There are really only two types of French people. The ones in your head and the ones you find on the street. I, like you, had many idealized, romanticized, and generalized stereotypes about the French. I really thought that within two seconds of stepping out of Gare de Nord, a Parisienne wearing a striped shirt, red beret, and high heels sat atop a vintage bike with a basket filled with baguettes and a small offensive dog, would crash into me and we would fall in love. We would live the rest of our life in a small French town, probably in black and white, sulking and smoking and soliciting domestic revolution.
Unfortunately, this didn’t happen and now I spend my days wandering the Paris streets hoping someone is going to hit me with their car or fall from a window so I can catch them. All I want is a real bizarre French cinema-style coup de foudre.
Regarding French stereotypes, let’s review them.
French people wear berets: Regrettably, not so much anymore. I love the beret. The other day I saw the cutest old man wear one while walking his dog and I just wanted to adopt him out of appreciation for keeping that part of old France alive.
French people stink: Actually, they smell pretty nice. More than once I have been distracted from my restaurant meal by a particularly fragrant smelling passer-by. Just don’t go sniffing anyone in the metro. Especially during the summer, there’s no air and it’s just a metal box of sweltering human flesh.
French people are rude: About twice a year a waiter will hear my accent and feel obliged to say something rude about me or to comment on how superior his food, culture, … whatever, is to mine. If I was a waiter dealing with picky customers all day I’d probably want to hurl some verbal smears at foreigners too. So, I think we can let this slide. No, the French people are not rude. In Paris though, one shouldn’t expect too much friendliness, too much smiling after all is suggestive.
French people are snobs: About food, yes. About wine, yes. About cheese, yes. About philosophy, yes. About their grande école attendance, yes. But if you are good at what you’re snobbish about is your snobbish-ness justified? If any French person tells me how efficient their administrative institutions are then I will know that they’ve eaten one too many escargots.
French people eat baguettes: Alas, we arrive at the subject of this post. French people really do eat a $%!+ ton of baguettes. 320 baguettes are consumed every second in France. That’s over 10 billion a year. Gluten-ism hasn’t made its way to French shores yet. If any Californian dietitian was caught in France preaching against bread I think they might just bring back the guillotine.
So, the next time you come to France you should leave the beret, the striped shirt, and kindness at home. Just focus on eating as many baguettes as possible. It’s probably the most French thing you could do.
But wait! This is a country of hidden social contracts. You can just waive your yeasty wand around and eat it however you like. There are rules. Here are some things I now know about eating baguettes.
Baguette Competitions
You can’t just walk to any boulangerie and buy any baguette. There’s research to do. Not all baguettes are created equal and after eating a baguette a day your standards of bread consumption will rise. Every year a bunch of bread snobs award the “Grand Prix de la Baguette de la Ville de Paris” to the bakery producing the finest baguettes in the city of Paris. Without bothering to check, I’m sure that they have this competition in every city and minor hamlet in the country. The stakes for this competition are extremely high. It’s like winning the best gumbo in all of New Orleans. Or the best mullet in 1980’s Germany. The winners of this competition get to supply the current president of France and the Elysées Palace with baguettes for a year.
Do yourself a favor and go out of your way to visit any of the top 10 bakeries from this competition.
The 2020 Winners
1. Maison Julien — Les Saveurs de Pierre Demours, 13 Rue Pierre Demours 75017
2. L’Essentiel Mouffetard, 2 Rue Mouffetard 75005
3. Boulangerie Martyrs, 70 Rue des Martyrs 75009
4. Au 740, 140 Rue de Belleville 75020
5. Aux delices du Palais, 60 Boulevard Brune 75014
6. Aux delices de Glaciere, 90 Boulevard Auguste Blanqui 75013
7. Lorette, 2 Rue de la Butte aux Cailles 75013
8. Boulangerie Guyot, 28 Rue Monge 75005
9. Giovanni Boulangerie Contemporaine, 49 Rue Chardon Lagache 75016
10. Maison Leparc, 6 Rue de Lourmel, 75015
Get The Tradition
Once you have found yourself at an award-winning bakery the last thing you want to do is order a regular baguette. If you do everyone will think you are some sort of savage. Get the ‘Tradition’ instead. A Tradition is, as the name suggests, made in the most traditional way. Only four ingredients can be used — wheat flour, yeast, salt, and water.
There are other requirements too. A Baguette Tradition must be made from start to finish on the premises. We’ve all heard horror stories about bakeries importing their produce from large factories outside of the city. Go for the Tradition and your fears will be no more. Also, I swear they just taste better. They’re 10–15 cents more but it’s totally worth it.
*side note — I avoid boulangeries with orange awnings. I have no scientific proof of this but after some time in Paris, I have determined that the orange bakeries have significantly lower quality products. Go for the most traditional looking instead. A good boulangerie should look as though it has been there forever because if it is a good boulangerie, it will have been.
Eat The Tip
Every expat in Paris should have read A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. They give it out at the airport. What you quickly realize is that while Paris is a moveable feast the Parisians don’t feast while moving. Indeed, every type of snacking on the move is frowned upon, except if it is a baguette.
If you are walking the streets of Paris with a baguette under your arm and feeling a bit famished, I highly recommend ripping off the tip and munching on that. I have no idea why this is acceptable and other means of snacking are not. My best hypothesis so far relies on the theory that Napoleon requested long loaves of bread for his troops so they could carry them in their trousers and packs. Maybe the modern Parisian likes to imagine that they too are marching into a battle.
You might think that carrying around a baguette in your trousers and fondling them with your grubby metro hands seems a bit unhygienic. You’re wrong though and you should move on to the next tip to find out why.
Baguettes Are Germ Resistant
The French have invented the very first completely germ-resistant food item. When you order a baguette the boulanger will use his bare hands to grab the baguette and stuff it into a sleeve that leaves 50% of it exposed. He will then place it on the counter where dirty money has changed hands. You, will then take this bread and stuff it under your sweaty armpit. You will bang it around the metro, squeeze it into bags, and generally fumble it around. Then without washing your hands you will rip and eat a portion of it as previously described. You will then position the baguette between your legs while you search for your apartment keys. Once inside you present this partially eaten wand of germs to your grateful wife who will likely take a bit of it for herself and then place it directly on the table for dinner. No knives or plates will be used in the consumption of this baguette. Instead, it will be ripped, stripped, and dipped into soup by your offspring.
I don’t want to scare you, but this sequence is just part of daily French life. You’re going to have to get used to it. For them, the baguette is the ultimate food. This is what I now know about the baguette.
Imperishable, versatile, and unmistakably French.
