The Fall and Rise of French Bread

The nadir was from about 1955 to 1975, he says, when industrial baking came on the scene in France, pushing aside more time-consuming artisanal recipes. Cheap postwar loans let bakers mechanize. And a method that relied on fast mechanical kneading -- a truncated approach to traditional methods of fermentation -- and additives resulted in speedily made white bread that took over the market. "It looked lush, but it was tasteless," he says.

But this was France -- the country whose pride in its culinary artistry was unsurpassed, the country that invented haute cuisine. Who would rescue its national symbol?

In 1980, French millers rose to the challenge. Concerned about the inferior quality of the bread, they offered bakers not only a better flour but also the marketing backup that would help them retain or reclaim artisanal recipes. "By 1990, there was a substantial improvement," Kaplan says.

Then in 1993, the French legal system stepped in with a decree that created the designation: "the bread of French tradition." To claim that status, the bread had to be made without any freezing during the fermentation process and without additives, amelioratives, improvers or technological help. "Once you remove all those crutches," says Kaplan, "the good baker knows that the only way to produce a dough that will stand up is by restoring the first three hours of fermentation that give the bread its aromas and taste."

These days, bakeries all over Paris proudly proclaim their allegiance to the bread of French tradition. Buying it is chic, especially among the approximately 28- to 48-year-old bourgeois bohemians known as "bo-bos."

But it costs more -- 85 to 95 cents for an ordinary baguette, and about 40 cents more for one of French tradition. "For ordinary working people, that can be a burden," Kaplan says. He suggests that those who can't afford the bread of French tradition every day serve it at their family meal on Sunday.

That's a compromise, he knows, but not nearly as significant as the one he makes when he's back at home in Upstate New York. "It's a sad state of affairs," he says.

But he remains hopeful, and he is particularly enthusiastic about the impact that Eric Kayser (whose Parisian bakery received the top score in Kaplan's guide) will have when he opens his "bread bar" soon in Los Angeles. And he's cautiously optimistic about seeing more bakers adopt authentic artisanal methods. Perhaps some of them will demand better flour without additives of any kind, he conjectures. Perhaps mills will respond with a niche flour industry. And perhaps someone will even open a mill that does stone grinding to preserve more of the grain. "There's a lot of romance attached to it," he admits.

But until then, what does he do when he's back at Cornell? He has a simple solution. "I don't eat bread," he sighs. "Sometimes I make my own. But there's no other bread I will eat."

You can ask Judith Weinraub questions about baguettes during the Food section's online chat today at 1 p.m. at http://washingtonpost.com/liveonline.