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CLASSIC: Baguettes and Vacation: France versus Bakers · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, special announcement this week, folks. We are taking a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: little holiday and we are going to day.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: We're gonna celebrate.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: We're gonna do a little classic episode here. We just
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: had such a good time.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: With us if we took a holiday. Uh yeah, something someerie. Yeah.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: This episays about French.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Bread, Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio Bonjou. Welcome
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to the show. My name is Ben and I just
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: might be addicted to carbs.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Jamappelle Noel and I've been trying to go a little
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: lighter on the carbs lately, but I am a big
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  Speaker 2: fan of a good baguet. Yes, agreed.
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  Speaker 1: And here in the US we have a little bit
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: more leeway with the definition of what a baguet is.
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  Speaker 1: And despite how important carbs might be to knowl to
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  Speaker 1: myself and to our super producer Casey Pegram, in France,
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  Speaker 1: it turns out they're much more important.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Crucial, big time. That's why for two centuries there was
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: a law on the books in Paris that basically established
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: a continuous, free flowing access to bread. And this was
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  Speaker 2: most important during the summer months when a lot of
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  Speaker 2: Parisians take vacations and it's a big deal. Paris can
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: feel like a ghost town during July and August. And
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  Speaker 2: this law was established because the last time that France
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  Speaker 2: ran out of bread, well you know there there were
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: riots in the streets and people got decapitated and hanged.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, there were rains of terrors that were related in
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  Speaker 1: a way to bread. And for anyone who's interested in
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the role that food can play in social revolution, we
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: promise you it's a real thing. You're not crazy. Butter
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: had a role to play in an earlier episode.
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  Speaker 2: It's true, and bread's always been a pretty important staple
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  Speaker 2: of the French diet. In fact, according to the Smithsonian,
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  Speaker 2: the average worker during the eighteenth century spent half, that is,
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  Speaker 2: half of their wages on bread because not only was
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  Speaker 2: it delicious and you know something you could put a
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  Speaker 2: nice piece of brion, I mean, it was how they
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  Speaker 2: got their sustenance more than anything else.
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  Speaker 1: Right, It's true. You know, we have to consider in
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: ages past people didn't often have the same concept toward
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: food or toward neutral trition that you would find to
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: be more common today. For example, a lot of times
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  Speaker 1: today people eat for pleasure rather than mandatory survival. And
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  Speaker 1: if bread wasn't available for a lot of people, it
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  Speaker 1: could mean that they might starve. This was so important
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  Speaker 1: that in Napoleonic times police were even in charge of
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  Speaker 1: grain inspection and quality controls, sort of an FDA, but
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  Speaker 1: oriented entirely toward bread, and when there was a wheat shortage,
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  Speaker 1: things went crazy very quickly.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true. Like you know how in the United
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: States we refer to the president as the commander in
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  Speaker 2: chief because he's in charge of the military for all
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: intents and purposes. Well, in France during this time, the
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  Speaker 2: king was referred to as Boulangers du roem or prime
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  Speaker 2: baker of the Kingdom. That was kind of a pretty
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  Speaker 2: serious job, and in fact, there were these Napoleonic codes
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  Speaker 2: that were established for everything from how to proof the
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  Speaker 2: doe to make the bread, to the ratio of the ingredients.
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  Speaker 2: This is all very, very very important, and it not
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  Speaker 2: only was important because of it its place as a
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  Speaker 2: staple food, but it was a cultural thing as well,
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  Speaker 2: and they took their bread making very very seriously.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, it is not an exaggeration to say that
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  Speaker 1: all hell broke loose if something went wrong with the
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  Speaker 1: bread supply. In seventeen seventy five, there was a wheat
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  Speaker 1: shortage and grain prices skyrocketed, and to make things more complicated,
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  Speaker 1: the new king at the time, Louis the sixteenth, decided
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  Speaker 1: to allow a free market of grain within the country,
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  Speaker 1: and this led to speculation flower merchants, who were already
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  Speaker 1: kind of a distrusted segment of society along with bakers,
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  Speaker 1: held back grain supplies.
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  Speaker 2: I read somewhere that certain flower merchants, to kind of
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  Speaker 2: control prices, would cut their flour with everything from like
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  Speaker 2: chalk to even bone meal sawdust as well.
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  Speaker 1: Right, And this sounds, maybe on the offset, a bit silly, right,
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it sounds like too much of a nanny state
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  Speaker 1: to have laws controlling bread, But it is incredibly important.
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  Speaker 1: There hadn't been a famine in France for decades before
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  Speaker 1: this occurred, but all of a sudden, the poorest people
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  Speaker 1: in the country were unable to buy flour for bread,
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  Speaker 1: and they rioted.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this, what was referred to as the Flower War,
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  Speaker 2: is considered by most historians as being the precursor to
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  Speaker 2: the French Revolution that took place fourteen years later. And actually,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: you know what I think now, it'd be a good
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: time to introduce a new segment. We've been kicking around.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: You see, our super producer, Casey Pegram is also our
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  Speaker 2: resident Franco file and so we are going to have
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  Speaker 2: a segment with Casey that I would affectionately like to
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: refer to as Casey on the Case or thus baked Casey.
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  Speaker 2: We're still kicking it around. Casey Pegrim, Welcome to this show,
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  Speaker 2: my friend.
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  Speaker 3: Hello, thanks guys.
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  Speaker 2: So Casey, we sort of bury the lead. Just to
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: touch in this story, we talked a little bit about
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: how these days during the summer months, Paris kind of
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: clears out a little bit. And you go to Paris
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: about once a year, would you say that's pretty accurate.
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they call le graand Viscantes the big vacation.
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  Speaker 3: And yeah, Paris in July and August gets extremely hot.
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  Speaker 3: Many many places are not air conditioned. Climatize and that's
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  Speaker 3: actually a point of advertisement. If like a movie theater
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  Speaker 3: has air conditioning, they will put that like saw clematize
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  Speaker 3: and it's sort of like even if you don't care
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  Speaker 3: what the movie is, just go in there and chill
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  Speaker 3: out for a couple hours. So yeah, Paris basically empties
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  Speaker 3: out and just becomes like the domain of tourists for
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  Speaker 3: a couple months.
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  Speaker 1: And when we were researching this episode off air, we
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  Speaker 1: really wanted to lean on your abilities as a Francophone
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  Speaker 1: to tell us a little bit about the laws that
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: we're kicking around. That it is true, right, Nola, and
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  Speaker 1: I haven't been just making stuff up for the past
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  Speaker 1: few minutes.
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  Speaker 3: No, it's real. So you guys had talked about the
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  Speaker 3: Flower War, correct, And that's kind of the precursor to
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  Speaker 3: this event that happens in October of seventeen eighty nine,
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  Speaker 3: where this poor, poor baker, Denise Francois, who was confronted
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  Speaker 3: by an angry mob that basically thought he was hoarding bread,
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  Speaker 3: possibly just to drive the price up or potentially to
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  Speaker 3: keep it on reserve for royalty and military people things
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  Speaker 3: like that.
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  Speaker 2: This was a big deal, especially consider what had happened
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  Speaker 2: during the Flower War, where they thought the king was
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  Speaker 2: hoarding the flower so that the people who relied on
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  Speaker 2: it for their daily sustenance could not get what they
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  Speaker 2: needed to make their daily brand right.
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  Speaker 3: So this is kind of just a continuation of those tensions,
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  Speaker 3: and as we see an angry crowd confronted this baker
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  Speaker 3: and his bakery demanded that he come out, brought him
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  Speaker 3: to what was then called a Place de Greve, which
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  Speaker 3: today in modern times is known as Lotel de Ville.
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  Speaker 3: It's the city hall. Essentially, if you've ever been to Paris,
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  Speaker 3: you've probably walked by this place. It's kind of a landmark.
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  Speaker 3: It's very central, it's right by the seind and it's
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  Speaker 3: a cool building. But they brought him to this public
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  Speaker 3: square basically summarily executed him. They hung him and they
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  Speaker 3: decapitated him, and they paraded his head on a pike
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  Speaker 3: around town. They brought it to other bakers to kind
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  Speaker 3: of intimidate them.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 3: Apparently they waited on a scale at one point at
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  Speaker 3: one of the bakeryes and.
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  Speaker 2: Like a baker's scale.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Wow. Why the baker though, that seems like such misplaced anger.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, this need is trying to like feed his family.
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  Speaker 2: Was he considered part of the aristocracy. Was he looked
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  Speaker 2: at as being an enemy of the people of peasants?
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  Speaker 1: Well, he would have in relatively middle class and controlling
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  Speaker 1: access to a resource that everyone needs. What's interesting to me, too,
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  Speaker 1: is that we don't have any solid proof for whether
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  Speaker 1: he was actually doing something wrong.
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  Speaker 3: Most of what I read said that in retrospect, this
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  Speaker 3: was a totally innocent guy that just got caught up
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  Speaker 3: in like an angry mob that was looking for somebody
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  Speaker 3: to blame for the problems that were going on. So
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  Speaker 3: what happened next, Well, so after this guy was killed,
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  Speaker 3: the National Assembly meets and they basically decide that they're
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: going to declare martial law and that they are going
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  Speaker 3: to ban all public gatherings, any kind of public protests.
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  Speaker 3: There will be a red flag that signals the presence
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  Speaker 3: of martial law. So you'd be given three chances to disperse.
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  Speaker 3: You could take from your group, you could select six
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  Speaker 3: people to kind of represent your grievances and whatever solution
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  Speaker 3: you're kind of angling for. Everybody else is supposed to
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  Speaker 3: disperse peacefully. There'd be a second warning and a third warning.
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  Speaker 3: If after that third warning you're still there, you're still
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  Speaker 3: protesting whatever, they are authorized to use armed force against
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  Speaker 3: you and basically kill an entire crowd if they decide
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  Speaker 3: to stick around.
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  Speaker 2: So this is in the thick of the French Revolution, right,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, this is like.
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  Speaker 3: This is coming a couple weeks after the March on Versailles, Yes,
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  Speaker 3: which is what brought the king back to Paris and
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  Speaker 3: kind of returned rule of the country to Paris where
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  Speaker 3: it had been displaced to Versailles.
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  Speaker 2: Let me meet cake, right, right, So that was even
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  Speaker 2: that catchphrase is tied to this whole idea of bread
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  Speaker 2: being such a crucial component of everyday life, and the
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  Speaker 2: fact that Marie Antoinette was so clueless and insulated that
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  Speaker 2: she would just say, oh, it's fine, they can eat cake,
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  Speaker 2: right because they have that surely, right.
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  Speaker 3: Isn't that the joke kind of a little bit out
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  Speaker 3: of touch? Yeah, very much.
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  Speaker 1: And there's an interesting tale within that within that too
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  Speaker 1: about the folklore versus the fact of that. But you're
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  Speaker 1: absolutely right that was allegedly, or according to the legend,
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  Speaker 1: in response to them saying, you know, the people have
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  Speaker 1: no bread.
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  Speaker 2: No, but I saw it in a film, so okay,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: it was a Sophia Coppola film, so death, that's definitely
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  Speaker 2: exactly how it went down. S Is she the one
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: who did Dracula? She was in Godfather three? Okay, right,
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  Speaker 2: remember it's on the stairs.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: No, no spoilers, right right, Godfathers take Manhattan, right.
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  Speaker 2: That's the one. But no this is really just because
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  Speaker 2: then this is ultimately correct me if I'm wrong, casey,
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  Speaker 2: because you are in fact on the case. This is
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  Speaker 2: what led to this decree in seventeen ninety from Louis
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  Speaker 2: the sixteenth that put this system in place, because okay,
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  Speaker 2: so they weathered the grain shortage, they got through that,
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  Speaker 2: but now it was like, what happens if the bakery's.
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  Speaker 1: Close if everybody takes the grand vacation at the same time.
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  Speaker 2: You did say, though, that didn't really become a cultural
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  Speaker 2: thing until a little bit more in the twenty first century,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: the idea of that particular time for a vacation.
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  Speaker 3: But even still right, so the seventeen eighty nine or
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  Speaker 3: seventeen ninety ruling has to do with basically empowering authorities
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  Speaker 3: to make sure that bread stays in regular supply so
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  Speaker 3: that people don't have a reason to riot. When it
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  Speaker 3: gets into the twentieth century and you start getting things
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  Speaker 3: like guaranteed vacation time for workers, and this kind of
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  Speaker 3: culminates in the cultural tradition of the Grand vascants, where
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  Speaker 3: people take as much as like six weeks off consecutive
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  Speaker 3: during the summer. Everybody leaves Paris and goes to like
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  Speaker 3: the coast of France. Then it became an issue because
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  Speaker 3: if everybody left at the same time, if everybody decides
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  Speaker 3: to take off July, you're probably not going to be
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  Speaker 3: able to get like a decent big at in Paris
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  Speaker 3: for that month. And that's you know, they view that
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  Speaker 3: as a pretty serious problem.
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  Speaker 1: So what happens to the consumers? Whatever will we do right?
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  Speaker 3: Exactly? So it was then decided that these Boulanges bakers
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: would have to coordinate with their local authorities when they
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  Speaker 3: wanted to take time off, and you know, it would
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  Speaker 3: have to coordinate from all the other bakeries in the area,
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  Speaker 3: such that you'd never found like a neighborhood that just
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  Speaker 3: didn't have a bakery open. So someone have to go
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: in July, someone have to go in August.
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  Speaker 1: And it was half and half correct.
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  Speaker 3: Right, And it almost became like the these two groups
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  Speaker 3: almost identified like I'm a july In, I'm an Augustian.
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  Speaker 3: It's very strange.
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  Speaker 2: So this wouldn't be on the case with Casey if
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: we didn't hear a little sample of your dolcit French tones.
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  Speaker 2: So could you give us a little reading from this
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: this ordinance casey.
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  Speaker 3: So sure. This is article number six of the Law
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  Speaker 3: of October twenty first, seventeen eighty nine against gatherings or
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  Speaker 3: martial law. In other words, so here we go, the
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  Speaker 3: three warnings.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: The little poetry music in the back, some kind.
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  Speaker 3: Of dramatic accompaniment foot par person attulpedos dela parlis officier
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  Speaker 3: municipopland trois mason tonquie mont don les domicile. So they
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: will be warned in a high voice by the municipal officers,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: or one among them, three warnings to return peacefully into
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: your home trois masioni ton quiet don la demasil three
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: warnings to return peacefully to your home la premier exp
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: The first warning will be expressed in these terms. A
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: vill done calalois marc cartus criminal. So notice will be
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: given that martial law has been proclaimed, that all gatherings
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: are criminal. Fur We're going to shoot cab solatier good
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: citizens go home alision. So on the second and third warning.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Cliban.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: So on the second and third warnings, they're gonna skip
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: the preambole and just say we're gonna shoot good citizens,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: go homefier municipal. So the municipal officer will announce whether
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: it's the first, second, or third warning, and if you're
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: not out by the third warning, all bets are off,
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: you're probably gonna get shot.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Beautiful, I mean terrifying the beautiful performance, Casey. And this
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: has been on the Case with Casey, you know what.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I am a big fan of that segment. Noel, don't
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: you think that added some context?
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: It added some real umami to this episode, I think.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: And there's more to the story, because you see it
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: turns out this law isn't just something that happened and
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: then disappeared. It has been, as we said at the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: top of the show, on the books for centuries, and
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: it's been periodically revised, rewritten, reworked, as Casey mentioned, with
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the emergence of workers.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Rights totally and because you know, you don't really see
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: a whole lot of huge, large scale famines happening in
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Europe these days, so it was relaxed in nineteen ninety five,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: and we mentioned this briefly during Casey on the Case,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: but half of the bakeries in Paris were able to
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: shut down during the month of July as long as
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: the other half stayed open, and then bakers were actually
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: required to post notices in their windows of where a
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: customer could could get a croissant or a bag at
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: within walking distance because it was all about this community
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: neighborhood vibe. You know, you had to be able to
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: walk there. It was very much part of day to day.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: You could not be expected to, you know, hop a
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: taxi to another part of town.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: My word, the very idea, the very idea. This is
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a really cool detail to me because I like it.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: It seems humanizing. It's not enough just to tell the authorities, hey,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be gone in July. You got to
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: support your pee too totally.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: And it feels like we've gotten away from it being
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: there being concern over riots and it being much more
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: about maintaining that fresh baked bread culture that has sustained
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: in France throughout the generations.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: And you will hopefully be as thankful as we are
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: to note that the consequences for this are no longer
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: you know, life.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Threatening, absolutely not. In fact, even when they were still
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: on the books, you if you didn't get permission you
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: decided to do what you wanted, you could get a
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: fine which was a minimum of eve eleven euros a day,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: which is around thirteen American dollars back in I think
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: two thousand and five, or about twenty dollars in twenty
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: seventeen bucks.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: And the story continued. In twenty fifteen, the French government
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: eased some of the remaining restrictions on baker's holidays as
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: part of a larger effort to streamline their notoriously sluggish bureaucracy.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, can you imagine having a law on the
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: books for two hundred years? Can you imagine what other weird,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: little esoteric legal nuggets remained on the books. Probably stuff
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: about spitting in public. I don't know, beret quotas I
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: would imagine. I hope it'll get in trouble for that one.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: But it's true.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: When this relaxation occurred in twenty fifteen, a lot of
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: local Parisians feared that would be a bay Get crisis,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: and to some degree they did experience one. Because the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: government no longer coordinated baker holidays for the industry, bakers
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: had a tough time knowing when they should leave. The
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: ones that stayed open ran out of bread quickly, and
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: some were worried that their quality was suffering because there
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: was such an increase in demand.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Because literally, for the first time since the revolution, bakers
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: could go on vacation whenever they wanted, like normies, which
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: is the Baker word for us exactly. So yeah, I
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: saw an article in the Daily Mail with some great
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: quotes of kind of like the scoop of how this
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: is playing out today in the streets of Paris. There's
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: a quote from Lynn Siegel, who is a Parisian resident,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: that goes as such, I went out to get a
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: baguette a few days ago, and the two closest boulangeries
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: to me were both closed for the first time ever.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Then the next day a woman on the street stopped
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: me asking where the closest open one was. Only the
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: bad ones stayed open, only the bad one bad ones.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: And this we should paint a picture of why this
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: is so important even now for something to be called
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: traditional homemade bread, only four ingredients legally can be used
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: flower water, salt, and yeast. Seventy percent of bread is
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: still produced in Boulangeris, those local bakeries rather than industrial
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: warehouse factories. You know, while worries of a bread shortage
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: have you know, fallen a little bit in the years
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: since the regulations loosened, there are new worries on the horizon.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: It appears people are eating fewer and fewer bagettes.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true. Per capita consumption of bagettes has fallen
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: by more than eighty percent since nineteen hundred, and at
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: that time, the average person in France ate more than
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: three of them a day.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: That's a lot, isn't that?
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: These are big man right?
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And today it's as of twenty seventeen, it's down to
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: about a half a loaf a day. So analysts will
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: attribute the drop to multiple factors, including maybe this preference
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: for a lower carb diet or concerns about gluten consumption,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: while some bakers say it's because the bread just doesn't
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: taste as good as it did back in the you know,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the good old days of the pre revolutionary frame.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. In that Daily Mail article, there's another quote from
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: a Parisian artist named Anthony Stephenson who talks about being
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: pretty bummed out that because of the scarcity of high
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: quality bread, he's now having to buy what he refers
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: to as quote those strange half cooked mini baguettes from
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: my local supermarket and putting them in the oven. So
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: that is not cool for mister Stephenson, and I actually
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: found an article in the New York Times. The headline
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: is a baker's crusade rescuing the famed French bou lingerie.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Because of this decrease in bread consumption, there is a
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: sense that that culture, that history of artisanal baking, is
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: being lost. So a man by the name of Pascal Rigio,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: a French businessman, has decided to try to save the
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: fledgling French authentic French boulingerie by coming up with a
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: model that allows scaling of these businesses while also using
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: higher quality ingredients. And in order to do that, he
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: is and to shrink each store, making it where you
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: only have to have one person to run it and
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: buying ingredients centrally. That allows the shops to enhance the
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: quality and also increase bargaining power. And it limits the
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: number of products sold, so you might have a store
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: that only sells bagettes as opposed to a diversified bakery
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: where you have all kinds of other pastries.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: So this isn't a big warehouse plan. This sounds like
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: a community of what would be smaller stores that are
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: in keeping with French tradition. This could help trigger a resurgence, right,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: because we saw the numbers of these traditional bakeries dropping
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: over the past few decades.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: That's right. Looks like in twenty fifteen there were twenty
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: eight thousand of these authentic bakeries, and that's down from
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: thirty seven thousand, eight hundred just twenty years earlier. And
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: that is from a twenty fourteen report on bread in
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: France from euro Monitor by Alexander Gorenson.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: And on this we will end our exploration of bread
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: war and revolution in France. However, if you feel like
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the story should continue, we would like to cordially invite
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: you to France's annual bread festival, usually held in May.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: This gives you enough time, hopefully to schedule your plans,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and of course we want pictures if you happen to
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: go to the bread festival, and let us know if
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: you have lived in France or, like Casey, spent a
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: great deal of time there. We'd like to hear what
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: your favorite bakeries are. We'd like to hear your impressions
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: of where bakers stand in French society today. I'm very
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: interested in that because over just the course of this episode,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: we saw baker's being unfairly characterized as villains and then
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: as models of the working class, as masters of their
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: So what are they today in twenty seventeen.
• 24:03
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• 24:07
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• 24:10
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• 24:14
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• 24:18
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• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Of course, most importantly, let us know if you have
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: suggestions for an episode who should cover in the future.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: So please join us for more gaffs and laughs on
• 24:31
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• 24:40
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• 24:44
  Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.