Think about the way you envision a stereotypical Frenchman: black beret, a striped t-shirt and a baguette under the arm.The beret is from the Basque country. The stripes are common in Brittany. But what about the baguette?

What could be more French than the traditional baguette? Even if, it is said, more are consumed in Algeria, a former French colony, than in France itself. The word baguette is, amongst other things, the French expression for a wizard’s wand, a conductor’s baton and a chopstick, the quintessentially traditional French loaf of bread simply taking its name from the shape.