Bread is Pain

If there were only one thing I could tell you about France it would be that the French know their bread!  There is nothing better than French bread and by gum they know it too.  Croissants, boules. batards, baguettes, pain du chocolat, ficelle, sandwich du pays, tartines, and on and on...

Bread is served at every meal.  A crusty loaf is cut up and brought to you in a basket.  No butter, no oil, no bread plates, just the magic of the bread.  Grab a piece, tear off a bite and lay the rest right their on the table.  You wipe your plate clean with the bread.  You talk with it in your hand, waving it around, because in France, the bread is an extension of you!  Bread is like breathing, you just do it.  When you finish one basket, and I guarantee you will, just lift it up and give a nod to your server, or say, "Encore, s'il vous plait" and there you are, more bread. 

I have never been one to eat bread and butter.  Occasionally, at an Italian restaurant I might indulge in some flavored dipping oil on bread but here, it is just the bread, plain and simple and delicious; just my style. But, bread is my favorite accompaniment for cheese.  In a country where the cheese is, in my humble opinion a close second to wine which is a close second to the bread, the bread provides balance and tempers the cheeses.  Perhaps I will learn to be more French when eating the cheese course, using a knife and fork and spoon, but with such great bread, I may be a bad student.

I equated bread to breathing.  Well bread is definitely an activity here.  You start your day going to the neighborhood boulangerie for your LOAVES of bread for the day, a few croissants for breakfast and perhaps a pain du chocolate for afternoon tea or dessert.  If your bread baker is also a pastry chef, then the possibilities are wondrous. In the few weeks we've been here, we have found a favorite boulangerie...I hesistate to divulge the precious information.  Perhaps I'll share in the coming weeks or months...right now it is my little secret.  But fear not, there are boulangeries and patisseries everywhere in Paris. Every neighborhood has several...but get there early for the bread goes quick!

I find it a bit ironic that the word for bread in French is pain. Giving it some additional thought though, it makes sense; not only in the Latin panis sort of way, but in the agony and ecstasy sort of way.  Have you every tried something so good it almost hurt?  Or perhaps the guilt from the indulgence twinges your reason (all those carbs!)   Bread is life here.  You make time for it.  You desire it.  It frustrates you because you cannot recreate it unless your family has passed down the secret recipe from generation to generation... the agony ...and then their is the smell, the texture, the taste, the moments with friends lingering over the bread basket, savoring some bread and cheese and wine...the ecstasy.

With all this wonderful bread, thank goodness we opted not to have a car in Paris.  Bread fuels our day.  We walk everywhere, starting with the boulangerie in the morning.