Best Baguette in Paris Competition Produces Winner Who Is Pleased and Also Has Several Reservations About the Judging Criteria
The Best Baguette: Won, Qualified, and Contextualised
The annual Grand Prix de la Baguette de la Ville de Paris awarded its top prize this week to boulanger Sebastien Lacroix of La Maison du Bon Pain in the 11th arrondissement, whose baguette was judged superior in crust, crumb, taste, and aroma by a panel of twelve judges including food critics, a representative of the Mairie de Paris, and a member of the Academie Culinaire de France who has been judging this competition since 1994 and has opinions about the decline in competition standards since approximately 2001 that he will share if the relevant question is posed and several if it isn’t. Sebastien accepted the award with evident satisfaction and then spoke to reporters for seventeen minutes about the aspects of his bread that the competition’s criteria did not adequately measure.
‘The crust is correct,’ Sebastien confirmed. ‘The crumb is very good. The taste, yes, very good. But the score does not capture the fermentation. My levain is seventeen years old. Seventeen years. The fermentation time is fourteen hours minimum. This is not in the judging criteria because fermentation is a process and the criteria judges a product. The product reflects the process but the criteria does not see the process. So the score is good but it is not seeing everything. I accept the award. I accept it with this context.’
The Award’s Significance
The Grand Prix winner receives the right to supply baguettes to the Elysee Palace for one year, a distinction that Sebastien confirmed is ‘significant and meaningful’ and that he will pursue with commitment while also noting that the Elysee’s daily baguette requirement will require him to produce more bread at higher volume than his current production rhythm allows without compromising the fourteen-hour fermentation minimum that the judging criteria did not capture. ‘I will find a way,’ he said. ‘The bread will not change. The volume will change. I will sleep less. This is the price of excellence. The excellence is non-negotiable.’
Paris food culture at Le Parisien. Comedy: The Daily Mash.
SOURCE: http://prat.UK
