BREAKING BREAD

THE BALTIMORE SUN

PARIS -- This is a city for lovers, yes? Well, I came prepared with a checklist for my romantic dates in love-soaked Paris. Butter? Check. Small silver knife? Check. Napkins. Check. Plan de Paris (that indispensable book of street maps)? Check. Next, I purchased a carnet, that nifty bundle of 10 train tickets for the Paris Metro, and off I went. Off to consummate my love affair with that most quintessential of all French things -- the baguette.

Some people go to Paris to traipse through gardens; to take in magnificent paintings, ancient textiles and other gleaming bits of antiquity; to marvel at cathedrals boasting magnificent windows of colored light. Others go for luxuries such as couture fashion, only-in-Paris perfumes, fin de siecle hotel suites and vintage champagne. Still others for nibbly things: chocolates, macaroons, pate, cheese, mustard.

I came to Paris for something that is fundamentally French. Bread. French bread. A great fan of baguettes, boules and batards, I set aside one day during a recent trip to visit six stores (bakeries or pastry shops) that sold good bread. I was inundated with recommendations before I made my trip. Friends offered dozens of suggestions. I also had squirreled away magazine articles that mentioned good bread shops. There was no way I could visit all on my three-day trip, so I trimmed the list to six.

My vow: to do all six in one day before cocktail hour. My plan was simple: To get to each shop, scout the scene, buy the breads they were known for, then go outside to find a spot where I could break open the bread or tear off a corner, smell it, chew it and then slather good French butter on and chew again. The night before my love trek I took a huge butter pat (a luscious knob of salted buerre wrapped in foil) from my dinner at Brasserie Balzar. The next morning I borrowed a lovely butter knife and nice cloth napkins from the club level buffet at the Westin Paris. I was ready for my date with the perfect baguette.

My first stop was Le Boulanger de Monge on Rue Monge in the Fifth Arrondissement (district), which proved to be a happy, uplifting start to the day. You could see bakers working dough in a shop where the wares were enticingly displayed. A busy shop, too: For the 10 minutes I stared at all the shapes of breads and flavorings (some of the petit pans, or small breads, were made with cheese and bacon and other savories), the place was never without a customer.

I bought several petit pains and a classic baguette. Hungry, I tore the baguette in half, stuck my nose in it and breathed in what I associate with Paris: that deliciously musty, slightly sour whiff of bread. Baguettes don't smell like flour, they smell like flour transformed. The baguette here sported a deliciously toasty crust with a firm crumb. I felt like I was part of the city as I walked back up busy Rue Monge clutching what was left of my baguette like a talisman.

The next shop was Maison Kayser, also on Rue Monge, a destination boulangerie (there are other branches in the city) where bread wizard Eric Kayser has redefined bread making. His magnificent baguettes, I was told, are made with a natural liquid starter instead of commercial yeast. All I know is that the bread was beautiful to behold with its dark color and diagonal lashings. Breaking it open, I could hear the crust relent; the inside crumb with its irregular pockets was invitingly honest. There was a discernible saltiness, which I love, to the Kayser baguette. The shop, however, was uninviting. No smiles. Just the serious business of getting the baguettes into the hands of the breadcentric before they give up their short life (baguettes are only good for about six hours after they come out of the oven, bread connoisseurs say).

Some boulangeries offer a baguette that is called ordinaire, which is an ordinary, serviceable bread. But look for the word "tradition" or traditionelle and spring for the extra coin that will reward you with a bread that best expresses the talent of the bread maker. At Gerard Mulot near St. Sulpice, I spied traditionelle baguettes that had two long channels running the length of the bread, creating hard ridges I could tell would taste good. The ends of the baguettes were also twisted into points that baked up almost black and looked like lethal carbon weapons. I had to have one. The baguette was crunchy and full of flavor. Gerard Mulot isn't a boulangerie; it is a patisserie with a fabulous assortment of gorgeous sweets and candy-colored macaroons. But the busy corner of the shop was dispensing breads and sandwiches made with those serious-looking baguettes.

Bread obsession

Most Paris visitors who are even the least bit interested in food know about Poilane, the best-known bread in a nation obsessed with bread. Poilane is famous for its sourdough miche (a big, heavy, round loaf, larger than a familiar boule). Because it is made with stone-ground wheat flour, the inside of the weighty miche is brown and dense. The sourdough bread tastes tangy with a nice salt smack. The original shop on rue du Cherche-Midi cheerfully dispenses a variety of breads, pastries and lovely croissants. Having eaten Poilane bread on many occasions (better restaurants serve slices of the iconic miche), I decided against buying the unmistakable, four-pound bruiser. But I enjoyed visiting the wee shop where the saleswomen were pleasant and obliging. If you're going to veer from the baguette trail, it must be for Poilane in the Sixth Arrondissement.

A friend recommended a shop that I couldn't find in any articles on Paris boulangeries, which suggested the place was either a well-kept secret or a dud. I wasn't sure what to make of the Boulangerie Vavin, a nondescript shop on a nondescript part of a street in the Sixth Arrondissement. My guess was that it was a dependable neighborhood bread shop judging from the number of students and working mothers I saw darting in and out of the unpretentious store, which was well-stocked with a variety of breads and sweets. I bought a good, sturdy baguette and a long, slim Viennoise, a soft, sweet bread that looks like a ficelle (a skinny baguette) and provided a nice change of pace from my baguette chomping.

Precipitation is neither a friend to the baguette nor to a tourist without an umbrella. As I was nearing the end of my boulangerie-crawl, it started raining. I ducked into a restaurant and sat at a bar nursing a glass of Morgon Beaujolais. It was about 3 p.m., and diners were still enjoying lunch with those endless baskets of baguette slices. Even though I had already consumed what seemed like a pound of baguettes and had bread and pastries bulging from a shopping bag, my mouth still watered a bit while gazing at the pain compris (complimentary bread) at every table. The lucky French.

An hour later, after a third glass of fruity vin rouge (red wine), the rain didn't look like it would let up so I decided to forsake the sixth boulangerie, figuring the bread would be compromised anyway. As I walked to the Metro I saw a whole baguette floating like a bloated victim in a puddle in an alley. Was it an accident or a deliberate act of madness? Sad, dead bread.

The perfect sandwich

The next morning I woke up later than usual. Could I have been suffering from a baguette hangover? The bread I bought the day before was stiff and useless. I tossed it. Another day, another baguette. Luckily, my final stop was a shop many consider one of the finest bread purveyors, Gosselin, only a few blocks from my hotel in the First Arrondissement. It also was on the way to our lunch destination, the very grand Le Grand Vefour.

Philippe Gosselin's beloved boulangerie and patisserie is always crowded, especially at lunchtime when baguettes filled with pate, Camembert, salmon, beef or ham groan on display. The quiche looked extraordinary, but I opted for a jambon (ham) and gruyere on a baguette a l'ancienne (an artisanal bread), figuring it must be the most perfect ham and cheese sandwich on the planet. My baguette journey ended.

But not really. Back in my hotel late that afternoon after a small nap made necessary by the most expensive lunch of my life at Le Grand Vefour (kind friends paid, merci), I suddenly felt a bit peckish. I remembered the ham- and cheese-filled baguette I had tucked in my backpack. Gosselin's bread held up, spilling a hundred toasty crumbs onto my bed at first bite. Heaven. I dove in, not coming up for air. At last, the perfect Paris hookup.

Greg Morago writes for the Hartford (Conn.) Courant.

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