The baguette, which means wand, really came into being just before the first World War: until then, the classic French loaf had two shapes: the round "miche" or country-style loaf, which weighed about 2.5 kgs, and the pain "long" a 20 cm by 76 cm loaf of the same weight. The interior of the loaf was dense and heavy with a crisp crust. As consumers showed a preference for more crust, the bakers made the bread thinner and thinner, reducing it until it became what we know today as the baguette, which is 76 cm long and weighs 250 grammes. Its origins are also attributed to a certain Count Zang, first secretary of the Austrian Embassy, who introduced a recipe for a Viennese-style loaf around the middle of the 19th century. The slender and refined French version of the Viennese loaf or the baguette quickly became part of Parisian fashion and the traditional, heavy loaf declined.
The heavy wheels of sourdough bread that used to feed families for a week all but disappeared especially in the cities, but some boulangers refused to renounce making the round loaf, or boule - from which the word boulanger comes - and now they are back in fashion.
Now, the customer can choose from round loaves, ring-shaped loaves, ficelle (a very thin crusty baguette), fougasse, (a rectangular, flat, lacy bread made of baguette dough and filled with onions, spices, olives, tomatoes or herbs), or pain de campagne, (a dense bread which blends white, whole wheat and rye flour with added bran, and which comes in many different shapes).
Pain de mie, which means the interior crumb of any bread, is a rectangular, firm, white sandwich bread which contains milk, sugar, and butter: it is often toasted to accompany goose liver or hot goat's cheese. Pain de seigle or rye bread, and pain de son which contains 20 per cent bran, are considered as dietetic breads but invariably served with oysters. Pain viennois ressembles the baguette but has added sugar, powdered milk and white flour, and "decorated" bread is a large round loaf or small rolls personalised with one's name or a symbol, quite often a bunch of grapes or sheaves of wheat. It is regularly a feature of special occasions such as christenings or weddings.