It measures on average between 40 and 60 cm and weighs about 250 g. The baguette could make its entry on Tuesday in the list of intangible heritage of humanity at Unesco. The candidacy had been submitted in 2018 by Dominique Anract, the president of the National Confederation of French Bakery-Pastry (CNPBF) and supported by Emmanuel Macron, who then underlined that “France is a country of excellence in bread. Moreover, it is not the baguette as such that wants to be recognized by Unesco, but the culture attached to it and the know-how of the bakers.
Seen from abroad, a Frenchman is a beret and a baguette. If the beret is a bit cliché, the baguette represents us perfectly. Six billion chopsticks are in fact cooked each year in France, i.e. 320 per second. “It’s a flagship product of France”, abounds Dominique Planchot, best worker in France in bakery and president of the bread ambassadors. His association organizes the Mondial du Pain and he sees it clearly, “foreign colleagues are always quite fascinated by the baguette. She remains a benchmark.
The French, kings of bread
Succeeding in obtaining a well-dimpled crumb and a crispy crust, with the only four ingredients that are flour, water, salt and yeast, is the know-how of French bakers. “It takes two or three years for apprentices to master fermentation,” notes Dominique Planchot. In addition to manufacturing secrets, the terroir also counts. “The wheat produced in France allows the dough to grow properly, explains Dominique Planchot. Canadian wheat, for example, is too high in protein. »
Admittedly, the French consume less bread: 105g per day in 2021, compared to 800 g per day 100 years ago. But the baguette remains the favorite bread of the French, and the French the kings of bread. And it’s not from yesterday. “From the Enlightenment and the 18th century, the idea took hold that the best bread in the world was French, thanks to the testimony of a large number of travelers and the writings of specialists such as Parmentier, who marveled at the research excellence in bread, truly French”, reminds Life Steven L. Kaplan, Francophile American historian and bread specialist in France.
“The neighborhood baker is like the village square”
Today, the French can continue their search for the best baguette in one of the 33,000 bakeries in the country, according to the CNPBF count. Businesses that guarantee the perpetuity of our panarian culture and create social ties. “The neighborhood baker is like the village square, believes in an article from World Abdu Gnaba, anthropologist and author ofAnthropology of bread eaters. This is where everyone meets, where you send your child to make their first purchase, where the big boss and the unemployed rub shoulders to buy their baguette. It is the unifying place par excellence. »
So many arguments which, hopes the CNPBF, will seduce the UNESCO committee. But this inclusion in the intangible heritage of humanity will not, however, freeze the baguette in its current texture and flavor. “I would like us to continue to improve the nutritional value of the baguette and to bring the raw material back to the region, as for wine or cheese, by working with wheat from the same region, and not not flours made with mixtures, aspires Dominique Planchot. This would give baguettes that would have different tastes and textures depending on the region. Bakers still have their work cut out for them.