Day 1845 (Monday) 27th June 2022

It was very warm this morning and Huw had to go to the villa to do some gardening, there is also a very warm, quite strong wind blowing so he didn’t have the easiest of mornings. I caught the train to Nice and enjoyed the views from the platform.

By the time we got home this afternoon – the beach was packed and the parking queue was significant.

 

I was quite early so I went to Parc Mozart where I took this photo of a beautiful tree, according to my App, it is called a Golden Wonder Tree.

I was enjoying a peaceful 5 minutes when suddenly I was slapped in the face by a bloody pigeon – it was a real shock and rather horrible. When I told Romain in International House he thought it was hysterical.

Just last week I was bragging about having time off in July and August but now I’ve got a new student who wants one-hour lessons every day of the week for two weeks. It’s a bit of a pain having to go to Nice every day for just one hour but it all adds up nicely and I can see my other students in Nice on the same days. She is from Sweden, is a nurse and a marathon runner. Her English is good but not as good as most Swedish people, most of who have much better pronunciation than the Brits – we have hundreds of accents but they speak BBC English. Why she came to France to study English I haven’t discovered yet. From there I walked to the tram stop and took a tram to Opera vielle ville and walked to the toy shop. I was early so I ate a quiche in the shade as it was really hot. The bricante (flea) market was there again and Florence informed me that the flower market is closed on a Monday to make room for the bricante. It all looks lovely but I’m sure most of it is tat.

Florence was very entertaining as always and her dog Gizmo and I are becoming good buddies.

I was impressed with this bin train’s driver going through these really narrow streets.

Huw picked me up at 2pm and told me that there was a safety warning issued on Nice’s beaches because wind was whipping up some waves.

Nice city council calls for vigilance due to rough seas - Nice city council has called for vigilance after several people were rescued while swimming in the sea this morning. Due to the rough seas, the yellow flag was hoisted at the lifeguard stations on the Promenade des Anglais. In a press release the town hall said that "several people have been rescued by lifeguards since this morning," calling on "all swimmers to be extremely vigilant until the flags are lifted."

According to Météo France forecasts, temperatures between 26 and 28°C are expected in Nice today, accompanied by winds that will blow up to 20 km/h. A deterioration is expected for Tuesday with winds that will strengthen and gusts up to 40 km/h.

Huw found a new boulangerie near the Old Port and the baguette he bought was delicious. It’s amazing how different baguettes can taste from different boulangeries. He was very French and ate the crouton before getting it home. Speaking of baguettes…

How many baguettes does the average French person eat per day?

Baguettes are pretty popular in France - but how many does the average French person get through?

Published: 30 March 2022 13:35 CEST

Image a cliché ‘French person’ and they will probably be carrying a baguette, then walk down a real French street and you’ll likely see someone carrying a baguette before you’ve gone 5 metres.

France wouldn’t be France without its daily bread – in fact, the country tried to get the humble baguette on UNESCO’s ‘intangible heritage’ list – an attempt prompted by the inclusion of Italy’s Neopolitan pizza dough-twirlers. 

But daily bread numbers are harder to quantify.

The delightfully esoteric Observatoire du Pain (bread observatory, yes, that exists) said that France’s 35,000 bakeries served 12 million customers daily – and that 6 billion baguettes per year are produced by bakeries in France.

Calculations from France Info put that at 320 baguettes made every second and works out at just under half a baguette per person per day.

A more recent study has found that bread consumption in France has fallen in recent years – but it’s still pretty popular.

Snacking.fr reported in 2021 that, in a survey, 82 percent of people in France said they ate bread every day, compared to 88 percent of those who responded five years previously. The survey didn’t specify the type of bread, but although sliced bread does exist in France, the baguette is far and away the most popular bread type.

Older people tended to prefer to eat bread more regularly than the younger generation, according to the study by QualiQuanti. Only 35 percent of under 35s said they ate bread daily, compared to two-thirds of those aged over 60.

According to the study, French people eat an average of 105 grammes of bread per day during the week, down from 114 grammes in 2015. Bread consumption goes up at the weekend.

This had already been noted. In 2017, baker Anthony Bosson said that bread was no longer a basic necessity. It had become a ‘gourmet’ product.

“Bakers must respond to “new” demand, often even anticipate it by offering their customers a wide variety of breads,” he said, back then. 

“We can almost compare the choice of a bread to that of a wine: according to the season, the moment of the day (breakfast, lunch, snack, snack, dinner), the dishes it is intended for to accompany, the taste and sensitivity of the guests…”

His prescience has been backed up by more recent evidence, as bakers have kept their businesses viable over the past decade by offering new ranges, including snacks and sandwiches, a 2020 study by the non-profit Atelier parisien d’urbanisme (Apur) found. 

The eighth study into the health of the capital’s shops, cafe culture and restaurants since 2000 found that 94 percent of Parisians live within a five-minute walk from one of the 1,180 boulangeries that dot the capital’s streets.

Théobald Costa

French citizen

Are French people obsessed with baguettes?

Obsessed with baguettes?

No.

French people aren’t obsessed with baguettes.

However, french people have a habit of eating a lot of bread. And by bread I don’t mean the weird bun thing macdonald uses in its burgers. I mean real bread.

Bread means this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or even this:

(oui, bon, le dernier est italien, mais on va pas chipoter non plus, hein!)

(yes, well, the last one is Italian, but we're not going to quibble either, huh!)

So french people aren’t obsessed by baguettes, but by bread.

And they have reasons to, because their bread is delicious!