French Bread Day: know where its name comes from – 03/21/2023 – Restaurants

This Tuesday (21) is the French Bread Day, a gastronomic item that is not lacking on Brazilian tables, especially at breakfast, and which is the flagship of bakeries.

A typically Brazilian recipe, the bread roll is versatile and can be made on a griddle with butter, served with soup, or used as a base for sandwiches and hot dogs. Despite being created in Brazil, it takes the name of a European country, even if it doesn’t exist there.

Why is French bread so named?

The recipe dates back to the late 19th century, when the country’s wealthy elite drew inspiration from French culture. Around here, the table was still mostly populated by the rustic breads of Portuguese and Italian immigrants, but the sons of the great landowners, who studied in Paris, returned home delighted with the delicate French baguettes.

“The cooks at the time had no way of reproducing that bread. From the possible adaptations, the French bread was born”, says Viviane Lima, historian of the Centro de Memória Bunge, the multinational owner of the first wheat mills in Brazil.

But the current format took a while to appear. The first French loaves were larger and more elongated. “Also known as walking sticks, loaves or baguettes, they weighed between 400 and 500 grams. The current format emerged 40 years ago”, says Antero José Pereira, president of Sampapão.

What is the basic recipe?

Flour, salt and yeast. You can also add fat (butter, oil or lard), which makes the shell more crunchy, and sugar, which boosts the golden color.

What is this bromate?

Banned since 2001 for health risks, potassium bromate exaggerates the dough – when the crust is broken, the bread appears hollow. But the substance was not completely banned from the industry. Every now and then, Anvisa seizes premixes that contain bromate.