I didn't look at the ingredients in the Intermarché bread until I got it home and spent time examining the package. I was pleasantly surprised. No preservatives, gums, or chemical emulsifiers are listed. I learned too that the bread is baked in the store daily (cuit sur place tous les jours), which obviously means that the dough is not made by the people who bake it. It's probably brought in frozen, but I can't swear to that.
The village baker is an artisan boulanger, which means he makes his own dough every day and bakes it himself. The ingredients listed on his bread wrappers are flour, yeast and/or sourdough, salt, and water. Of course, it doesn't say what flour or flours are used.
The Intermarché bread is on sale at a special price right now. If you buy three baguettes, you get two for free. The price? For five baguettes, you pay 2.50€. Compare that to the baker's price of 1.10€ per baguette, or 5.50€ for five. I think the supermarkets — SuperU in Saint-Aignan has similar bread at similar prices — are really going after the local bakers. There's also a new chain restaurant over in Noyers called Patàpain that specializes in bread, other baked goods, pizzas, and salads. That's more competition.
This is a tricked-up picture. It's the same baguette four times.
As I've said before, people's preferences in bread are very personal and subjective. A lot of older people around here grew up eating baguettes ordinaires, which are, like this supermarket bread, what they call pain industriel in France. It is softer and whiter than what now is called pain de tradition and doesn't have the same flavor. But it's what many bread-buyers want. This supermarket bread is much more in the traditional style, but it's still industrial. And to tell the truth, it's pretty good. We ate one of the loaves yesterday and the other four went into the freezer.
2.50€ for five baguettes? I had to read that a few times. How can they do it?
ReplyDeleteIt's probably a limited-offer and what they used to call a "loss leader" — they must be selling it at below cost to get people to try it. They say you're paying for 3 baguettes, so at 2.50 that would be 83 cents a loaf. The other two are free. I'll be interested to see what price they sell these baguettes for when the promotion is over.
ReplyDeleteEven though I have a bakery next to me in Paris that sells baguette de tradition (whatever that means) that I don’t like, I buy my baguettes in bulk [5 or 6 at a time!] at Carefour City, a little further down the street. At 80 cents a piece, it is industrial bread, but it is good. I freeze the baguettes in pieces right away, and thaw them as needed. Very convenient.
ReplyDeleteWhen I am in the States, I bake my own bread in a bread machine. That’s a whole different story!
The baguette de tradition is the result of a 1993 law that specifies the term can be used for bread that is made with just flour, yeast and/or sourdough, water and salt. No other ingredients are allowed. And the dough must be made by the artisan boulanger on the premises, risen there, shaped there, and baked there. No ingredients nor the dough can ever be frozen. I think I have all that right. It would be interesting to know what the ingredients in your Carrefour baguettes are. Did you just get your internet connection back?
DeleteSee this post about the baguette (de) tradition française.
DeleteNo, I got my internet connection back the next day, before going to Péronne.
DeleteIf I understand your explanation about de tradition correctly, my Arlington, Va, French bread is also tradition. Established circa 1980! I don't freeze the water or the flour. I just freeze the dry yeast so it will last longer.
CHM, I wrote you an e-mail a few days ago. Did you get it?
DeleteHere's the text of the 1993 décret defining the requirements bakers must meet in order to call their bread pain (de) tradition française in France.
DeleteYes, I answered saying it was an excellent idea.
DeleteI think I didn't see your e-mail because your messages now come from @wanadoo.fr with no mention of your name. So it's a plan for Mon. Oct. 9 then.
DeleteI think I have mentioned how good baguettes are in Vietnam. I don't think I would like baguette ordinaire.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be interesting to taste a Vietnamese baguette and a French baguette side by side, without either of them having been frozen or allowed to go stale. If you've been to France, your have tasted a baguette ordinaire. Or "classic" baguette. About three-quarters of the baguettes consumed in France are ordinaires.
DeleteIn the last decade or so, I've noticed an increase in the number of boulangeries in France selling outstanding bread, often in small villages. I became more aware of the whole issue after reading Good Bread is Back, about the decline and then resurgence of French bread baking, as well as seeing something about a campaign for real bread, or some such thing. On our most recent trip to France, there was a spectacular boulangerie in the town in the Bugey region where we rented a house for a week, and several good ones in the Provencal town we spent the second week in.
ReplyDeleteI always liked the boulangerie breads in France compared to American bread. But there was a decline in quality through the 1980s. That was turned around by the 1993 law specifying how good traditional bread was made and encouraging artisan bakers to follow those standards.
DeleteIt's been quite awhile since I read Good Bread is Back, but I wouldn't be surprised if the 1993 law played a prominent part in the book.
DeleteHere in Canada I prefer bread which is not sourdough. In France I have never noticed a baguette to be sourdough but in your listings of ingredients you say yeast and/or sourdough as if they are interchangeable. Have I been eating sourdough baguettes without realizing it!?
ReplyDeleteJocelyn
I've baked with both yeast and sourdough, and I believe that the subject is fairly confusing. I think that yeast bread can taste somewhat sour even if no sourdough starter is used, and conversely, bread made with sourdough starter may not be noticeably sour. There is a bread baker in Maine who sells at a shop here in Portland (Maine) and makes breads that sometimes have a slightly sour taste. When someone made a comment at the store about their sourdough, the person at the register said that the baker uses no sourdough starter.
DeleteSourdough tastes different from place to place, depending on the local yeasts. In California, I often found the sourdough bread to be too sour. But in France, levain, or sourdough, is used especially in baguettes de tradition, but it doesn't taste sour the way the bread in the San Francisco area did.
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