n the baking room at Poilâne in Paris’s smart sixth arrondissement sit rows of round sourdough loaves, fresh out of the oven. Apollonia Poilâne is the third generation in her family to run the company: she uses the same starter as her grandfather did when he set up shop nearly a century ago, and the same wood-fired, brick oven. I move close to hear the crackling sounds that the brown loaves make as they cool. Their scent is intoxicating, warm, slightly nutty.
Baguettes – and bread in general – are inseparable from France itself. Between 8bn and 10bn baguettes are sold there annually. Across the country there’s a– a bakery that makes and sells its own bread on the premises – for roughly every 2,000 inhabitants. In central Paris, there’s often one every few blocks. When a small town loses itsYou can’t escape bread. School lunches include a tranche of baguette. A child’s first independent act is usually to go out alone to buy bread.
This dependence on a single foodstuff was a source of anxiety, since any decline in the wheat harvest could cause famine. A bread shortage in 1775 prompted riots known as the “Flour War”. In the early days of the French revolution in 1789 thousands of Parisian women marched to Versailles demanding that Louis XVI lower bread prices.
Then came the world wars. Bread was rationed and for many people the dark, unappetising loaves on offer exemplified the nation’s suffering during the German occupation of the 1940s. After the war, French bakers started to produce a new kind of baguette that was extra-white with a smooth, uniform texture. The dough required less time to ferment, and had additives that meant it could be industrially produced and frozen. Once baked, it stayed soft for longer.
Around the same time, French bakers delved into the history books to revive ancestral methods, and young urbanites moved to the country to crush their own wheat and sell their bread in local markets. Industry groups formed to encourage consumption, with a national bread festival each May and numerous breadmaking competitions.
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