Baguette de Tradition

The day before yesterday, I read an article in the Badische Zeitung titled "Vive la baguette!" Elisabeth and I love that French cultural heritage. When we buy our Bourgogne wine, Epoisses, and other French cheeses in nearby Alsace, we walk into a boulangerie and buy one of those crusty baguettes only the French know how to make. Our next lunch is frugal: baguette pieces with French cheese and wine, a real treat.

French cliché: Beret Basque and baguette (©BZ).

In the BZ article, I learned that the French National Assembly passed a Reinheitsgebot for the baguette in 1993, namely the Décret n°93-1074 du 13 septembre 1993 pris pour l'application de la loi du 1er août 1905 en ce qui concerne certaines catégories de pains. In article 2, the following ingredients are allowed for the baguette de tradition française:

Peuvent seuls être mis en vente ou vendus sous la dénomination de : "pain de tradition française", "pain traditionnel français", "pain traditionnel de France" ou sous une dénomination combinant ces termes les pains, quelle que soit leur forme, n'ayant subi aucun traitement de surgélation au cours de leur élaboration, ne contenant aucun additif et résultant de la cuisson d'une pâte qui présente les caractéristiques suivantes :

1° Être composée exclusivement d'un mélange de farines panifiables de blé, d'eau potable et de sel de cuisine;2° Être fermentée à l'aide de levure de panification (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) et de levain ... 

The most essential requirement for a baguette de tradition française is a freshly prepared dough containing nothing else than wheat flour, drinking water, and cooking salt to be fermented with the help of baker's yeast and leaven ...

This reminds me of the German purity law for beer, which, in reality, is a Bavarian decree dated 1516 that I dealt with earlier. Duke Wilhelm IV proclaimed that beer should only contain barley, hops, and water. What about brewing yeast? Well, yeast wasn't known in the 16th century. All beer was top-fermented; ubiquitous yeast cells turned the mash into wash, so the resulting beer varied widely in quality. Only in the 18th century did brewers understand brewing and cultivate specific "tasty" strains of brewing yeast.

And here comes bad news for Bavarians. It wasn't their Duke Wilhelm who came first, but Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, who issued a brewing regulation as early as 1438, allowing only barley, hops, and water. Beer in Burgundy? In the 15th century, la Bourgogne was the biggest hop producer. Historians have found that Philip's decree aimed to protect domestic hop cultivation rather than beer purity.

Raising a baguette de tradition (©DPA)

Back to the baguette de tradition française. The guy in the photo above actually carries flûtes, which are more comprehensive than baguettes. Another bread variety is ficelles (threads). They are longer and thinner than baguettes, so they're crustier. Ficelles are best for breakfast with salty butter and jam; some like to dip the combination in their black coffee. By law, all these delicacies you buy in a boulangerie are made by a boulanger who still kneads his dough as early as 2 a. m. taking his time with its fermentation.
Why do only the French know how to bake a traditional baguette? Even in French-speaking Geneva, I remember crossing the nearby border into France to get the real thing. And forget about German baguettes. We make good wholemeal rye bread with whole grain, though my grandchildren in Geneva refuse even to taste it.

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