French Bread Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

French Bread - Research Paper Example It consists of water, yeast salt and wheat flour. These are the ingredients that people in France, and indeed all over the world, have been suing to make bread for millennia. These are the same ingredients that Arabs use to make flat bread, Chinese use to make boiled dumplings and Italians use to make raised pie dough. So it is clearly not the ingredients that make a loaf that is recognizable as French bread. So when did these simple ingredients become identifiable as making a loaf that is distinguished as â€Å"French†. One of the things that makes French bread â€Å"French† is the distinctive shape. The baguette is a long thin loaf. It is usually is five inches in diameter and is approximately three feet long. Size does vary, but in general, but French bread loaves are in the long, thin baguette shape. This shape has been around since at least the mid-18th century in Paris. Personal diaries and published works detailing travels through Europe make mention of seeing servants walking through the streets of Paris in the early morning carrying long loaves of bread that resembled crowbars (Elson, 1896). So the baguette shape was popular long before the invention of modern machines that were used to knead, cut and shape dough. One theory that points to today’s popularity of the baguette shape points to a law that was passed in the early 20th century (Asaff, 2006). Since the revolution, France has tried to ensure that workers are treated fairly and that the state or their employers do not exploit their labor. As a result, France has some of the most labor friendly laws in the world. They enjoy a short workweek as mandated by law and overtime beyond a certain point is prohibited. One of these laws that was passed prohibited workers in the bread making industry from working between the hours of 10:00 PM and 4:00 AM. This made the baking of normal loaves of bread very difficult. The dough would not have enough time for the processes of