“<i>Good Bread Is Back</i> will become the canonical book on 20th century French baking, not only in English but in French too.”

The Fresh Loaf

“[F]or anyone with a broad interest in bread, the book is an excellent and comprehensive look at the product and how it has shaped, and been shaped by, French society.”

Bakers Journal

“[Kaplan is] not just the leading authority on French bread but the conscience of French baking—a conscience that does not hesitate to tug. . . . <i>Good Bread is Back</i> [is] a punchy, compendious account of how French baking returned to its artisanal roots and sparked a revival in quality crusts.”

- Michael Steinberger, Financial Times

Se alle

“This is very much a bread nerd's book. . . . It is a fascinating story, and Kaplan is the person to tell it.”

- David Auerbach, Independent Weekly

“A good baguette is as integral a part of French cultural heritage as Paris and Lacan, and this beautiful book forms a fitting tribute, researched, written and illustrated with finesse.”

French Book News

“Professor Kaplan’s new book is a tasty meditation on the many pleasures of good bread, wrapped in an object lesson on the evolution of artisanal production. Many readers who do not share the author’s passion for the technical aspects of breadmaking will nonetheless be impressed by it. And anyone who has ever stood in a French bakery savoring the scent and admiring the array of delectable brown loaves will be heartened by his optimistic conclusion that good bread will always drive out bad. It is, as Kaplan might say, a delicious book with a beautifully gilded crust and a pearly, chewy crumb.”

- Steve Zdatny H-France, H-Net Reviews

“Students of French history and food will find [<i>Good Bread is Back</i>] completely absorbing and it should be required reading for any professional.”

Library Journal

“Throughout this work, Kaplan powerfully demonstrates the symbolic charge of bread as it is ‘’deeply bound up with the basic values of sociability and well-being, with sacred and secular in communion’ (304). . . . Kaplan reminds us through bread, that bread sums up the human experience.”

- Samuel Snyder, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics

"[A] book every serious American bread enthusiast ought to read. . . . A good storyteller, Kaplan describes his large cast of characters in sharp detail, with numerous protagonists and antagonists, and does a fine job of capturing the center of good in each of them."

- Peter Reinhart, Gastronomica

"A magnificent combination of polemic and scholarship, it asks how the superlative French bread of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries gave way to the disappointing industrial loaves of the 1960s onwards; and how these in turn, have been happily supplanted by a new generation of artisananal baguettes, batards and boules."

- Bee Wilson, TLS

In Good Bread Is Back, historian and leading French bread expert Steven Laurence Kaplan takes readers into aromatic Parisian bakeries as he explains how good bread began to reappear in France in the 1990s, following almost a century of decline in quality. Kaplan describes how, while bread comprised the bulk of the French diet during the eighteenth century, by the twentieth, per capita consumption had dropped off precipitously. This was largely due to social and economic modernization and the availability of a wider choice of foods. But part of the problem was that the bread did not taste good. In a culture in which bread is sacrosanct, bad bread was more than a gastronomical disappointment; it was a threat to France's sense of itself. By the mid-1990s bakers rallied, and bread officially designated as "bread of the French tradition" was in demand throughout Paris. Kaplan meticulously describes good bread's ideal crust and crumb (interior), mouth feel, aroma, and taste. He discusses the breadmaking process in extraordinary detail, from the ingredients to the kneading, shaping, and baking, and even the sound bread should make when it comes out of the oven. Kaplan does more than tell the story of the revival of good bread in France. He makes the reader see, smell, taste, feel, and even hear why it is so very wonderful that good bread is back.
Les mer
Leading French bread expert Steven Laurence Kaplan narrates the decline and rise of the French artisanal breadmaking tradition, explaining in detail the breadmaking process and the ideal characteristics of good bread.
Les mer
Introduction 1 1. Good Bread: Practices and Discourses 13 2. Bread: The Double Crisis 63 3. White Bread: A Western Story 100 4. The Enemy 122 5. Bakeries and the State 162 6. Bound to Quarrel, Condemned to Get Along: Millers and Bakers 212 7. Rue Monge Rivals and Other Mavericks 258 Conclusion 304 Acknowledgments 325 Notes 327
Les mer
“Good Bread Is Back is a fascinating book that sums up the history of bread baking in France over the past several centuries. The author does it lovingly in a style that will move you to repair to your kitchen and oven to make bread that ‘sings’ as the golden yellow crust crackles as it cools, and a bite of it does not melt in the mouth right away but reveals the force of its taste only gradually as you chew. It is a welcome addition to the libraries of those seriously into breadmaking who wish a deeper understanding of the why and wherefore of their own French bread recipes.”
Les mer
In the last two decades the French have reclaimed bread-making as a symbol of French identity and culture; Kaplan offers a synthesis of the history, the taste, the production techniques, and the legend of modern bread.
Les mer

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780822338338
Publisert
2006-12-20
Utgiver
Vendor
Duke University Press
Vekt
730 gr
Aldersnivå
01, P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet

Oversetter

Om bidragsyterne

Steven Laurence Kaplan is the Goldwin Smith Professor of European History at Cornell University. He is the author of The Bakers of Paris and the Bread Question, 1770-1775, also published by Duke University Press.