For the Love of Bread
Steven L. Kaplan
(Fayard, 351 pages, 2020)
France-based American historian Steven Kaplan has studied bread extensively and lovingly throughout his long and extensive career. An expert in French history, he has illuminated in his previous work the central role that this humble staple has played in French political, cultural, and social life. In his exciting new book, Kaplan sounds the alarm: the culture of French bread may be thriving abroad but it is withering at home. Is campaigning for the cause of bread and its culture, in the age of globalization, a lost cause? Steven Kaplan—a connoisseur with years of hands-on experience in the art of French bread making—offers us a lively and delectable history lesson, a comprehensive yet meticulous investigation, and a passionate plea for a renewed appreciation of good bread.
Bread defined France’s daily life and culture until World War II. For centuries, the French economy was dominated by agriculture; the production of grain in particular was intrinsically linked to the development of commerce and industry, and was an essential source of revenue for the state. Without bread at an affordable price, a reasonable quality, and sufficient quantity, there was no way to ensure social peace.
Today not only is bread no longer a vital source of sustenance, but it has also lost its standing. Why is this so? With a historian’s precision and a sociologist’s eye, Kaplan examines the signs and the causes of this decline. Some reasons include the mechanization and the rise of the baking industry, globalization and the atrophy of “local taste,” the loss of the symbolic status of bread, and many more. Kaplan reviews the unusually central role of bread throughout French history in religion, in politics, in social unrest, right down to the pervasiveness of bread metaphors in everyday language. He devotes entire chapters to gluten, leaven, ancient grains, organic bread, and, of course, the baguette. He brings to life all those who have played and continue to play a role in the cycle of bread from production—farmers, millers, master bakers—to consumption.
As a passionate bread lover, Kaplan cannot leave us with a pessimistic assessment of the current state of affairs. He concludes by identifying encouraging factors that are revitalizing the culture of bread, from the feminization of baking work and the rehabilitation of leaven and its digestion-enhancing properties to the increasing collaboration between farmers and millers. Kaplan has written an enticing book for Francophiles, and those interested in the deep relationships of food to political and social struggle, heritage and knowledge, and the pleasures of life.
Steven L. Kaplan is the Goldwin Smith Professor of European History, emeritus, at Cornell University. His numerous publications include Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the Reign of Louis XV, 2 volumes (2nd edition, Anthem, 2016), The Stakes of Regulation: Perspectives on Bread, Politics and Political Economy (Anthem, 2015), Learning on the Shop Floor: Historical Perspectives on Apprenticeship, Co-ed. with Bert de Munck and Hugo Soly (Berghahn Books, 2007), Good Bread Is Back: A Contemporary History of French Bread, The Way It Is Made, and the People Who Make It (Duke University Press, 2006).