a ride, but as far as I could see we got the baguettes as everyone else. Maybe we were just unlucky. We went down the street in search of another bakery, and we bought some baguettes there which were normal - just the quality you would expect from a French bakery!