One of the biggest changes in my day-to-day life is the absence of fresh bread. It's not just the actual baguette - soft and chewy inside, perfectly crunchy on the outside - but the act of going, each and every day, to the boulangerie. Of listening to Max say, "Baguette, s'il vous plaît." Of seeing boys and girls, men with briefcases, and old ladies carrying their baguettes home at the end of the day. Boulangeries are ubiquitous in Paris, though not all produce the same quality product. Though baguette consumption is decreasing in France - there is even a PR campaign to promote bread that launched this spring - it is still an important part of the French lifestyle.
We ate a lot of baguettes in our two years in France. And yet, I mostly lost weight when we were there. After less than two months in New York, the bagels are not doing me any favors and we miss baguettes. Very little tears at my heart more right now than hearing Max say, "I want a baguette," and having to explain that we don't have baguettes here.
So the hunt is on for a real baguette in New York City. In a city that has everything, this seemed like it would not be too difficult. And yet, five baguettes into the search, nothing quite compares.
We started with a baguette from Trois Pommes, a French bakery here in Park Slope. Most of the fanfare about Trois Pommes focuses on its pastries, which I would hope are better than its baguette. Which was simply dreadful. No taste, no crunch, too heavy. None of the thin-as-air interior you are guaranteed in France.
Next up was the chain Le Pain Quotidien. This chain actually exists in Paris so it is not completely inauthentic. Yet the baguette was worse than the first one.
Lafayette, an upscale restaurant in NoHo, also runs a boulangerie/patisserie. Their goods looked the best so far, but the baguette was too heavy. We couldn't even muster up the energy for a second bite.
We spent a day in Williamsburg, Brooklyn a few weeks ago, and made significant progress on our baguette hunt. Our first stop was Bakeri, where we sampled a few pastries in their serene garden. I don't entirely understand the Williamsburg shtick that leads to all of the employees wearing industrial jumpsuits, but their baguette was fresh out of the oven, and not too bad. It still didn't hold a candle to the baguette from our neighborhood bakery, and, like all New York baguettes, was twice the price.
The best baguette we've had so far - which was still mediocre when eaten plain, but recovered nicely when toasted, then spread with butter and French honey - was from Pain d'Avignon. We bought the baguette at the Pain d'Avignon stand at Shmorgasburg, the weekly foodie market in Williamsburg and DUMBO (another Brooklyn neighborhood - Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, if you aren't up on the latest NYC lingo).
So the hunt continues. What remains unclear is why something considered a run-of-the-mill, everyday product in one country is only found in artisanal, specialty shops in another. Why is good bread artisanal? Why isn't it just good bread? Why does it cost $3 in New York but only about $1.50 USD in Paris? Some say the flour is different. Or maybe it's the water. It's a hard case to argue that the process hasn't been recreated properly, because there are certainly plenty of French people in New York.
It's more than bread that is different between American and French food cultures. There is less variety in France, but also less preservatives. A typical American grocery store has multiple aisles of chips, crackers, cookies, and gelatinous fruit snacks. The typical French grocery store has a few shelves of chips, maybe 3-5 types of crackers, and one aisle of sweet treats - these are consumed almost exclusively for the gouter, the 4pm snack. Yes, the French have a national snack time.
There's much more to say about the differences in food, and in eating. Right now, we're simply hunting for a great baguette. And maybe we're also trying to preserve a bit of the French lifestyle that we absorbed for the past two years.
