The best I’ve found is the Artisan baguette at Whole Foods.
Making your own… well good luck with that. Supposedly some enterprising individuals imported French ovens, French flour, water, etc etc and could not reproduce the exact quality of layered, flaky crust with soft white interior available in France.
There is much to read on the subject, too. Including the strict rules the French impose on bakeries that don’t do all the work on premise.
Whoosh!
Where are you in the upper midwest?
How do they say Woosh in France?
I’m in America’s Dairyland, but the nearest cities are in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Oh, and thanks for the heads up, Lukeinva. I’ll check out Whole Foods - I could have sworn the wife had tried there, but she tells me she hasn’t.
Here’s a plea for help titled “Need autentic french baguette”, from a francopainophile in “The Cities”.
They mention the Turtle Bread Company,Yum, and Pattisserie Margo in St. Louis Park.
But the winner seems to be the Trung Nam French Bakery. University Ave in St Paul.
ETA: Found a great article w/gorgeous pics! The top 5 baguettes in Mpls.
I’m GOING to find an excuse to run up there…
Look for loaves marked “Campagne”. It won’t be baguette shaped, but it’s the closest thing you’re going to find. Wegmans makes a good one.
I commiserate my friend… my albino hedgehog, however, is the humble German Brötchen. There’s got to be one out there in the wilds, just not here in America. No, instead we have the mass marketed Armadillo of breads. Our baking tradition went awry with Wonder Bread… People thought, hey, fresh soft , pre sliced, bread at our convenience… and it’s never been the same.
Québecois people often will call it by the redundant name of “une baguette de pain français”. My mom used to do it, until she got (jokingly) chewed out by a Swiss-born colleague who told her that “of course it’s “français”, what else would it be? Just call it a baguette!!” 
I have been pretty satisfied with the short french rolls the Vietnamese churn out to make banh mi, so I’m guessing Viet bakeries might be a good choice.
Merci beaucoup, mon ami!
I love the 'dope
Oh, dear God, yes. a Brötchen. My kingdom for a Brötchen. And a big slice of that rye bread that haunts my foodie dreams.
You can’t. French bread is never made at home; it’s made at bakeries, with ovens that are designed for it.
Julia Child took months to find a way to make French bread at home, but the original recipe has been suppressed, since the only thing she could find that worked correctly as a stone to bake the bread was an asbestos tile. :eek: The recipe was quickly changed.
Rustica in the Twin Cities was going to be my recommendation, and the article digs linked recommended it first. The loaves are sold wrapped in paper and that makes all the difference. I personally find it too hard unless I’m making crostini. I prefer the parbaked New French when my husband makes Banh Mi.
Well, according to L’Académie française, the correct term is confusion réactionnelle de l’ironie comme de passage d’avion, but “le whoosh” has unfortunately entered the popular vernacular.
She probably used it to kill Nazis.
Safeway makes a nice loaf of French bread. I like to dip it in my Progresso vegetable soup.
Joe
But it is not redundant. Baguette refers to the shape (“small bar”), not the variety of bread (“plain french-style white-flour bread”). You can get that same variety of bread in many other shapes and sizes, and you can get small bars of many other varieties.
Commiserations. The position is no better here in Australia. In a good English bakery you can get about sixteen types of bread in all sorts of shapes, each one made with a distinctly different dough. 95% of bakeries here (yes I counted) are now owned not by bakers but by investors who have bought into a franchise. They have no professional pride, they don’t care kneading dough, they only care about raking in dough. They have not sixteen but forty three different types of bread in all sorts of shapes every single fcking one of which is made using the same fcking white fluffy dough.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Ace the in-house brand at the Loblaw’s bakery? Or am I confusing it for something else?
Well, seeing how my inlaws are bent on buying crappy baguettes (I think the boulangerie they buy them from make them using lightly crusted styrofoam), and how too many people I know buy crappy mushy flavorless bread, maybe it can cheer you up to know that having a crappy baguette is a Real French Bread Experience ™.
Cook’s Illustrated has a great recipe for baguettes. It can be done in a home oven (no small feat in itself!) and turns out a loaf with a crackly crust and nice chewy insides.
'course, it takes 24+ hours and more patience than God himself to make. It’s here, if you’re interested.
That said, I’m a bit surprised that you can’t find a good one if you live in a city of any size at all; artisan bakeries are everywhere nowadays. Heck, I’ve got one in my small town, and it makes pretty good baguettes. You do have to go to a specialty shop - I’ve never seen a good baguette in a supermarket before.
Also, a hint: If you’re like me, and not getting your baguette fresh every morning within an hour or two of it being taken out of the oven, you can vastly improve the quality by heating it in a 300 degree oven for 5 or 10 minutes before eating. I even freeze baguettes and reheat them like this, and they’re divine. Seriously, it’s like they’re fresh-baked.
I think the science behind that is that, converse to what you’d think, bread stales by starting to retain moisture. Putting it in the oven dries it out, and makes it more fresh. Try it - it works.