BREAD


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Try the best baguettes in Paris


Best served slathered in cool, creamy butter, perhaps with a slab of brie or top-quality ham, the baguette is as quintessentially French


as the beret and a bottle of rouge. Indeed, the nation is said to consume around 10 billion baguettes every year. Yet it seems not all are created equal. While the official ingredients of a ‘baguette de tradition’ are flour, salt, yeast and water, artisan bakers will painstakingly source their flour from specialist mills and work the dough in specific ways in order to produce a superior ‘pain’. Traditionally, five slashes (‘grignes’) are made along the top of the loaf to let the carbon dioxide escape; the exact pattern varies from baker to baker and is akin to their signature. Given the sheer quantity sold across France every day,


finding the best baguette can be a challenge. Limit your search to Paris, however, and help is at hand in the form of an annual competition designed to find the city’s best loaf. For the past 25 years, the Grand Prix de la Baguette has sorted the soggy from the crispy and the doughy from the fluffy. To enter, boulangeries from across the city submit two baguettes of identical weight and length to be scrutinised by a panel of chefs, bakers and food experts. The winner receives €4,000 (£3,390). Last year’s winner, Fabrice Leroy, was delighted


— and more than a little surprised — to scoop first place, having changed career from a project manager at SNCF (France’s national railway company) to boulanger only three years before.


40 NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.CO.UK/FOOD-TRAVEL “It was the second time I’d entered, and we did lots of


trial runs in the week before,” he explains. “But I didn’t think we’d win, so I just got on with my day. Then at 7pm, the mayor of Paris [Anne Hidalgo] rang and she said we’d won. I thought it was a joke at first!” So what makes the baguettes at Boulangerie Leroy-


Monti stand out? “We do a slow fermentation, so it’s prepared the night before, which makes a good crust,” says Fabrice. “We really take time to work the dough and that gives the flavour.” As well as the prize money, the winner gets the chance


to supply the Elysée Palace with bread for a year. Did this extra order put pressure on the business? “Not really,” says Fabrice. “The order is about 20 baguettes a day, but it can get busier. For the Journées de Patrimoine [heritage open days], we supply 300 sandwiches and 300 croissants.” This year, Fabrice will join the jury to choose the


winner for 2020 — and he already knows what he’ll be looking for. “There are certain clues to good quality: the colour; how it feels when you squeeze it,” he explains. For, as Fabrice and anyone else in the know will tell


you, when you squeeze a good-quality baguette, ‘elle chant’ — it sings. CB


WHERE TO START Brighton’s The Flour Pot makes a classic baguette from 24 hour-fermented dough. In Norfolk, try the French sticks from the award-winning Bread Source bakery. theflourpot.co.uk bread-source.co.uk


IMAGES: ALAMY; EXCERPTED FROM BREAKING BREADS BY URI SCHEFT (ARTISAN BOOKS). COPYRIGHT © 2016. PHOTOGRAPHS BY CON POULOS.


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