On baguettes and national pride
EMMANUEL Macron made it into the Elysee Palace on the strength of a promise of “profound change.”
Maybe the French kneaded the dough but he’s kicking off with bread.
Earlier this week, the President joined calls by bakers for France’s traditional baguette to be recognised as one of the world’s cultural treasures on Unesco’s list of “intangible heritage”.
Being on the list gives a country bragging rights over its cultural superiority or lack thereof. India had yoga, the US had Dylan and Indonesia had its puisi. Malaysia, alas, had yet to feature in any such list but it’s rumoured that the august world body had been studying our creative accounting practices with awe and was considering an alternative place in its pantheon for Malaysia under “fiction”.
Macron felt compelled to issue his clarion call after Naples in Italy was honoured for its pizza. In December, the city’s dough-twirling pizza makers were given the nod by the UN cultural body’s World Heritage Committee.
The French were outraged. They thought that Italian food was OK at best and complained that an Italian meal was acceptable now and then but you still got hungry after four days.
They also thought that Neapolitans were greedy because diet food was what they ate while the steak was being cooked.
The French, on the other hand, were moderate in their gluttony. Ask any Frenchman whether he would like his pizza in eight or four slices and he’d invariably reply four because eight was surely too much.
For history buffs, it is pertinent to note that the humble baguette was invented by one Jacques Baguette. Sitting gloomily in his kitchen one wintry afternoon in the 16th Century, the destitute chef was pondering the future when his eye idly fell on some water, salt, flour and yeast in that order.
A more superstitious man might have shuddered and thrown some of the salt over his left shoulder for safety’s sake. A more practical man might have mixed some of the water into a stiff cognac to ward off the winter chills.
But JB was made of sterner stuff and, in a magnificent moment that screamed Eureka, he mixed the flour, water and yeast together and, with just the right pinch of salt, he created the dish that would always bear his name and forever sustain French armies on their way towards surrender.
Even Marie Antoinette lost her head over a careless reference to the great inventor. When told that the French people were starving and needed food, the haughty queen replied: “Let them eat baguette.”
You could see why some people might get testy over such a remark.
Macron felt that the bread was easily superior to the pizza. “The baguette is envied around the world,” said the President in a nod towards JB. “We must preserve its excellence and our expertise, and it is for this reason that it should be heritage-listed.”
When not marrying his teacher, Macron was a decent sort of fellow who earnestly believed in the right of every Frenchman to eat as many baguettes as they liked. But he was a terrible golfer which was unfortunate because he loved the game.
In fact, the last time President Trump visited France, his French counterpart invited him for a round of golf.
Trump played a fair round. Macron, on the other hand, hit a birdie, an eagle and an aardvark. The match was called off after he hit his bodyguard.