Le meilleur pain congelé

Just like my sainted grandpère, I love bread. Any bread: white, wheat, multi-grain, potato, rye, pumpernickel, yeast rolls, homemade biscuits, etc. Yup, if something's made with flour and baked, chances are I'll eat the hell out of it.

About two years ago, I discovered a bread that quickly made its way close to the top - if not all the way to the top - of my list of favorite breads:


That, mes ami, is a Le Petit Français (LPF) frozen baguette. Like so many unique-to-Nashville foodstuffs, LPF baguettes're only available at Publix Super Markets. "What's the big deal about 'em?" you ask. Well, let me tell you ...

This bread is unlike any other frozen bread that you can find in any grocery store in this city. From the first bite to the last, you will swear that you bought a baguette in a bakery; or you will insist on telling yourself that you were served a baguette in an upscale bistro alongide something braised in vin ... or something made with lots o' butter and cream. (Indeed, LPT baguettes taste so much like a baguette I had at a French restaurant -- Le Beaujolais -- in NYC's Theatre District in August 2001, it ain't even funny. Perhaps that is why I like 'em so much.)

Here's the skinny on LPF baguettes straight from the baker's mouth:

"One bite and you will recognize the distinctive taste of our select unbleached wheat flour, natural spring water and four generations of baking expertise. We are bakers, not chemists, so freezing is our only preservative. Le Petit Français baguettes are produced by the renowned bakers at S.A. Boulangerie Neuhauser located in a village in the Alsace-Lorraine, France."