GOOD BREAD IS BACK

A contemporary history of French bread, the way it is made, and the people who make it. Steven Laurence Kaplan's new history of the decline, fall and rise of French bread is reviewed at length in the new issue of the Time Literary Supplement. The review itself is a good, quick introduction to the history of bread in France and to its decline due to the increasing industrialization of what is, in the end, almost an alchemical process. Kaplan's book concludes, “It is worth recalling, in the end, that good bread depends above all on the quality of the men and women who make it”. We'll have the new book in the shop at the end of next week.