GIANT BAGUETTE ON THE LAM: 38 meters of crust send breakfast-time France into a frenzy
Born at dawn in an overambitious oven, the baguette is said to have taken advantage of a draft to make its escape.
Crispy, feisty, and perfectly butterable, it leaves a wake of giant crumbs and improvised breakfasts.
Joyful panic this morning in Villeneuve-sur-Mie, where the attempt at a record for the “longest baguette in the world” turned into a baker’s epic. Barely out of the communal oven, the 38-meter specimen arched, rolled onto the sidewalk and, driven by an irresistible hunger for freedom, hurtled down the main street, silently screaming its crunchiness.
Behind it, a motley procession: apprentice pastry chefs brandishing salad tongs, cyclists in bathrobes, and a Nordic walking club equipped with fluorescent butter dishes. Public works crews hastily set up a barricade of wicker baskets, to no avail; the baguette leapt over it, grazed a newsstand, and pulled off a spectacular slide across a crosswalk, leaving a trail of flour as wide as a red carpet.
“I kneaded her with love, and she left me at the sourdough,” confides Maël Donjon, the master baker behind the feat, still dusted with flour. “I did warn her: ‘If you grow too much, you’ll want to see the world.’ You can’t stop a dough once it’s risen to the occasion.”
Last seen near the Roche-Marmelade picnic area, the fugitive is said to have agreed to be escorted to the community hall on the condition she be sliced on the diagonal “for elegance.” A pop-up festival dubbed Miette City has already been announced: spreads, classes on the aerodynamics of bread, and post-carb nap contests. Rumor even has it that a sourdough statue will be erected in her honor, provided she agrees not to rise during the ceremony.
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