An incredibly brief history of modern French bread

Oh, Bakeries. Oh, French bakeries. So much to learn about them. Where to start?

If you've never walked the streets of France, it's hard to imagine quite how integral the bakery is to French life. It's not an exaggeration to say that there's a bakery on every corner in the cities here. Buying a loaf of bread everyday is routine, having it go stale in six to twelve hours is just accepted as part of life. Waiting twenty minutes for a loaf of bread on a Saturday morning isn't because of rations... it's just because. There's a bakery for every 1,500 people in the country, and more bread is sold in markets, supermarkets, and in hot shops. Bread is served at every meal, it has been the cause for revolution, the a symbol of life itself, and a near and dear symbol for all which is good. Needless to say, the French love bread.

So, starting from this basic idea, I assumed that they would honor bread like a God - instead I found that the temple has begun to crumble. Aside from the question of what makes good bread, there have been lots of fundamental changes to how bread is made recently, and no one knows if they should praise them or criticize them. While a century ago bread was largely made by hand by overworked men in hot basements using traditional recipes, it is being increasingly automated and fine tuned. While examples still exist of handmade baked goods as well as breads which are made entirely by machines, the majority of bread which is made in this country has its origin somewhere in between the two extremes. The advancement of technology has been the major agent of change - the expansion of use of ameliorates, the mechanization of dough mixing and processing, and the milling of wheat - but labor laws, wars, and shifting attitudes have had enormous impacts as well.

The briefest of histories of French bread baking would say this:
The only constant is change, and that includes bread. How the product has changed, we will never know. We can point to particular changes in production, but we will really never know what yesterday's baguette tasted like. We should work to make today better and be willing to accept whatever direction that may take us; that direction will neither be clearly forwards nor backwards.

A slightly less brief history of French bread baking in the twentieth century would say this:
At the start of the twentieth century, there was some mechanization. It came in the form of hand cranked dough mixers, which were in time upgraded to electricity. As one who has kneaded a lot of dough by hand in his life can tell you, this was a good thing. It's nice to know your dough, but when it comes to volume, speed, and delicacy, there are things a machine can do that human hands will never be able to accomplish. With the high cost of labor and the low cost of technology, I haven't heard of anyone who kneads bread by hand in a commercial enterprise in France. Yay for the rise of the machine.

But bread isn't only kneaded by machines. It can be cut, weighed, shaped, and cooked with machines. While some of these machines have been marked improvements - the baguette shaper seems to be unviersally used, it is able to shape a baguette more consistently and with less damage to the dough than a person can - other machines have made bread which is neither beautiful nor tasty. Sometimes yay for the rise of the other machines?

As chemists have gotten further involved in the alchemy of baking, they have begun to meddle. While French bread includes in its essence just wheat flour, salt, water, and yeast, it was soon discovered that other chemicals could be added to manipulate the dough. Ascorbic acid (or vitamin C, as you can call it) was added to make dough friendlier. Preservatives help bread last longer. Flour made from fava beans made dough rise better. Etc, etc. The French, ever vigilant about what they consume, have largely rejected these quick fixes. In fact in 1993, after a spate of people trying to claim that their bread was made the good ol' fashion way when it turned out to be quite not, the government passed a law defining what ingredients could be in a bread which is called "traditional;" wheat flour, salt, water, and yeast. Today, most bakeries will sell two types of baguette, one which is 'normal' (and contains whoknowswhat) and another which is 10% more expensive and is controlled and 'traditional.'

Mills have changed. To make wheat into something you want to eat, you usually grind it. For years and year, the milling system involved farmers taking their grain to a mill, where for a fee the millers would turn it into flour. Bakers would often have farms which they were contractually aligned with so as to have their own little supply of flour. As time went on, millers began buying their own wheat and milling it to have as stock on hand to to sell to bakers. Today, very few bakeries have their own wheat they get ground on demand, but many have particular formulas they request for their specific breads. Some bakeries, as to be noted in a forthcoming post about franchising, are contractually tied to a single mill for their flour supplies.

Outside factors have had varied effects on the look of bread. During the Second World War, when bread was made from whatever could be gotten, it was dense, dark, nasty, and in short supply to boot. The occupation left a bad taste in the mouthes of the French (literally!) so there became a backlash towards whiter, simpler breads. The color of breads here continually astound me in their bleachey pallor - some bakers are daring enough to make breads which are a creamy tan, but nothing is a solid brown.

While bakers used to work 70 hour weeks, French labor laws restricted them to 35 hours, and have recently re-allowed a 40 hour work week. Traditionally many bakeries had a man working in the basement to produce the bread while upstairs his wife would sell it. Today, the job is still relatively split between the sexes, though it seems less frequent that the vendor is necessarily married to the baker there and most bakeries are big enough to have more than just familial employment.

So, here we are. Unlike any other country I have ever been to, France still has a healthy artisanal baking tradition. It still has people who eat this bread. Why? I don't know. How? Through extensive government controls. For how long? That's up to the consumers...