French Bread Day 2024 is on Wednesday, March 20, 2024: history of french bread?

Wednesday, March 20, 2024 is French Bread Day 2024. Wha' Happened: National French Bread Day - Destructoid French bread is by far the

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French Bread Day

Oui, Oui, monsieur – please, pass me another stick of French bread! You will find couple of things more tantalising than the usual lengthy, thin stick of French bread (also called a baguette) eaten fresh from the oven. French Bread Day is a superb chance to enjoy some comfort food at its finest!In France They happen to be baking lengthy stays of bread for more than two centuries however it was just in 1920 the current baguette we all know and love came to exist. Legislation was passed in France in 1920 that prohibited anybody from beginning work before 4am which makes it impossible for French bakers to have their traditional breads baked over time before people discontinued to operate. Voilà, the fast baking baguette was created!Serve French bread warm, slathered with butter along with a slice of cheese quietly. Why don't you embrace the entire continental experience and also have a glass of proper French wine by using it? More, s’il vous plaît!

history of french bread?

Baguette (aka French Bread, Vienna Bread)

Food historians tell us bread was "invented" in 10,000BC. Techniques spread throughout the world and evolved according to custom, cuisine, and local grain. French bread (generally defined as bread made in France) is thousands of years old. Baguette, the hard crusty loaf we currently associate with France dates only to the Industrial Revolution. Steam ovens, made possible by scientific advancement, are key in the manufacture of this particular bread. In fact? Baguette is not French at all...it was invented by the bakers of Vienna.

"A baguette is a long thin loaf of French bread of the type more commonly known in English as 'French stick', or more vaguely still, as 'French loaf'. The term has become increasingly familiar in English since the 1960s. It means literally 'littlerod', and is a diminutive form derived ultimately from Latin 'baculum', 'stick staff'."

---An A-Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 15-6)

"Notes on French Bread. For nearly all English people who have ever set foot in France, the words French bread' evoke a golden-brown baguette or a long thin ficelle, the crust crisp and sweet with its characteristic leaf-shaped surface cuts, the crumb white and pitted with irregular holes, many of them very large. To us, the holes are a part of the proper character of this kind of bread...the French do use a good deal of soft flour, because that is what is produced from the wheat grown in France. So they have long ago adapted their bread techniques to their flour. Or rather, what they adapted was the 'Vienna' technique, and this didn't happen until some time in the mid nineteenth cnetury; it was the Viennese oven, with its steam injectors and its sloping floor, or sole, which was mainly responsible for creating the tradition of French bread as we know it today. English bakers, and indeed many of the older French ones, still call this type of bread 'Vienna' bread, the true French bread being the old round or cylindrical hand-shaped 'pain de campagne' or pain de menage', plump, and crossed with cuts to that when baked the crust is of many different shades, gradations and textures and the crumb rather open and coarse. It is this bread which is now enjoying something of a revival in France, perhaps because the Vienna type has not taken very kindly to the short-time dough maturing and the rapid mechanical kneading and moulding techniques of the 1970s, partly because a well made pain de campagne' keeps much better than baguette' loves, which is to day that it will stay moist for as long as two days, even three, whereas the long, crusty, thin loaf is, as we know, stale within an hour of emerging from the oven, and for the French three days is a long time to keep a loaf of bread."

---English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David [Penguin:Middlesex] 1979 (p. 363-4)

[NOTE: This book contains far more information on the history and evolution of French bread than can be paraphrased here. Ask your librarian to help you find a copy.]

A survey of 19th-20th century American cookbooks reveal some recipes for French bread but none for baguette. This might imply this is the provence of the professional baker. This professional baking text confirms:

"Remarks concerning hearth breads--Vienna bread, French bread, Hard crust rolls.

Vienna Bread which is made by either the Straight or Sponge-Dough method, differs in nearly every shop, and in many bakeries is far from being the genuine article. It requires a semi-tight dough and more age than for Pan Bread. Likewise for best results, a good supply of low pressure steam for the oven is indispensible. It was the carefulness of the Vienna baker, together with the good material employed, that made his loaf famous. It is chiefly care and workmanship that give Vienna bread its quality. After the loaves are moulded, they are laid, smooth side down, on cloth-covered boards, with the cloth pinched up between the loaves, and allowed to rest until double in size; then cut and baked with a good supply of steam. If no steam is available, wash with water before cutting the loaves. Other bakers lay the loaves in boxes or on boards in specially built covers, dusting the boards with corn flour, rice polish, flour or finely ground bread crumbs, setting the loaves far enough apart to prevent sticking. If boxes or boards are used in this manner, loaves must be laid smooth side up....French Bread is handled in much the same manner, only it requires a softer dough. Hard crust Rolls can be made to good advantage from either French or Vienna dough."

---A Treatise on Baking, Julius E. Wilfahart [Fleischman Division, Standard Brands Incorporated:New York] 1927 (p. 356-7)

[NOTE: (1) The 1907 edition of this book contains a brief reference to Vienna bread which is greatly expanded in this edition.]

There is a rumor that Napoleon ordered his bakers to make long, thin loaves so they could be transported in his soldier's pants. According to the food historians this is not true:

"The baguette was said to have been invented during Napoleon's Russian campaign when he ordered a new shape of bread that could be carried down his troops' trouser legs. In fact, it was introduced in the 1920s after a new law banned bakers from working before 4am. They did not have enough time to bake a fresh boule for breakfast, so they created the baguette."

---"Marching on its stomach," Sam Coates, The Times (London), August 19, 2004, Home news; 6

"American hyperbole is selling French bread abroad and, as the subsequent article shows, American beer even in Munich. UPON entering a boulangerie, the mastery of a good French baker is mouth-wateringly apparent from the buttery croissants and pains au chocolat displayed at child's-eye level. The baguettes are stacked high behind the counter, their crusts crackling softly as the heat seeps out of them. Lately this has become a moveable feast. Boulangeries have appeared in cities across the world: Au Bon Pain in the United States, D(acute)elifrance across Asia as well as countless p(circumflex)atisseries in Europe. Of course, such establishments also sell other breads, and cakes. But they deal chiefly in authenticity, wrapping themselves in the tricolore, boasting in cute French phrases of baguettes made from French flour kneaded by French hands. Sometimes they try even harder to establish their pedigree. The baguette was invented during Napoleon's campaign in Russia, gushes the blurb of one. Traditional round loaves took up space needed for extra clothes. Napoleon therefore ordered a new shape of bread to be designed that could be carried down the soldiers' trouser-legs. What a load of old brioche. The ingredients might come from France, but the marketing is straight from Madison Avenue. The baguette is unmistakably French. It is also often delicious. But it is not that much more traditional than the TGV express trains that slice their way through the French countryside. The French word for baker is boulanger, he who makes boules, or round loaves, not a "baguettier" who makes sticks. In fact the baguette dates back to the 1920s, and its progress has done to traditional French baking what the white sliced has done to the British loaf. Changing technology was partly responsible for the baguette's introduction. By the 1920s most French bakeries were equipped with the steam ovens needed to caramelise the starch on the surface of the loaf to give it a golden, slightly translucent crust. History also played a part. The first world war created a shortage of manpower and traditional loaves prepared from a sourdough became too labour-intensive for many bakers. But the coup de gr(circumflex)ace was legal. In October 1920 a new law came into force that prevented bakers from working before 4am, which meant that they did not have time to bake a fresh boule for the breakfast table. They thus turned to the rapidly prepared baguette. The baguette was a wow. Bakers liked it because it was convenient to make and stayed fresh for only a few hours. Hence customers visited bakeries two or three times a day. Consumers liked the baguette because it is whiter and sweeter than sourdough breads. As the flour got whiter, the proving accelerated and the crumb became more like cotton-wool, France's traditional breads, once almost as numerous as its cheeses, were forgotten. And yet, just as the baguette is waging a campaign of Napoleonic proportions in international markets, at home there has been something of a revival of traditional baking. Elizabeth David noted the trend as far back as the late 1970s, in her classic book on bread and yeast cookery. In France itself, Lionel Poil (circumflex) ane, a baker on the Left Bank in Paris, has built a career--and a business--baking loaves in the traditional 19th-century way, with a rich, slightly sour flavour."

--- "French bread abroad. Sold with an American accent," The Economist, September 27, 1997, U.S. Edition, MOREOVER section

French Bread?

French Bread?

There is nothing wrong with either your recipe or your methodology. The problem is with your oven. The best French bread is made in ovens which constantly inject steam into the atmosphere, hence the crustiness. You can simulate these conditions by placing a container of boiling water in your oven immediately before putting your loaves in. Another way is to spray your loaf every few minutes during the cooking period with cold water. It won't be as good as the best breads, but it won't be bad.

How can i make french bread last days after I buy it?

How can i make french bread last days after I buy it?

I buy baguettes anytime I can find some available,we do eat much french bread in our home.

What you may want to do ? is to cut or separate the bread in smaller portions(the same day purchased) and freeze the rest however you store food in your freezer. You must let the bread defrost completely and bake it in the oven depending on the bread itself.

For the baguettes i bake them about 10 mn. and they come out really fresh just as first bought.

Of course it will never be as good as coming out of the oven,but it is a nice alternative.

In France I always wrapped my bread in a cotton towel for consumption the next day.

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