Despite a passion for haute cuisine that has earned France a global reputation as a nation of deservedly-snotty gourmets, the staple food of the French diet is white bread.
Bread is a fact of life. It is a palate for jam, butter, and cheese. It is a sponge for the sauces and juices that remain on a finished plate. French don’t even consider bread to be a food, same as how many people wouldn’t consider water to be a beverage. Foie gras terrine with mushrooms soaked in white wine is food. A lush plate of coq au vin is food. River fish with saffron and herbs de provence is food. Of course, given the paltry portion sizes of French courses, bread bumps the caloric value of meals to “barely sufficient.”
Bread to the French is what pasta and polenta is to Italians… corn is to South Americans… fufu and cassava is to Africans… beets and millet are to Russians… beer and potatoes are to Germans… rice and noodles are to East Asians… donuts and muffins are to Americans. But unlike many staple foods, bread is a high-maintenance daily habit, especially French bread, which with no added fat can morph from fresh-baked heaven to a dried out husk in less than a day. Hence, the procurement of fresh bread is a omnipresent preoccupation.
Mr. Pinault has assimulated to American life to the point where he is happiest when he is watching American football and drinking American beer with his beastly American girlfriend, but he’ll never be able to relax in his own home unless there’s fresh bread in the kitchen. I discovered this pretty quickly back in our dating days, when I poked around his kitchen and found the stale remains of about a half-dozen baguettes. It was a disturbing discovery. “Why’d you buy more bread when there’s plenty?” I asked, pointing at the pile of baguette ends. Of course, it only took one meal of me stubbornly wrestling with a nub of stale bread while watching Mr. Pinault relish his fresh crusty doughy chewy baguette to rid me of the shame of throwing away stale bread.
Two small bread stories:
1. Once in a while, I’ll bake my own bread, an effort that Mr. Pinault supports with an open mouth. His only critique: “Needs more salt.” Salt seemed to me a curious consideration for bread. I then read a rather gruesome account of how baguettes were made in centuries past, usually by a much-beleagured baker’s assistant who awoke at 3am to knead fermenting dough in a heated cellar. The baker’s sweat would mix into the dough, adding a certain je ne sais quoi to the bread that apparently became a defining feature of the salty baguette. Maybe I’ll try it some day.
2. One night, Mr. Pinault came in the kitchen to peek in the pots and found me crying as I chopped white onions for a stew. He offered a cure for onion-induced tears that he learned from his grandmother: Hold a piece of bread in your mouth as you chop. “That’s ridiculous. I never heard of that before,” I said, sniffling. He ripped off a piece of baguette and kissed my cheek as he stuffed it in my mouth. “Bread is the answer to everything,” he said. And indeed, the bread relieved my eyes, gladdened my mouth, and revived my heart.
