A good bread is not hard to find
At a good boulangerie, you can get fresh bread at any time of day, even a warm baguette at 6pm. Of course, near closing time, pickings can be slim. Yesterday after work I was dashing to the good boulangerie before its 7:45pm closing time and, lo and behold, at 7:39pm there were no more baguettes 😱
The man being helped accepted a small loaf of pain de mie.
The disgruntled old lady in front of me, after peering past the viennoiserie1 display cases and seeing no baguettes in their usual baskets, actually quit the line.
I, however, was all the wiser from the peanut butter and jelly sandwich tasting I forced upon threw for my colleagues last Friday and, without fear, asked for the good stuff: the pain de sarrasin, or buckwheat bread.
And when 3 more people walked in and inquired, fearing the worst, that there were no more baguettes?!?!, and the baker offered the (deceptively unappetizing-looking) humble brown loaf he was slicing for me, I reassured them, “C’est délicieux, le pain de sarrasin 😊” and, well, they were still in line as I strode out clutching my package of buckwheat bread.
It turned out that after my report on our office PB&J tasting results last Friday and probably experiencing a similar oh no they’re out of baguettes / hmm what do they have left / well, guess I’ll try _ journey at the same boulangerie2, Matt had also bought the same (impressive) amount of pain de sarrasin. So we ate one trip’s worth of buckwheat bread with ratatouille for dinner, and I’ve begun working on the rest today, starting with a PB&J tartine3 for my breakfast.
PB&J all day
Yes, I’ve been eating a good amount of PB&J since the in-office tasting last Friday. Most of my French coworkers had never had a PB&J, though several had heard of this very American concept and wondered at the reality. Even though it’s possible to find at least one or two varieties of peanut butter at any grocery store, peanut butter is not really eaten here, and definitely not with jam in sandwiches.
We conducted a not-very-scientific PB&J tasting on a Friday morning, after a Thursday evening outing at the company watering hole. My coworkers took very happily to PB&J, to their surprise! (But not to yours or mine, maybe.) Here were the winners in each category:
Breads
Pain de mie (fresh)
Pain de sarrasin (fresh) - winner ⭐
Brioche (packaged)
American-style wheat bread (packaged) - runner up
Jams
Bonne Maman strawberry jam
Bonne Maman blueberry jam - winner ⭐
Mirabelle plum jam
Peanut butters
Skippy - super expensive here! That tiny jar was 6€!
Menguy’s - runner up / my personal favorite
Whole Earth crunchy natural - winner ⭐
Koeze Cream-Nut
Forms
Most everyone tried at least 1 sandwich (2 slices of bread)
Sandwiches and tartines / open-faced PB&Js (my own preference) were equally popular
It’s not surprising, I think, that PB&J is even better with really good bread, and that folks are very receptive to 1. free food and 2. any form of comfort food after a night of drinking.
A recent lost in translation moment
What I thought someone called me: manteause (not a word, “coat-like”?)
What someone actually called me: menteuse (a liar)
Don’t worry, I’m not making loads of enemies here—we were probably talking about Kinder bar preferences. Or maybe I mixed up the crunchy and creamy peanut butters, who knows.
By the way, if you subscribe to several different Substacks like I do, there’s a new Substack app for iPhone (and an Android waitlist here). As you know well, this is a newsletter for friends and not any kind of side gig—I just really like reading in a format optimized for my phone, like on the Webtoon app. The Substack app is like the Webtoon app for folks who can’t draw :’(
Until next time! I’m never eating a PB&J again… or for one week, at least.
This was Tuesday, and there were still plenty of croissants, pains aux chocolat, and pains suisses to choose from. But on a Saturday, a boulangerie is very likely run out of pain au chocolat by afternoon. Be warned, my visitors!
After all, it’s the best boulangerie in the neighborhood for bread, at least. And probably for viennoiserie, too.
Isn’t that great? In English we have to say “open-faced sandwich,” but in French this glorious concept can be conveyed in just one word: “tartine.”