RENDERED 19: Baguettes
What makes a symbol? The Many Hats of the Baguette
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We are in the midst of a heat wave in France. As I write this, the sun is beating against the nearly-fully closed shutters, and one burning sliver of sunlight cuts across the floor. I type away while my fan offers a hint of relief.
In the early mornings, I roll open the shutters and fill the apartment with fresh air. By lunchtime I'm back in my cozy cave--it gives me a childlike urge to build a blanket fort, have a picnic, and read by flashlight all day.
I enjoy hot weather, and the food that comes with it: spicy, sour, creamy, smoky, crunchy...
My idea of a perfect summer meal is what I call "picnic dinner." It starts with a crusty baguette. Add in some tasty cheeses, a few olives, various cold spreads, lemony salads, and copious amounts of fresh fruit, and your girl is in heaven. And because you know I'm down with Dionysus, some fresh, bubbly Crémant.
Ah, the baguette. I've got some seriously good bakeries in my city, and the bread is everything I've ever wanted. That crispy crunchy croûte, the soft crumb within, dark brown and delicious alone or with salted Breton butter. I relish the deep toasty aroma of the crust on a well-baked baguette. It's a primordial joy that tickles my bones.
I've always been big on bread: my first "job" as a kid was to buy bread at the local bakery. I remember clutching my dollar bill and walking up to the enormously tall counter: "One loaf of bread, sliced thin, please." I imagine my little pipsqueak voice ordering the bread, then watching the slicing machine's jaws jangling through the fresh loaf. Bagged and tagged, the smiling baker exchanged the bread for my crumpled dollar, and I would cradle it, walking back outside to my waiting mom. My early freedom smelled like freshly baked bread, of those deeply browned end pieces that were begging to be eaten the minute we got home. In short, bread is a big part of my life. But I'm just one person.
I got to wondering about its origins, the transformation of its symbolism, its recognizability, this emblem that it's become. Which come from within France, which are from the outside looking in, and what lives in the space between?
While I was researching this piece, I put out a call to my French friends: does the baguette have any special meaning or significance to you? Here are some of their answers (translated into English by me).
The baguette is to bread, as the landscaper is to the gardener.
It's the little crusty bits you break off the baguette, hoping no one will notice... It's the Nesquik mixed with melted butter, and the smell of toasting bread in the morning...
We make tartines with baguettes, round loaves, all kinds of bread... It's a tradition, part of the art de vivre, a food that people of all social classes share.
Toasted tartines with butter, eaten with white beans... mmm! -Or lentils... memories, memories.
If you asked me what food I could eat for the rest of my life, it would be, without a doubt: baguette, butter, cheeze, and ham. Simply, a "Parisian" for a person who isn't Parisian at all!
The "mythical" jambon-beurre sandwich! And the smell of a freshly baked baguette, and what do you do once you leave the bakery? ...You bite into the crouton!
A piece of baguette with butter and a chocolate square was my childhood after-school snack at Grandma's.
Without baguettes, pâté would not exist.
I admit, learning about French food culture--and tasting it for myself--is my great pleasure in life. It's a system of codes, symbols, tradition, and the historic weight we place on it: part of the backbone of the cuisine.
One comment in particular got to the heart of my research:
Even though it is more widespread now, its origins were for the well-off. Those familles aisées could have their freshly-baked, crusty baguette on Sunday mornings. This was the specific point that distinguished it from the bread of the masses, the classic round loaf. When I was a kid, we were so excited to have a baguette on Sunday mornings--we knew we were in for a treat! Now that the baguette has become more commonplace, the quality has become inconsistent, depending on which bakery you buy from. In exchange for the democratization of the baguette, it has become more mediocre in quality.
In essence, that is the story: baguettes were originally a status symbol, a luxury food that distinguished between social classes. There are many regional bread varities in France, but baguettes are relative newcomers on the Bread Scene.
You can find many theories about the birth of the baguette.
1. During the construction of the Paris Metro, workers were brought in from all over France. The Bretons and Auvergnats were supposedly scrapping and getting into knife fights, so the employers requested bakers create a loaf that could be divided without the use of a knife.
2. A baker from Vienna, August Zang, brought it with him when he set up shop in Paris in 1839. He brought with him the skill in making viennoiseries (including an ancestor of the croissant), and pain viennois, which were long/slender breads.
3. In the beginning of the 19th century, Napoleon's armies needed loaves of bread that were easier to carry.
4. In the early 20th century, bourgeois demand rose for fresh bread multiple times a day. Along with a preference for the crust rather than the crumb, the baguette shape became the preferred form.
5. A 1919 law prohibited bakers from working at night, so smaller yeasted loaves were easier to make under the new time constraints.
Everyone's got a different story, and while some are thoroughly amusing bullshit, others seem to tell different stages of the story, each claiming to be the origin.
Me, I think a combination of Theories 2, 4 and 5 are more accurate.
Theories 1 and 3 seem to be fabrications.
Why? As usual, I don't expect you to take my word for it. I took a deep-dive through la Bibliothèque Nationale de France's online archives to find some answers.
This 1927 photograph shows a bakery, with rows of crusty baguettes, and a baker, blurry, in the midst of completing his work.
There's this image from the turn of the 20th century, with a moustachioed Frenchman in a beret and striped shirt with a long loaf of bread under his arm--perhaps the most similar to that romanticized stereotype of the Frenchman.
But most telling is this engraving, a political cartoon dated to the turn of the 19th century (1798-1799).
It is a striking depiction of the "grand devil of money," as the patron of finance. The devil is distributing money, literally out of every orifice, into the waiting hands of the Prosecutor, Wine Merchant, and Baker, who's got what seems to be a baguette at his feet, and a basket of baguettes just behind him. The Fille de Joie (courtesan), and Caterer are just next to the Baker, also taking money from the devil.
The Painter and Poet are pulling the devil's tail, a reference to the expression "Tirer le diable par la queue," meaning that one struggles to make ends meet. The Shoemaker watches in dismay, with just a couple coins by his side, also bringing to mind the expression "Les cordonniers sont toujours les plus mal chaussées," or the shoemakers are always the worst shoed.
The political cartoon critiques the system, and illustrates a perceived level of greed associated with jobs like Prosecutor, nearly on par with food-related professions, but also the notion of dirty/tainted money. Bakers in France have historically been a target for criticism (sometimes violence) in times of scarcity or high prices.
Maintaining social peace relied on grain, and by extension, bread. The price of grain was of great importance, and from 1366, a royal decree mandated the standardization, and fixed prices, on bread. But 18th century grain scarcity meant big trouble.
The fixed price decree was lifted in 1774, during a famine when when the grain market was liberalized--if we free things up, this will speed the flow of supplies to regions where it's needed! It didn't work. Vendors were now free to raise the price of grain, and so they did. Thus increased the price of bread by up to 4 times. Riots ensued, and King Louis XVI had to work quickly to stamp out the rebellions.
Lowered wages for women, plus food shortages and price increases, led people to starve--in comes 1789, when women took to the streets chanting "Bread!" and marched to Versailles. This event was a catalyst to the French Revolution.
In 1791, it was necessary to fix bread prices once again. The so-called Equality Bread was imposed (bakers were under threat of fines for noncompliance): a 3/4 white-to-1/4 rye flour mix, with permission to add salt for extra flavor and browning of the crust. During the prior 450 years, only the finest breads contained salt, so this change was a big deal.
Touching the price of bread is still sticky business in France. This year, the Leclerc group (of supermarket chains) announced the price of a basic baguette at just 29 cents apiece, which drew the ire of bakers. The price of bread is "libre"--a vendor is free to price their bread as they wish. This gives larger food chains the freedom to undercut the competition. Despite the price fluctuation of grain, larger enterprises have the resources to survive with more ease than smaller artisans and tradespeople.
On the flip side, at 29 cents, it is more affordable to the consumer. Hunger is not unknown here in France, and there are those (according to Insee, between 2 and 4 million people) who rely on food assistance.
In her paper "La vision de la France à l'étranger à travers la baguette de pain," Magali Marguin traces back to 1837, when Louis-Philippe's son brought back pain viennois from a trip to Vienna--and it was a hit.
Flûtes (or long breads) were already on aristo tables in the 18th century. Also known as pains de fantaisie, these flûtes were long loaves, scored before baking--which supposedly "représentent la finesse du savoir-vivre de l'élite française." (Even if you don't speak French, I think you can glean what that means.) These loaves were more expensive, made with milk and butter. Good thing these particular breads were not taxed, and because it wasn't subject to fixed pricing by the State, bakers could set their own price on this bread. (Hm, the system is curiously advantageous to the most financially well-off citizens.)
1840, Austrian military officer-turned-entrepreneur August Zang arrived in Paris. At La Viennoise, he made boatloads of cash with his pain viennois, crusty and lacquered. Bakers were catering to the taste of their more well-off clientele, by making bread with a pronounced crust. Expat Viennese bakers numbered 1,000 in Paris by 1885, and they revealed the secret to this type of bread: the steam oven.
Meanwhile, outside of Paris, country loaves and other regional bread varieties remained the preferred bread.
At what point does it go from just long bread, to "baguette"? It seems baguettes received their name in the late 19th century Les Halles food market in Paris, where bread loaves measuring 1m20 (4 feet) were sold to laborers. It's during this time that they supposedly received the name "baguette," for its stick-like appearance (as goes the image-based naming tradition of most French breads). Bakery schools from the early 20th century specialized in teaching preparation methods of baguettes, where we see that the name had stuck.
By the end of World War I, the French had become disaffected by bread: a fair number of bakers perished in the war, and people were sick of eating pain noir, or lower-quality/lesser-refined bread. "Manger son pain noir" is an expression that means: to have hard times in life.
The country was rebuilding, mechanizing, urbanizing, and everyday people were ready to enjoy life's pleasures. Baguettes grew in popularity and availability, quickly becoming a Parisian, then a French staple bread by the 1930's.
In metropolitan France, the baguette began as an urban, bourgeois food item that spread through the country and became available to everyone. It evolved into a symbol of good eating, of availability of food, of savoir-vivre.
After World War II, the baguette's popularity continued to rise steadily among the French population, morphing into a cultural symbol that extended outside the country's borders.
From a North American perspective, baguettes came to be known as stereotypically "French," a symbol of rustic life, and traditional French values. This was via stories from people travelling to France, and it made its way into cinema and pop culture.
Historian Steven Kaplan argues that the baguette's global spread is thanks to its simplicity of form and manufacture. There's more to it than that.
The French also brought baguettes along on their travels... travels to foreign lands with soldiers and guns. As France tacked on colonies, the baguette came along for the ride.
You might be familiar with the Vietnamese bread called banh mi, which is a short baguette with a thin, crispy crust.
Historian Vu Hong Lien says the baguette arrived in the first decade of the French occupation of what it called "Indochine." The French arrived in Vietnam in 1858 with imperialist expansionism in mind, and soldiers to back it up. It soon became a symbol of the colonizer.
Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, known for writings against French colonial rule, mentions the baguette (bánh mì, or wheat bread) in his 1861 poem "Eulogy for the Righteous People of Cần Giuộc."
As in other former French colonies, the bread was adopted into Vietnamese cuisine, becoming a popular sandwich, which (depending on the region) can contain pâté, cold cuts, pickled daikon radish, cucumber, carrots, fresh cilantro, and condiments like Maggi sauce. (This video showcases regional varieties of banh mi sandwiches by Vietnamese chefs.)
From the mid-20th century, there was also a concerted effort by France to export her image abroad--self-promo, if you will. It was due at least in part to France's desire to remain "French" in resistance to American global influence, or "Americanization."
Baguette imports in former French colonies were falling, with hunger waning for such a historically-loaded food. Where baguette sales fell, local traditions also incorporated the baguette into the cuisine, as was the case with banh mi in Vietnam.
There was a test round of marketing in Japan in the 60's/70's: baguettes were imported, along with French bakers, ingredients, and the necessary equipment. Adapted to local tastes, baguettes were promoted as a way to "discover France." It was a slick move, considering that the Japanese public had grown tired of American-sent sliced white bread after World War II, and were hungry for European-style bread. Again, the baguette swoops in in the wake of conflict.
And in Tunisia, bread is symbolic of prosperity, of dignity. France occupied Tunisia from 1881-1956, fancying this colony to be its granary, much like the Roman Empire did in North Africa. Soft wheats were introduced to outcompete the native hard wheat already growing there.
The baguette, made with soft wheat flour, would become a political symbol.
The country was kept reliant on soft wheat, and its implications were felt by working people. In post-colonial Tunisia, imported soft wheat flour became subsidized in order to control the price. If a loaf of bread is considered a percentage of one's wage: the lower the price of bread, the lower the wages can be.
Controlling the wages of working class people, installing a suffocating police presence, and depriving people of political freedoms... In December 2010, the report of a fruit vendor's self-immolation in protest to the injustice set off a wave of social action with a major ripple effect. One town bubbled over, into a national movement which toppled the president, and thus began the period we call the Arab Spring. A symbol of protest was the baguette: evocative images show people in Tunisian protests carrying baguettes. (Much more on this from Whetstone Magazine!)
Today, along with other Middle Eastern and North African countries, Tunisia has a fragile food system affected by high grain and fertilizer prices, water scarcity, climate change, and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tunisia, like Morocco and Algeria, is reliant on grain imports. 60% of its soft wheat comes from Ukraine and Russia. And with 1/3 of the world's wheat in Russia and Ukraine, there is a looming food crisis, with food inflation reaching heights last seen during the Arab Spring. (Read more here.)
July 14th is France's national holiday for two reasons. First, as it's known to many of you as Bastille Day. The Bastille Saint-Antoine was a medieval fortress-turned-prison in Paris; if the King didn't like you, that's where you ended up. On July 14, 1789, a mob of angry citizens (many artisans and shopkeepers among them) showed up, looking for firepower--and they took it by force. This taking of the Bastille, symbolically ousting the ancien régime, was a catalyst for the French Revolution.
One year later, on July 14th, 1790, France observed the first fête de la Fédération. General La Fayette invited local and regional militias to convene in Paris, to march in a parade with their regional flags, for an audience of 400,000 spectators. It was a push to unite the country and make that day into a national celebration;
It became the French national holiday in 1880, and to this day, is associated with military parades, fireworks, rousing discourse and the like.
Last year, France submitted her proposal for the baguette to be included on Unesco's list of intangible heritage: to protect the integrity of the baguette, and preserve this tradition for generations to come.
In my last episode of TIDBITS, I discussed the French gastronomic meal's 2010 entry to Unesco's list of cultural patrimony, the significance of its timing, and the act of codifying a fixed idea of French food to metropolitan France--a fixed idea informed by the food history of the white bourgeois. I also looked at the inception of Geographical Indications, those rules that say you can't infringe on Franco-European intellectual property on food and wine.
I wonder: Where was this level of care and concern for local foodways in Tunisia? Or in the French Caribbean? Or any number of places France has colonized?
Unesco's decision on the baguette is expected later this year.
The baguette doesn't scream Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité to me, but it is a study of the evolution of a symbol. The baguette has been a symbol tied to status and class, to politics, to wages and stable labor, to colonialism, to commodification.
An image of art de vivre to some, and France's colonial legacy to others. A symbol of everyday life and its necessities.
I contemplate this as I watch the fireworks, then let my brain give in to the pretty colors. Sometimes a bagette is just a baguette.
Thank you for reading! It has been a fun challenge to incorporate more French resources in my research, and this is thanks to my local libraries, French public institutions, and my French community.
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Recommended for further info:
"The Breadwinners" (by Tommie Brown for Feminist Food Journal, Substack)
The Tunisian Baguette Revolt (Whetstone, Youtube)
Bibliography
Argod-Dutard, Françoise and Patrick Voisin. Les mille & un mots des mets et des vins. Féret, 2019. pp. 71-73, 110-11.
"Bastille Day." Britannica.
Brown, Tommie. “The Breadwinners.” Feminist Food Journal, 14 Jun 2022.
Davidson, Alan. Tom Jaine, ed. The Oxford Companion to Food, 3rd Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. p. 326-7.
Fay, Sophie. "Combien de personnes ont recours à l’aide alimentaire en France ? l'Insee fait les comptes." France Inter Histoires économiques, 29 Jun 2022.
"France seeks Unesco heritage status for the baguette." BBC News, 26 Mar 2021.
"France’s baguette obsession: The rules of 'baguetiquette'." Youtube, Uploaded by France 24 English, 3 Nov 2016.
"How Vietnam’s Banh Mi Sandwich Changes from the North to South — Regions." Youtube, Uploaded by Eater, 15 Nov 2019.
Lagarde, Yann. "À l'origine de la baguette de pain." France Culture, 10 Apr 2020.
Lamure, Priscille, and Lavande Grimbert. "La France : toute une Histoire ! Aux origines de la baguette !" France Bleu, 27 Apr 2022.
Lien, Vu Hong. Rice and Baguette: A History of Food in Vietnam. Reaktion Books, 2016.
"Le 14 juillet, histoire d'une fête nationale." Gouvernement de la France.
Marguin, Magali. “La Vision de La France à l’étranger à Travers La Baguette de Pain.” Relations Internationales, no. 101, 2000, pp. 107–16. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45344918. Accessed 7 Jul. 2022.
Ropert, Pierre. "Prix de la baguette : quand le cours du pain était fixé par l'Etat." France Culture, 17 Jan 2022.
Tanchum, Michaël. "The Fragile State of Food Security in the Maghreb: Implication of the 2021 Cereal Grains Crisis in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco." The Middle East Institute, 9 Nov 2021.
"Tunisian food crisis worsens as Russia holds grip on Ukrainian grain exports." CNN, 11 Jul 2022.
"Whetstone Audio Dispatch: The Tunisian Baguette Revolt." Youtube, Uploaded by Whetstone Magazine, 25 Mar 2022.