is made mainly with soft (low-protein) European wheat, which gives a sweeter flavour than the hard N. American wheat used in e.g. Britain. It also absorbs less water, giving a drier loaf, and rises less. It is not meant to be buttered, as most English breads are.
The bread which is regarded as a symbol of France is the baguette, a long thin loaf, whose crisp gold crust encloses a characteristic open crumb with large holes and which can be seen standing in racks in all boulangeries. This is, however, a relative newcomer. French loaves were already taking on a long shape in the 18th century (a development which was criticized by some authorities as pandering too much to the love of Parisians for crust), but the very thin long baguette was only introduced in the 19th century and did not penetrate the provinces until the 20th century. (Oddly, as provincials took to this urban bread, city people started to demand rustic country breads.)
A mixture of about 80% soft and 20% hard wheats is used for baguette flour. The other ingredients are water and salt. After preliminary processing, the dough is shaped into long thin loaves and allowed to prove for a while. Before baking, the tops of the loaves are slashed with a thin curved blade. A special oven, into which a jet of high-pressure steam is injected at the commencement of baking, is required. This causes the dough to expand rapidly, the cuts on top opening to give the leaf-shaped scars typical of these loaves. After the steam is turned off, the dry heat aids gelatinization of the crust, giving the characteristic golden sheen. As baguettes stale quickly, several batches are made daily.
Breads which represent older traditions are the round miche, pain de campagne, pain de ménage, pain paysan, and gros pain, everyday family loaves, now mostly based on wheat. A piece of sourdough kept from the previous baking is the traditional method for raising these. Working slowly, it gives a distinctive flavour. It may be called pain au levain. (The use of sourdough has persisted longer in France than in England. The English were fermenting their bread with yeast in the form of ale-barm as early as the 14th century, whilst the French used sourdough for all but the finest white bread well into the 18th century.) Most of these breads have a coarse crumb and a thick crust and will keep for several days.
Various sorts of ring loaf (couronne) are common, and loaves of many other kinds, representing regional traditions and ably listed by Poilâne (1981), are still made, but in decreasing variety and quantity. For an interesting flat bread of the south, see fougasse (under focaccia). For certain enriched breads of France, see brioche; croissant; viennoiserie.
In England and many other western countries, the industrial baguette, part-baked in a central plant, frozen, and finished on site, is sold as a pale simulacrum of the original. However, French bakery practices have been revived and exported in the last 30 years, particularly as a result of the teaching of Raymond Calvel. In 18th-century England, the term ‘French bread’ meant not the loaf with which we are familiar, but an enriched dough more akin to a brioche.
Philip and Mary Hyman, Americans resident in Paris, have been deeply involved for thirty years in the study of French food and cookery and have been responsible for the historical sections of the 26-volume survey thereof being published by the Conseil National des Arts Culinaires. They are the authors of the forthcoming Oxford Companion to French Food.
Calvel, R. (2001), The Taste of Bread, trans R. L. Wirtz and James J. MacGuire, Frederick, Md.: Aspen.
David, Elizabeth (1977), English Bread and Yeast Cookery, London: Allen Lane.
Kaplan, Steven L. (2004), Cherchez le pain, Paris: Plon.
