Bringing Home the Baguette

In France, the act of buying a baguette is highly ritualized, and over 9 months in Paris we had many opportunities to both observe and participate in the experience. Before leaving, we documented our understanding of the process of purchasing bread, and we humbly submit our performance of this important phenomena for your consumption and critique.

Step 1: Be patient.

Step 1 Commentary: With a different boulangerie to be found every 736 ft. (unscientific estimate) on the rue de Belleville, at first we had trouble understanding why anyone would bother waiting in line. We ultimately came to two conclusions: 1) Some boulangeries are better than others, attracting larger crowds. 2) Even at inferior boulangeries, lines form because people don't stagger their visits throughout the day. Which isn't to say that lines only form early in the morning and in the afternoon after work lets out - you'll also find lines at lunchtime, around snacktime, and at pretty much every other time of the day. Come to think of it, despite the large numbers of boulangeries in Paris, maybe the city is just too dense; maybe there are simply too many people per boulangerie to avoid lines. It really makes you respect people who live/d under Communism.

Step 2: Choose wisely

Step 2 Commentary: Economists and psychologists have determined that too much choice can seriously handicap your ability to choose wisely. Boulangeries are perfect examples of this dilemma. If you don't know what you want by the time you get to the register, you risk looking stupid, or worse, not getting anything at all. Remember the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld? Many of those who work at the best-regarded boulangeries seem to share his mania for prompt, polite, and plainly pronounced orders. If you have your choice in mind well in advance, you'll leave the boulangerie a happier person. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that you have to know what things are called in order to choose them. Learning all the names of all the products in the boulangerie requires months and months (at the very least) of embarrassment and faulty orders. Call it a character building exercise, we're pretty sure that's how the boulangères see it.

Step 3: Order. Very carefully.

Step 3 Commentary: So you've waited in line and chosen carefully, but all of your patience and planning could be for naught if you botch the order. Maggie has opted for a tradition nature (tradi nature in street lingo), which is a shorter, skinnier, denser version of the baguette. As she arrives at the moment of truth, she hesitates briefly as she considers the consequences of failure - but then she nails the landing, correctly assigning the feminine gender, smoothly and clearly pronouncing a few difficult "r" syllables, and otherwise exuding confidence so that the boulangère doesn't sense her fear and pounce. Congratulations, Maggie! You did it!

Step 4: Enjoy immediately.

Step 4 Commentary: Normally, you'd think that the boulangerie buying experience ends when you walk out the door, but not so. Approximately 87.34% of boulangerie patrons who buy bread (rather than a pastry) execute one final ritual between the boulangerie and their residence: they consume the end of the baguette or baguette-substitute (such as a tradi nature). We would need to conduct more research to determine whether the majority of people rip off the end with their fingers before eating it, or bite directly, as Louis has chosen to do. Furthermore, the exact logic of this ritual remains unclear. Must the boulangerie patron taste the baguette as a connoisseur tastes wine - to confirm its quality before sharing it with friends and family? Or is it merely a question of the freshness and possible warmth of the baguette presenting an irresistible temptation to the purchaser? One final possibility: having just undergone a stressful experience, the customer translates pent-up fear into aggression, taking out the angst of the boulangerie experience on the unsuspecting baguette. We're happy to entertain other hypotheses as well.

There you have it: a bread-buying boulangerie experience from tepid start to violent finish. Next week on "Paris: The Urban Jungle is a Terrifying Place," we'll bring our award-winning, cutting-edge investigative journalism to bear on one of the greatest dangers of the city: French attempts at American-style fast food. Don't miss it!

Putting Local Boulangeries to the Test

We've been debating for months. Can we actually taste the differences in the bread that comes from the four boulangeries we regularly patronize? Or are we just biased in favor of some based on appearance, location, or service? Finally, we decided to put our opinions to a test. A blind taste test.

First, we need to introduce the contenders. There's the "yellow boulangerie," aka "Le Moulin de Pierre," which is the boulangerie closest to Métro Belleville on the rue de Belleville.

A clear frontrunner, this boulangerie always has a huge line snaking out the door, and looking at the splendid breads, pastries, and tarts they make, it's no wonder.


Up a block and just across the street, you'll find the "orange boulangerie" (maybe next we'll test for color-blindness, because in this picture it looks pink), aka "Au Moulin de Belleville." (In case you're wondering, moulin means mill. Like in Moulin Rouge.) This one ranked towards the bottom going into the test.

Staying on the rue de Belleville, you'll find the "green boulangerie" (it has no alias as far as we can tell), whose owner we profiled for our "Portraits of Belleville" series. Between the storefront and the unmatched service, we assumed this one would rank higher than the orange boulangerie.

Finally, on our way to and from the park every day, we pass the Banette-affiliated "red boulangerie" which also doesn't appear to have an official name. (Banette is a consortium of boulangeries, wheat producers and other parties interested in producing and selling bread. Banette-affiliated boulangeries seem to tread a line between a franchise and a baker's union.) Given its location in a swankier neighborhood than our own, the lines of waiting customers we almost always see, and our own experiences there, we anticipated a close competition between red and yellow boulangeries for the crown.

Maggie did the buying, while Dimi and I did the tasting. We were very scientific about it, as you can see.

In addition to taste, we judged a croissant and a baguette from each boulangerie on the basis of overall appearance and texture. You can see real differences in the exteriors and cross-sections of each item, and we took careful notes on every relevant aspect of our tasting experience.

In the end, the results were roughly what we expected: the yellow boulangerie (#3 above) took the prize for best croissant, while the red boulangerie (#1 above) won best baguette. The green and orange boulangeries just didn't compare.

Still, we'll continue to buy from all of our contestants, in part because the two winners are both closed on Wednesday, in part because sometimes we don't feel like standing in line, but mostly because all of these boulangeries are great by American standards. We will sorely miss them when we return.

Portraits of Belleville: Mme. la Boulangère

We have two favorite boulangeries on the Rue de Belleville: the "Moulin de Pierre," close to Métro Belleville; and the "green one" (it doesn't really have a name) about a block up the hill from our apartment. There is no question that the Moulin de Pierre offers slightly higher quality bread products, pastries, and cakes. But the boulangère who seems to run the "green one" exudes such warmth, such enthusiasm, such positive vibes, that we're more than happy to sacrifice a little quality for the experience. This picture doesn't really do her justice, but if you imagine someone sending you out of a shop with the sincere wish, "I hope you have an absolutely wonderful day!" you'll start to get the idea.