A friend, just back from Kazakstan, described his experience of drinking kumis or fermented mare’s milk. “At first,” he said, “it tastes like thin yogurt. Then you get this alcoholic rush – and a powerful after-taste of horse-shit.”
A whiff of equine excrement accompanied the announcement this week that the loaf of French bread known as the baguette has joined those items listed by UNESCO as part of the world’s Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The annual additions to this list constitute one of the more eccentric activities of the UN. Committed to consensus and inclusion, it’s never comfortable singling out any nation, so compromise too often rules its definition of cultural significance, dictating some puzzling selections.
Many inclusions, such as the baguette, are simple foodstuffs: Moroccan couscous; Armenian lavash flatbread; kimchi, the pickled and spiced cabbage of Korea. Others reflect a wider view, recognizing, for example, an entire culinary tradition - Mediterranean, Mexican, French: not simply the food but the act of gathering around a table for an act of cultural affirmation.
All these I can understand. I’m less certain, however, about others. If neither the New Orleans Mardi Gras nor the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge are included, why should we celebrate the custom of shrimp fishing on horseback in the Flanders town of Oostduinkerke, or Sanké mon, a collective fishing rite of the Ségou region of Mali?
Shrimp fishing on horseback at Oostduinkerke
Not to say that both wouldn’t deserve a visit, the Sanké Mon in particular. Apparently “the rite begins with the sacrifice of roosters, goats and offerings made by village residents to the water spirits of the Sanké pond. The collective fishing then takes place over fifteen hours. It is immediately followed by a masked dance on the public square.” Sadly, our local boulangerie can’t really compete with such spectacle.
UNESCO may also have had doubts, since, before choosing the baguette, two other features of French culture were considered . One was the grey zinc roofs that characterise the Parisian skyline, the other the French tradition of wine festivals – some of which can, it’s true, inspire behaviour comparable to the Sanké mon.
The roofs of Paris.
It really came down, however, to statistics. Although France consumes more than six billion baguettes annually, traditional bakeries have been closing at the rate of 400 a year, shrinking from 55,000 in 1970 to 35,000 today.
Partly it’s the cost of staff. Rules about what constitutes a true baguette are strict, and make production labour-intensive. It must contain only wheat flour, water, yeast and salt, and be baked in a steam oven. Dough cannot be prepared ahead of time and frozen, a requirement that conflicts with modern working methods. (As one of its first reforms, next to maternity leave and secular schools, the Commune in 1871 abolished the requirement that bakers start work at midnight to ensure fresh bread and croissants for the bourgeois breakfast.)
My father was a baker. He rose at 4.30 all his working life, getting to the bakehouse at dawn to knead the dough for the dome-topped farmhouse loaves his customers preferred. Baguettes were unknown, but occasionally he baked a few, for fun. He called them “husband-beaters,” harking back to their appearance in the Guignol, ancestor of Punch and Judy, where Judy used one to belabour Punch.
Not that the French aren’t still eating bread; it just isn’t always a baguette. After a century of scorning American-style square white sliced bread, plastic-wrapped packs now feature on most supermarket shelves, next to the robust country breads pioneered by Lionel Poilâne in the nineteen-thirties and now manufactured by his daughter Appollonia. That a slice of Poilâne’s trademark loaf, the flattened cannonball of wholemeal sourdough known as a boule or miche, makes the perfect base for grilled cheese or a slice of pate, ensures that it’s a favourite lunch choice in every cafe, while most supermarkets feature the line of pre-sliced breads, often with added walnuts or raisins, marketed by breakaway Poilâne brother Max.
Poilâne’s trademark miche.
The baguette itself has also diversified. The standard baguette - which means “stick”- is, technically, the 400g flute. After that comes the thinner 125g ficelle or string , but the market is dominated by the so-called tradition, distinctively pointed at both ends, with a chewier crust and more dense crumb. To bite down on one, spread with salted butter and filled with ham and cheese, remains one of the great culinary sensations.
Would it taste better if we sacrificed a goat or two? Could be worth trying.