It's not every day that you get invited to spend an afternoon sitting in a small room overlooking the Seine with an MOF or two, the president of la Chambre professionnelle des artisans boulangers-pâtissiers de Paris, a delightful fromagère, Djibril Bodian, the winner of last year's Best Baguette in Paris competition and, most importantly, two long tables lined with baguettes. 155 baguettes to be exact. To be tasted by only 15 of us.
A seemingly endless and daunting task, yet it was taken very seriously. We inspected, sniffed, poked, prodded, chewed and tasted 71 baguettes each over the course of the afternoon. The tasting wrapped up around 6:45pm, the final numbers were tallied up and the winner was called just after 7pm.
Then the bottles of Champagne came out, I'm sure with the goal to both toast us for our efforts and to get the flavor of bread out of our mouths.
As I mentioned in my most recent post, the jury is made up of mainly industry professionals and journalists, with a few members of the general public who, in the past, were chosen by an email lottery. This year they used Instagram as a means to choose those lucky few. When I received the message on my Instagram photo that I had been selected to join the jury, I had to read it twice before the news sunk in. I was thrilled!
I'm not sure how many calories I consumed over the 4+ hours of tasting, but they were worth every bite, even though I don't know when I'll be able to face eating another baguette again. And even though I am now and forever a hopeless baguette snob.
Yikes!
I cannot thank the Mayor's office and the city of Paris enough for such an amazing opportunity.
Here's the entire list of the Top Ten Baguettes of 2016 and Paris by Mouth has them all mapped out for us.
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14 comments:
Wow.I am totally impressed.
Wonderful post! Not easy finding good baguettes in Los Angeles; even La Brea Bakery bread is too dense. So happy for you to have been chosen and there is nothing wrong being a baguette snob!
So cool. For those of us now stateside, some of those "bad" ones which actually be better than most of what we can get!
Thrilled you got to experience this. I can't think of a better person to take on this mission!
This is the most interesting blogpost I have read in a while!!👍🏼
So cool that the winner from the previous year gets to be a judge (and that the winners change every year)!
Bravo!!! What fun!!! Even in Mexico, we can find a decent baguette from time to time, but the pickings are certainly slim.
I tell you, the best baguettes aren't in Paris. They're at Noez in Carcassonne. We even load up on them to take to the in-laws in the north.
What a great experience. I'd never realised that baguettes could taste so different.
Getting hungry looking at them!
How fortunate you are to receive such an honor! They chose well when they chose you. Next time I see you, I will have to ask you to tell me how a good baguette should taste.
The winner's Boulangerie La Parisienne, 48 rue Madame, listing online states that the shop is closed. The other listing for Boulangerie La Parisienne is on rue Monge in the 6th. Could you please clarify the address? I know the online google information can be misleading or incorrect and that shops close and move often. I would like to go to the rue Madame site to give it a try but I don't want to walk there and have it be closed. It would be a pleasant walk through the Luxembourg Gardens from the 5th.
If you or your other readers can verify the address as open, I would be grateful. Richard, r58ewen@gmail.com.
It was an incredible experience! I honestly have to thank the Mayor of Paris' office for choosing me to be a judge.
Thank you all for such lovely comments!
Richard,
I have a friend who walked by the boulangerie last week and saw lines down the block. I'm not sure where you are getting that information, but the bakery is open. Enjoy!
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