In almost any bakery in the world, the baguette is the most traditional choice of French bread, except in France. It may sound odd, but I have a friend from Montpellier that, as all French people, has very strong opinions about bread. One day, during one of our debates of what bread really is, she told me that the baguette is not the go-to order for a lot of French people. The secret is to ask for “pain Tradition”. She says every bakery has its own recipe for it, making it unique whenever your try a new one. I did a taste test recently when I spent a weekend in the beautiful Occitanie region, where I also had plenty of French pastries and ran 21.1km (but that’s a topic for another post),

What I can say is, next time you go to a boulangerie, ask for a “pain tradition, s’il vous plait” and enjoy a whole new world of true frenchness. Don’t forget to bite the tip of the bread for the true french Tradition!