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.

Sounds of the City: Boulangerie

The boulangerie just around the corner from the BN's Département de la musique happens to have a few stools at which one can sit when the weather is bad, and throughout a long winter of bad weather, I did a lot of sitting in there. This gave me lots of time to listen to the boulangère (female baker) do her thing.

There's a kind of musicality to the back-and-forth between baker and customers. Add in the percussive nature of rustling paper, the ch-ching! of the cash register, and the opening and closing of doors, et voilà! It's a perfect environment for another documentation of the sounds of the city.

In this clip you'll hear a common refrain, "Avec ceci, Monsieur?" which translates to "Anything else, sir?" and which used to really throw me off. Late in the clip you'll hear the proper response: "Ce sera tout"- that'll be all.

This second recording focuses on the conversation between one somewhat talkative patron and the boulangère, who ends with a sprightly, "Bon weekend!"

If you're ever in the neighborhood, I recommend this boulangerie not only as a great place to get a bite to eat, but also a great spot to sit for a minute - and listen.

Sunday Brunch

This Sunday we invited a few friends over to enjoy an American-style brunch. Louis and I tested out a new baked "French" toast recipe from his mom (thanks Joy!) and it was delicious. You clever readers will probably have figured out that the picture above was taken the night before while I was prepping the bread for baking the next morning. This, we are told, is a great way to host a stress-free brunch. Turns out, it's true! The French toast paired nicely with a potato and egg scramble we made and our guests brought colorful and slightly less hearty (but no less delicious) fare.


Thanks friends/guests, let's do it again sometime!

Crack-and-Cheese

Thanks again to Smitten Kitchen for providing another absolutely delicious recipe. A few weeks ago, the same night we debuted this warm-for-winter sausage soup, we discovered a mac-and-cheese recipe that called for two things we just can't resist: cheese and cheese! You might call this a "grown-up" version of mac-and-cheese, but the 9-year-old we had over for dinner seemed to enjoy it just fine.

The key to this recipe, and perhaps the reason why this SK commenter can't get enough, is the rich, creamy roux-based cheese sauce:

A few simple (really!) steps later, and out pops this:

Looks good, huh? It is! And here's our version of the recipe (In addition to changing a few ingredients, we halved everything and converted to metric):

120 g butter, plus more for greasing the pan

half a baguette, left out for a night or two, broken into bite-sized pieces

660 mL whole milk

30 g flour

2 t salt

1 t Beau Monde spice mix courtesy of The Spice & Tea Exchange of Sarasota, Florida

250 g grated Mimolette cheese

115 g grated Gruyère cheese

350 g elbow macaroni

1. Preheat oven to 190°C. Butter a 2-liter casserole dish; set aside. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt 30 g butter. Add the breadcrumbs to the melted butter and toss. Set the breadcrumbs aside.

2. Warm the milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Melt the remaining 90 g butter in a high-sided skillet over medium heat. When the butter bubbles, add the flour. Cook, stirring, 1 minute.
3. While stirring, slowly pour in the hot milk a little at a time to keep mixture smooth. Continue cooking, whisking constantly, until the mixture bubbles and becomes thick, 8 to 12 minutes.
4. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in salt, Beau Monde, 200 g Mimolette, and 90 g Gruyère; set the cheese sauce aside.
5. Cover a large pot of salted water, and bring to a boil. Cook the macaroni until the outside of pasta is cooked and the inside is underdone, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the macaroni to a colander, rinse under cold running water, and drain well. Stir the macaroni into the reserved cheese sauce.
6. Pour the mixture into the prepared dish. Sprinkle the remaining 50 g Mimolette, 25 g Gruyère*, and the breadcrumbs over the top. Bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes; serve.

*I gave Louis a hunk of Gruyère and told him to grate it. Therefore, we don't have an exact measurement for this step. I say, the more cheese, the better.

And the perfect accompaniment to the most delicious mac-and-cheese ever? Challah! (Looks strange, tasted great.)