How to spot the elusive good bread

As is natural with any project of this sort (that being the independent, no reigns, self directed, year long, globe trotting, quasi-research sort) my focus has shifted and refined over the first eight months of my travel. When I wrote my initial proposal way back in the fall of 2006 I had no idea what I was talking about and no idea what I was going to be doing. Both of these things are okay... I guess. I threw out a wide net, essentially proposing to study anything which involved the development, growth, cultivation, processing, cooking, or consumption of wheat... or other grains... or other crops and sometimes related to the Green Revolution. And I have studied a little bit of all of that. But as my travel, and my research goes on, I realize my interest lies primarily in breads. What, why, where, how, how often, is bread is bread is bread?

And I have come to France, the final stage of my journey. In between trying to adjust to the prices of things, trying to reorient myself to a life style much more similar to mine back home, and beginning to establish what I am doing here, I have been eating bread. Lots of bread. So much bread that one might think it would kill a man. But it doesn't. Oh, no it doesn't. It just makes him stronger. And makes him want even more bread.*

My breaducation (cause that's what the cool kids are calling it these days) started a couple years back with the works of Nancy Silverton and have meandered about a bit. While I respect all breads, the love of my knife goes to the products of sourdough. Sourdough is essentially a wild yeast which has been caught and tamed to produce slow developing, flavorful bread. Contrary to popular belief sourdough breads need not be sour. Most breads labeled as sourdough in the US actually just have extra acids added to them to make them taste sour (the exception being many of the sourdough breads of San Francisco where naturally occurring yeasts just happen to have a stronger twang than most areas - but even there lots of bread is adulterated.). Sourdough breads can be made in any shape or size, but France of course loves the sourdough baguette.

Many of my friends ask me,** "How can I tell if a loaf of artisan sourdough is good?" and through long-winded explanation I try to describe the mythical beast - the well made bread. For your reading pleasure - and perhaps even the first part of your breaducation - I attempt to summarize as succinctly as possible how to spot good bread in six easy steps, so if and when I talk about good bread in the future, there is some basis as to what I am talking about.

1. Location, location, location. You don't find good bread in bad places. Boulangeries abound in Paris and elsewhere, but worldwide many knock offs try to pass off previously frozen doughs as being just as good as fresh baked loaves full of love and care. They are not. If it's more than a day old or came from a supermarket you have low chances of getting good bread. Find a standalone bakery which bakes fresh daily. Or a friend with a knack for ovenworks.

2. Judge a book by its cover. Ugly bread is rarely good. This is a picture of shamefully, one of my early breads a couple years back. Pallid, dimpled, and dull, this bread makes me not want to eat bread. Good sourdough should have a dark, caramel crust with weight to it. The bread should be aesthetically pleasing - well formed, balanced, even. It is saggy or looks over stuffed, no good. The crust shouldn't shine like it's been lacquered - but it should have a healthy amount of texture to it. If you've got a real winner it will have a pinhead sized, light bubbles evenly spread about it. Slashes across the top should be pretty and should have prevented the bread from ripping at the seams and should have risen slightly for figure.

3. Listen to your bread. When picking up a loaf of good bread, you should have an even feel to it, not be lopsided or off kilter. Knock lightly on the bottom with your finger tips and you should hear a hollow thump like you are striking a drum. Squeezing lightly, the bread should have some give, but still make a crackling noise.

4. What's on the inside counts too. The inside of the bread (called the crumb) should have airy holes in it. Unevenly spaced, unevenly sized, with stretches of gluten on the edges. How dense or light you like your crumb is all a matter of personal preference, but you need some holes to show that there was some action inside the loaf.

5. Smell it. Go on and smell it. Good bread shouldn't be just a neutral medium to pile other things atop. It should have a flavor and smell that compliment what you are eating. Breaking open a loaf and pushing your nose in it should give you the best idea of what's going on in there. Depending on the sourdough used, flavors can run the gambit - but most importantly there should be some sort of fragrance and it shouldn't be the dull, sweet, hollow smell of industrial yeast.

6. Tonguing it. Since the point of bread is eating, a bread should in the end be, well, good to eat. Biting into bread you should have a bit of pull on the crust, but not have to fight with it. The crumb shouldn't be so dry as to make you feel parched, but not so soggy to make you feel icky. The French seem to like their bread to dissolve a bit in their mouths. Germans seem to like it to put up a good fight. It should feel good to loll around in your mouth for a little bit before you finally get to eat your good bread.

And that's it. That's how you find a good bread. The bread I am pictured holding above is an okay bread - not great, but not bad - bought from a nearby market. I have begun exploring the bakeries of Paris, and soon, my map and ratings will come up online. Hopefully.



*This isn't meant to sound like a thinly veiled allusion to a recently developed drug habit. It's just my attempt at getting at how much I like bread and how much bread I have been eating.

** In truth, very few of my friends ask me, I just sometimes tell people