Bakery recreates WW1 bread

A boulangerie in a town on the First World War’s Western Front has recreated loaves eaten by the poilus (‘hairies’), the rank and file French soldiers in the war.

The pain du poilu by the Boulangerie Guénard in Sedan is made using old-fashioned sourdough, without modern baker’s yeast, in a rustic, round shape the bakery says formed part of the rations of the poilu.

Baker Christophe Guénard said: “I wanted to find a way to make a sourdough with natural rising agent and found photos of poilus eating bread in the trenches.

“The dough doesn’t go into a proofer, we just leave it to rest and then it goes directly into the oven. You can smell the aromas of the war-time bread.”

He added: “Back then soldiers requisitioned mills and made it in all sorts of places, in hangers and tents; in the cold and rain.”

In fact, he said, these round miches were only one of the breads on the menu along with black bread, hard biscuits and a bad-tasting one soldiers called pain kaka… but this kind was the most appetising.

“It was their main food because there wasn’t a lot of meat, or fruit and vegetables.”

The bakery also ordered a batch of soldiers’ musette knapsacks for customers to carry bread home in. It also does mail order.