Is bread in France a question of taste or fashion? "Etre bon comme du bon pain", to be good like good bread, is an old saying in this country. What is certain is that bread is no ordinary substance for most French people, and a good quality crust is still high on their list of priorities. Children coming out of school are greeted with bread and some chocolate to put inside and office workers making their way home can be seen breaking off the end of a crusty, warm, fresh baguette and chewing it as they walk along the street.
Various kinds of bread have been in and out of favour over the decades. Brown bread used to be strictly the preserve of the peasants, to be eaten with cabbage soup. Parisians favoured white bread or "pure" bread, which was rarely eaten in rural parts of France at the beginning of the century.
Now, brown bread is glorified all over the country. Certain brands of bread, such as pain Poilene - are even considered extremely chic. A few years ago, convinced it was fattening, figure-conscious consumers were encouraged to eat less bread. Fortunately, dieticians and scientists have since disproved this and proved, on the contrary, that it should play an important part in a healthy lifestyle.
Many restaurants now make their own breade. The bakeries, meanwhile, produce a a wider range of breads, so if you want to accompany cheese, oysters, seafood or pate, you can be plump for something completely different from the everyday baguette.
With such an array of wonderful breads to choose from it is sometimes difficult to understand that the overall picture of the bread industry in France is grim, due to falling numbers of bakeries in every region and low bread consumption in families. It has never been easy to be a good baker. Known as the "white miners" before the 1900s because of the amount of manual work involved and the long, night hours spent in basements to produce fresh bread early in the morning, bakers still play an important role in their community - as someone to chat to, salute on your way to ask for speciality breads for dinner parties. Between 1955 and 1976 the modern baker acquired machines to weigh and cut the dough, and high-tech gas and electric ovens largely replaced wood-fired ovens. But the real revolution in baking was a machine invented in 1968 with a timing system which allowed the temperature to rise from 5 to 20, allowing fermentation to take place automatically. This meant the baker could begin his work much later in the night. Pre-mixed flours, industrial leavenings and factory-frozen sourdoughs have also transformed bakers' lives - but the resulting standardisation of quality and taste has, it is widely believed, made the pernickety French lose interest in their staple.
In 1965 there were 48,400 bakeries and cake-shops in the country: now, there are 35,000.
In 1950, the average French person ate 325 grammes of bread daily; today they eat a mere 150 grammes and this figure is still steadily dropping.
But the bakers are fighting the trend and a nationwide "good bread campaign" is one of many noble attempts to bring bread back to what it was before the second World War and renew interest in more natural ingredients such as those found in organic bread.
In December 1997 the bakers' unions proposed legislation in the French National Assembly which aimed to protect traditional bakers who made bread on their own premises - as opposed to those who had frozen dough or pre-made loaves delivered, leaving them only with the task of baking and selling the product. The law stated that these outlets should be called "baking terminals" and not "boulangeries" or bakeries. The bill was supported by traditional bakers all over France, but the European Commission finally deemed it "illegal and unfair commercial competition". Now, a new proposal is being put forward by Georges Sarre, a former member of Parliament and representative of the movement, to continue the battle for the survival of traditional bread-making nationwide.
And there remain plenty of success stories. One of the biggest bakeries in France is run by the Larre family in the Basque country in south-west France, who explained recently in an interview the financial workings of their bread shop. It costs 1 franc or approximately 8 1/2p in ingredients to make a baguette, which is sold for 4,20 frs and yields a 20-centime net profit on each one. Handmade country-style bread is even more profitable as it is sold by weight and made in old-fashioned ovens with no mechanical kneading. This makes a 60 centime net profit but when it comes to financial gain it is no rival for the croissant, which costs the same as a baguette to produce, requires far fewer ingredients and demands less manipulation on the baker's part. Each one represents a profit of 80 centimes or almost 10p.
Another well-known baker, this time in Paris, is Bernard Ganachaud who made his reputation with the flute "Gana", which is a special kind of baguette made from a mix of flours Ganachaud has patented. Gigantic, wood-fired ovens swing into action around 7 p.m. and by 4 a.m. the oven is put to work, to bake the 30 different shapes and varieties of bread from eight different flours he offers his customers each day. His baguettes cost more than the norm at 6,50frs, but the crowds inside his old-fashioned bakery in the 20e arrondissement don't seem to begrudge paying two francs more. Ganachaud has now become something of a businessman, and has sold the "secret recipe" of his flute Gana to other bakers, 85 in all so far. For 25,000 frs or £2,700, he teaches the chosen few over two days how to make his bread, what materials are needed and how to reproduce the same bread that comes out of the Ganachaud ovens. The bakers interviewed found this a reasonable price as their turnover doubled within a year through the sales of this well-known brand of bread.
But the undisputed star of French bread remains Lionel Poilene, known worldwide for his bread appreciated by French families and film stars alike. He flies his old-style, handmade, thick-crusted, sourdough loaves to Tokyo, New York, Hollywood and various other cities where the rich eagerly await this delicious and unique bread. At No 8, Rue du Cherche-Midi in the 6e arrondissement there are long lines of patient customers each evening, especially on Saturdays, waiting to purchase one of the large, round loaves that can be eaten with practically anything. It is made of the finest whole-grain, stone-milled wheat flours seasoned with light-grey crystals of sea-salt, raised with natural yeasts and baked in brick ovens. Rye bread, nut bread and raisin bread are rich and dense. The bakery itself in rue du Cherche-Midi, is tiny: shop assistants are clad in linen smocks, and the windows are chock-a-block with beautiful breads of all sizes, hand-made apple turnovers and dinner rolls, and decorated bread, of which you can buy a half or a quarter of the loaf, "well done" or "normally" baked.
There are 600 selected outlets, shops and restaurants that sell Poilene bread manufactured at a factory on the outskirts of Paris. The methods used are almost archaic, but the finished product is not to be missed. Buckets of water hang near the kneading-troughs, warm balls of dough lie in wicker baskets waiting for the yeast to rise, and the ovens are made of brick and wrought iron. These bakers are household names in France, and regularly appear on television and radio, but on a more modest level and in keeping with the notion of quality and dedication among ordinary, hard-working bakers, the twelfth competition for the best baker's window-display is now under way. The theme this year will be the cinema. These breads used in the display are works of art and are made entirely from the ingredients they use every day. The Grand Prix of the Best Baguette in Paris, which had 104 candidates last time round, is in its sixth year: the competition is taken very seriously indeed with the mayor of Paris himself handing over the trophy. These events can make a baker's or patissier's reputation, and inevitably winners sell more bread, but they are also proof of how seriously bread is taken in France, the part it plays in the national psyche and the role it plays in its identity. More than anything else, though, it shows how the humble crumb can sometimes be elevated to the food of the gods!