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The Perfect French Baguette

bbc.com

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Re: The Perfect French Baguette

#31

Post by Mathnerd314 »

This article reads like the quotes in https://www.wired.com/1995/02/chess/ about how computers would never beat people at chess. Winning at chess required "fantasy" and "creativity" and here baking requires "passion" and "magic".

https://www.cnet.com/news/bread-making-robot-makes-everyone-... is a fully-automated bakery, although it doesn't produce baguettes, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zfb456YrsM is half-automated from dough to finish; maybe we'll get a IBM Watson-style "robot bread" entry in the competition sometime.

Re: The Perfect French Baguette

#33

Post by Kuinox »

Ecco wrote: post #19
nostalgk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the French bakeries I went to actually had a huge amount of fresh baguettes, absolutely delicious and 35 cents each. Maybe they were bad compared to gourmet baguettes, of course, but they were great compared to the American variants

Average baguette price in France is 88 cents. Not sure you could find a 35c one anywhere. Unless it was it really long while ago :-)

They often sell low quality baguette along with the high priced one.

Re: The Perfect French Baguette

#34

Post by analog31 »

mumblemumble wrote: post #28
rdtwo wrote: post #15

And here I was hoping for a good repeatable solid recipe

I put a lot of time into perfecting my baguettes. Well, not perfecting, but getting them to the point where they don't make me anxious. I don't think reliably good baguette is as simple as a recipe. The recipe conveys very little of what goes into it. It takes a lot of practice to get down all the manual techniques. Just learning how to knead the bread properly is an art in and of itself, and, even if you use a mixer…

Quite agreed. My family bakes all of our own bread. In fact, the kids don't even like store-bought bread unless it comes from some fancy bakery. One of them has gotten into baking.

In addition to what you say, my advice is: Don't be afraid of it, just give it a try with realistic expectations. Start with something easy. Rolls and breadsticks are quite forgiving, if for no other reason than that they're usually gone before anybody can complain. ;-) Virtually any "failure" of bread can be redeemed by making toast, french toast, croutons, dipping in olive oil, etc. White is easier than grains, but you can work more grains in as you gain confidence.

Nice shapely loaves that I can make into sandwiches are the pinnacle for me, because I love my sandwiches.

When considering recipes, look at the timing of the steps. A recipe that fits with your schedule is more likely to be successful in the long run.

Re: The Perfect French Baguette

#35

Post by mumblemumble »

analog31 wrote: post #34
mumblemumble wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I put a lot of time into perfecting my baguettes. Well, not perfecting, but getting them to the point where they don't make me anxious. I don't think reliably good baguette is as simple as a recipe. The recipe conveys very little of what goes into it. It takes a lot of practice to get down all the manual techniques. Just learning how to knead the bread properly is an art in and of itself, and, even if you use a mixer…

Quite agreed. My family bakes all of our own bread. In fact, the kids don't even like store-bought bread unless it comes from some fancy bakery. One of them has gotten into baking. In addition to what you say, my advice is: Don't be afraid of it, just give it a try with realistic expectations. Start with something easy. Rolls and breadsticks are quite forgiving, if for no other reason than that they're usually gone b…

Speaking of schedule, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is one that worked well for us when we were busy. It's not the best bread in the world, but, considering the amount of effort that goes into it, the technique feels like cheating.

Re: The Perfect French Baguette

#36

Post by OJFord »

_eLRIC wrote: post #17
marmaduke wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baker is the English word. I don't think the taste of mass produced baguettes is so bad as the lack of texture. And they are usually over cooked

A Baker makes bread but a boulanger is required to make a baguette ! I always find industrial baguettes under cooked, but you raise an important point : it all come back to personnal preferences and that's for me the special thing about the baguette, so few ingredients and so many variations in taste ...

IMO in supermarkets in the UK they're both under and over cooked - too consistent in colour and texture throughout.

In France, even in les supermarchés you get a nice crisp exterior and soft fluffy inside.

Re: The Perfect French Baguette

#37

Post by ttul »

tasogare wrote: post #32

Some Japanese are also really good at the craft: https://www.google.fr/amp/s/www.lexpress.fr/styles/saveurs/l...

The Japanese always manage to excel at importing delicacies and perfecting them. Take for example Japanese whiskey, which is renowned and considered by some to be superior to the Scottish variety.

Re: The Perfect French Baguette

#38

Post by paulific »

Mathnerd314 wrote: post #31

This article reads like the quotes in https://www.wired.com/1995/02/chess/ about how computers would never beat people at chess. Winning at chess required "fantasy" and "creativity" and here baking requires "passion" and "magic". https://www.cnet.com/news/bread-making-robot-makes-everyone-... is a fully-automated bakery, although it doesn't produce baguettes, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zfb456YrsM is half-au…

The quotes in the Wired article are all kind of the opposite though. For example:

"Today, 99.9 percent of humanity cannot beat the best commercial software at blitz chess. Within the decade, it's likely the machine on your desk will know how to play chess better than any human has played the game since its invention in AD 600."

I suppose that really just makes your point though. Even in 1995 we were only really trying to delay the inevitable. If playing chess is ultimately a mechanical process and baking bread is ultimately a mechanical process, then ultimately we should be make able to make a machine that does it better than we can.

Re: The Perfect French Baguette

#39

Post by tomlockwood »

> In addition to winning this illustrious competition, Bouattour and M’Seddi have a few other things in common. Both forewent the traditional trade school that many aspiring French bakers enter at age 16. Both have been professional bakers for less than a decade (as has this year’s winner, former engineer Fabrice Leroy). And both are first-generation Frenchmen with what Bouattour euphemistically dubs ‘origins’: family backgrounds from elsewhere – or in their cases, Tunisia.

> “I stopped thinking of myself as a foreigner a long time ago, but my origins make me the person I am today,” he said. “We all start with the same tools, the same teachers, but some people are going to understand things differently. That has nothing to do with origins; that’s just talent.”

For all the rhetoric on the right about how people from other cultures are not "suitable" for "western" countries - some of the proudest citizens and torch-carriers for tradition, are foreigners.

It also absolutely works both ways - Australia was virulently anti Italian and Greek in the 50s and 60s. Now we almost couldn't imagine brunch without espresso and feta on our smashed avocado. The diversity made us better.

Re: The Perfect French Baguette

#40

Post by joshuak »

paulific wrote: post #38
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #31

This article reads like the quotes in https://www.wired.com/1995/02/chess/ about how computers would never beat people at chess. Winning at chess required "fantasy" and "creativity" and here baking requires "passion" and "magic". https://www.cnet.com/news/bread-making-robot-makes-everyone-... is a fully-automated bakery, although it doesn't produce baguettes, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zfb456YrsM is half-au…

The quotes in the Wired article are all kind of the opposite though. For example: "Today, 99.9 percent of humanity cannot beat the best commercial software at blitz chess. Within the decade, it's likely the machine on your desk will know how to play chess better than any human has played the game since its invention in AD 600." I suppose that really just makes your point though. Even in 1995 we were only really tryin…

> Even in 1995 we were only really trying to delay the inevitable.

Do people do this? Are there really people out there that are resistant to believing that machines can or eventually will outperform humans in any discrete task? I can see a reasonable doubt about general intelligence, but other than that surely every mechanical advance since the plow paints a clear trajectory.

These kinds of articles always strike me as absurdist handwringing. I suspect that it's just fear mongering for views. Is anyone here[0] actually in doubt about machines performing better than humans? I mean despite all of recorded history.

[0]I mean you, the reader yourself. Not speculation of other people's doubt, because I'm not sure these people exist.

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