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Subscribe to RSSTraditional, fresh-baked croissants are in danger of dying out in France, according to a report.
Philippe Godard, of the French bakery and patisserie business federation, said Wednesday that one in two viennoiseries (croissants and other baked goods) “in our ‘traditional’ bakeries is now industrial,” meaning they are prepared in factories, frozen and then heated up for sale rather than cooked in the store, The Telegraph newspaper reported.
Purists are outraged. Pierre Couderc, a baker in Paris, put a sign in his window reading, “All our products are prepared on site. They have not been chosen from a catalogue and delivered frozen by the industry.”
'Not rubbery'
Its chief croissant-maker, Eddy Le Tourrier, told France Info radio that their croissants were “not rubbery, nor are they full of air. They are consistent and at the same time light, unctuous and crispy when they come out of the oven.”
However, other bakers complain they are unable to compete with the low-cost, mass-produced variety.
The Telegraph reported that the bakers’ federation of the Loir-et-Cher area of France was to launch a new “home-made viennoiseries” label on Monday for local bakers to put in the window.
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I can't believe this is happening. Next thing you know they'll invent an artifical substitute for fois gras and Chateau Haut Brion will come in a cardboard box!
This French guy should come to the US. Almost everything we eat here is made in a factory.
Leave it to the Frogs. Not a pot to-piss-in but harping about their croissants.
Interesting - at least Frenchmen are keeping the industry in France, rather than China. I would say, having had the mass produced kind, fresh are better, but highly labor intensive. The purists will have to pay more. And Jack: it's - chateaubriand - Do you actuall know what that is? As for the fois gras, there's a movement a foot to ban it, on the notion that the geese are being tortured. It's banned here in CA, shame really, it's very good, fatty, but good and the braunschweiger substitute is not the same.
Actually Kate, it's you who are mistaken. "Chateau Haut Brion" is a red wine from the Bordeaux region, "Chateaubriand" is a cut of beef. Now you "actuall" know what that is.
Sorry Kate, Jack and Derek are right. Chateau Haut-Brion (with a hyphen to be exact) is one of the most famous, expansive and highly rated wines (available in both red and white, none of which pairs well with fois gras) in the Bordeaux region. It comes from the area known as "Graves" (which designates a variety of pebbles) on the left bank of the Garonne river, just south of the city of Bordeaux. It is the only "premier grand cru classe" of the original 1855 classification not to come from the Haut-Medoc region. I never had a chance to taste any though. :(
What is best than "un croissant, avec du fois gras, Champagne et caviar" ! Much better than american burger and fries and soda!!! but occasionally of course and here in the US, unfortunately, no fois gras anywhere except by online purchase.
A votre sante et Vive La France!!
There are many things much better than American burger and fries (with or without the soda). Purchasing online is the only way that any expats or long stay visitors can get quality chocolate, tea, beer and rum. America can't produce any of that worth a damn; and if the biscuits aren't imported you're having a little flour with your sugar. When I first arrived here I found the strangest food I'd ever seen: they were called "English muffins" though they're actually neither!
Damn I missed my Lion bars! But I found a cache recently online, so I'm chuffed to be getting them. A local store is actually carrying Strongbow and a specialty shop locally carries St Peters porter and Tadcasters ales, though not all of them. I don't get the big deal over croissants but that's probably because I don't normally eat them. Is that anything like trying to replace a fifth of 12-year-old Appleton's with a fifth of 'battery acid' Cruson?
English Cuisine. An oxymoron if ever there was one. Your beer is watery cat pee, or overly sweet and under hopped boredom in a bottle. Guiness is the only saving grace. The only British beers worth a tinker's dam are beers such as the barley wines from J. W. Lee's or Thomas Hardy. Appleton's is sh|te compared with Ron Zacapa Centenario or Zaya, not to mention Pyrat XO. Croissants should be made fresh and on site, or they should go into the dumpster.
I was in Paris last week for business, and in fact noticed a wide variation in the quality of the croissants I had from different places. There's something to be said for handmade quality still having a place in the market alongside mass-produced stuff. Oddly, one of the worst croissants I had was on the Air France flight - almost like a piece of cardboard.
You didn't notice that everything on Air Chance seems like a piece of cardboard - from the flight attendants to the wings on the plane? Nothing odd about it.
What next? Wine in a box?
Just give me a good old American Stake & Eggs please .
Just look at what all that fancy food and drink did to the French people. It turned them into Pansies.
They'll start making escargot with margarine next.
Of course quality suffers when you go to this mass-production, central comissary model. Does anyone remember how good Dunkin' Donuts used to be when they actually made them on-site, "fresh every four hours"?
I'm shocked that the French are willing to put up with this, though.
Time to storm the Bastille again!