French bread has a well-deserved reputation
for excellence. The French housewife buys freshly baked bread each day,
because the standard loaves from French bakeries do not keep well.
Today, no French housewife would dream of making her own bread, although
this was not so at the turn of the century. In some rural areas, for
example, everyone would make their own pain de campagne about
once a week. Once the oven was lit, a child would be sent out to the
neighbors to find who had made bread the day before and so collect some
fresh dough-starter - there was no yeast on sale in those days.
Nowadays people normally buy long loaves of
white bread: baguettes weighing 250g (1/2 lb), gros pains
of 400g (14 oz) and flutes or ficelles of 100g (4 oz). The
taste and quality of the bread varies from good to better, depending on
the baker. Pain de campagne is now made by bakers, in either
large long loaves or round ones weighing about 1kg (2lb). It is a coarse
bread that improves with keeping and has a fermented, winey taste.
In some baker shops it is also possible to
buy pain de seigle, rye bread made into flat round loaves, or
pain complet, a brownish-grey loaf of wholemeal flour. The baker
will also make brioches, buns made with an egg-enriched dough,
and croissants, delicate crescents of puff-pastry dough.