If you mix water and flour together and let it sit for 30 to 60 minutes or longer, the enzymes in the bread undergo chemical processes that produce a better loaf.

If you also make a small sponge, or mix flour and yeast together as a starter, you can mix that in with salt and a pinch of sugar if that's how you bake.

Autolyse was first suggested about 50 years ago, when bread bakers started making bread rapidly. People noticed that the taste wasn't as good. Autolyse followed by a long cold formant will produce delicious loaves of bread.

bread consumption ( two and a half baguettes?) is that the French can now afford more varied and nutritious foods.

The first time the word appears in print referring to bread is 1920. So, really, the baguette is not what they are trying to save but what they are trying to erase.

(Personally? I love the baguettes at my bakery...)

He was really a cultural historian, but he wrote an article about the history of donuts, and the rep stuck.

that the French have figured out eating a pound and a half of bread a day isn’t really good for you.

provide grain that works best with modern bread-making machines have twice the amount of gluten that traditional grains of wheat had. The machines need a lot tougher dough to work with. I'm not gluten intolerant, and I think the whole gluten issue has been over-hyped, but that is something to think about.