17
F
rench bread in New Orleans is
the story of the desire for the
preservation of tradition when that
preservation is almost impossible. Wheat
did not exist in the New World. So settlers
in Louisiana relied on flour imported from
France and then Spain for their basic bread.
But the bread often arrived riddled with
mold and insects. Although it might have
been easier to bake and eat cornbread, it was
not considered a satisfactory substitute for
wheat bread.
Households might be able to avoid tainted
flour in their bread, if they baked at home.
But home baking was difficult in the area.
As scholar Michael Mizell-Nelson notes,
“Humid conditions made it difficult for
bakers to produce hard crusts and capture
yeast from the air.Few households produced
their own bread, because producing this
elemental part of life generated too much
heat and required too much physical
stamina and skill for most New Orleanians.
Brick ovens fueled by wood fire produced
a hellacious job of cleaning out the embers
every Saturday.”
After the Louisiana Purchase it became easier
to obtain wheat flour from the Midwest. It
arrived in New Orleans and was shipped by
boat and later rail to other parts of the state. It
was very expensive. Wheat flour was 3 times
more expensive in New Orleans as compared
with St. Louis and 6 times as expensive west
of the Atchafalaya Basin.
By the mid 1800s, German and Austrian
bread baking techniques, which included
adding milk to the dough to create a much
lighter airy texture, were becoming popular
across Europe. German bakers in Louisiana
brought this preference for a light texture in
contrast to the denser crumb of traditional
French loaves. Bakers also began to add
sugar and shortening to act as preservatives,
another departure from traditional
methods. But these techniques were well
suited to the humid climate. In addition to
lasting longer, this preference for a lighter
loaf required less flour than the traditional
model, resulting in a cheaper loaf.The shift
in shape from a cap style loaf to a baguette
was influenced by Parisian tastes, when
their fondness for more crust was satisfied
by the elongation of the cap or gigot shape.
Finally, in the early 20th century, the
growing popularity of “loaves” or “po-
boys” created the French bread known in
New Orleans today. Sandy Whann, of
Leidenheimer Baking Company, believes
that “New Orleans French bread evolved
based on the variety of ingredients used
to make poor boys. The delicate balance
of a thin, crisp crust with enough firmness
to stand up to brown and red gravy and a
lightness that would not compete with
Gulf seafood … a loaf that diners could
readily bite into without cutting the roof
of their mouth, as might happen with
traditional French bread; however, the loaf
had to be strong enough to hold up to gravy,
mayonnaise, and other ‘dressings’.”
Did You KNOWLA?
By the mid-1800s, German and Austrian
bakers dominated the baking trade in
New Orleans; they altered the traditional
French bread into a New Orleans
variant characterized by a much lighter
loaf with a crisp crust. The first “poor
boy” loaves were baked by African
Amercians toiling in a bakery run by an
Italian immigrant who supplied Cajun
restaurateurs in the French Market. This
cycle continues. The recent advent of
Vietnamese cuisine in the city has caused
most Louisiana residents to rebrand
what most Americans know as the “banh
mi” sandwich as a Vietnamese po-boy.”
—
www.knowla.orgThe Encyclopedia of
Louisiana History
French
Bread
by
Liz Williams, Founder &Director, Southern Food & Beverage Museum
FRENCH