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Not to be confused with breadsticks. It is distinguishable by its length and crisp crust. In November 2018, documentation surrounding the “craftsmanship and culture” on making this bread was added to the French Ministry of Culture’s National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. In May 2021, France submitted the baguette for UNESCO heritage status. Austrian Adolf Ignaz Mautner von Markhof’s ‘s compact yeast in 1867 at the Universal Exposition. Finally, the word “baguette” appears, to define a particular type of bread, in a regulation of the department of the Seine in August 1920: “The baguette, having a minimum weight of 80 g and a maximum length of 40 cm , may not be sold for a price higher than 0.
It is first recorded as a kind of bread in 1920. Outside France, the baguette is often considered a symbol of French culture, but the association of France with long loaves long predates it. A less direct link can be made with deck or steam ovens. These combine of a gas-fired traditional oven and a brick oven, a thick “deck” of stone or firebrick heated by natural gas instead of wood. France to determine who made the best baguettes. Nearly 200 bakers compete each year in front of a 14-judge panel following strict guidelines.
They are judged based on baking, appearance, smell, taste, and crumb. 4000 and supplies France’s president their daily bread for the duration of that year, until a new winner is chosen. Following the World Wars, French bakers began baking a whiter, softer baguette that contrasted with the darker loaves produced because of rationing during the wars. These doughs took less time to ferment and used more additives, but had significantly less taste. They also began using pre-made dough and molds. Because the history of the French baguette is not completely known, several myths have spread about the origins of this type of bread.
Some say Napoleon Bonaparte in essence created the French baguette in order to allow soldiers to more easily be able to carry bread with them. Since the round shape of other breads took up a lot of space, Bonaparte requested they be made into the skinny stick shape with specific measurements to be able to slide into the soldiers’ uniform. Other stories credit baguettes as being an invention to stop French metro workers from having to carry knives that they used to cut their bread. The workers often fought, so the management did not want them to be carrying knives and requested for bread to be easily ripped apart, ending the need for knives. The skinny, easily rippable shape of a baguette would have been the response to this.
Some believe baguettes were the “Bread of Equality” following a decree post-French Revolution requiring a type of bread to be made accessible to both the rich and poor. Another account states that in October 1920 a law prevented bakers from working before 4 am, making it impossible to make traditional round loaves in time for customers’ breakfasts. Switching from the round loaf to the previously less-common, slender shape of the baguette solved the problem, because it could be prepared and baked much more quickly. It is forbidden to employ workers at bread and pastry making between ten in the evening and four in the morning. The “baguette de tradition française” is made from wheat flour, water, yeast, and common salt. Baguettes are closely connected to France, though they are made around the world.
Another tubular shaped loaf is known as a flûte, also known in the United States as a parisienne. Flûtes closely resemble baguettes but are about twice the size. UK referred to using the English translation French stick. None of these are officially defined, either legally or, for instance, in major dictionaries, any more than the baguette. Baguettes, either relatively short single-serving size or cut from a longer loaf, are very often used for sandwiches, usually of the submarine sandwich type, but also a panini. Baguettes are generally made as partially free-form loaves, with the loaf formed with a series of folding and rolling motions, raised in cloth-lined baskets or in rows on a flour-impregnated towel, called a couche, and baked either directly on the hearth of a deck oven or in special perforated pans designed to hold the shape of the baguette while allowing heat through the perforations.