What is the role of bread in France?
Since the Middle Ages, bread has been the staple of the French diet. Dense and hard, it was often dipped in soup. It wasn’t until Parmentier and his research on potatoes and bread that production improved. In 1778, he wrote a seminal work, Le Parfait Boulanger, and with other scholars, founded the first free bakery school in Paris. Some believe that the lack of bread was a driving force behind the French Revolution. When the revolutionaries stormed the Bastille in 1789, they expected to find a stockpile of wheat there. Later, when symbols for the Republic were needed, the sheaf, the ear of wheat, and the sower’s gesture naturally became emblematic.
In the early 19th century, the first bakery-pastry shops opened in Paris. Amidst the gilding and glass paintings, they started the trend of English bread (made with beer yeast), Provençal bread, and Viennese bread. Wheat bread (white) gradually replaced whole wheat bread (black), which had been the most common until then. The latter remained the staple of the poor and rural areas until 1950. Bread became a mere accompaniment in the mid-20th century. At that time, consumption was 325 grams per person per day, almost three times less than in 1900. New intensive kneading methods gave bread unprecedented volume and whiteness, to the detriment of its texture and flavor. Industrial bakery further degraded it. Both the public and nutritionists turned away from it. Nevertheless, bread remained ubiquitous in everyday language with numerous colorful expressions: “As long as a day without bread,” “I don’t eat that kind of bread,” “I’ve eaten more than one loaf” (meaning traveled a lot)…
Initiated in the 1970s, the return of specialty breads and rustic breads was confirmed in the 1980s when the entire artisan sector rallied. The bread machine entered households. Consumption finally began to rise again in 2002. Bread once again became a daily pleasure, a flagship of the French art of living. Eric Kayser bakeries are among the key players in this revival.