Bread must be eaten fresh is, some say, an alternative fact. But I don’t think there is any one “right” way to eat or buy bread. While it’s true that people in France buy bread fresh daily, even when we buy a baguette for dinner, we eat the rest of it demain. (Tomorrow.)
The phrase “What’s leftover bread?” is often tossed out for a chuckle (similar to “What’s leftover wine?”…or “What’s leftover cheese?”), but leftover bread (pain de la veille) is no joke and is a problem for bakeries, whose food costs have risen sharply in the last few years. And bread prices have gone up, which hits consumers. Raising the price of a loaf of bread by a few cents is cause for alarm. One baker in France remarked, “In France, when bread prices in the corner bakery rise even 5 centimes, people notice it immediately.”
Having leftovers isn’t just the butt of a joke, it’s wasteful. So there’s now Demain (Tomorrow) bakery in Paris, which sells only leftover bread, culled from 23 local bakeries.
