They say you just can't get a good baguette in Paris anymore. That crusty pillar of the French family dinner has collapsed into crumbs; a gastronomic era is over. Fortunately, we don't live there. We Montréalais have made the wiser choice to reside in a city served by local mini-chain La Première Moisson, purveyors of lovely loaves from ficelles to fesses. And while they might not be as ubiquitous as 7th-arrondissement boulangeries, the company's 15 outlets make it relatively easy to pop in nightly for our daily bread.
La Première Moisson (literally, "first harvest") is founded on the somewhat self-contradictory concept of providing artisanal-quality foods in wide distribution. Artisanal, a word that has been tripping off foodie tongues lately, relies heavily on that manufactured myth about "the way things used to be," and runs counter to convenience and easy accessibility. It has also come to mean less processed and more flavorful (usually), which very often means more expensive, too. Première Moisson, however, does seem to straddle all these apparent oppositions, and occupies an emerging niche. They make a really, really good baguette, it's available all over Montréal, and it comes not only with excellent service but a perfectly reasonable price ($1.85) as well.
I buy bread roughly every other day from the PM shop at Marché Maisonneuve in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. If I time it right, the bread is still warm as the cheery counter staff hand it over, and though my home is a scant two blocks away, I nearly always rip off a chunk for the return trip. The perfection of these baguettes is in that elusive evanescence - a few hours of textural bliss. The crust is thin, brittle, and aromatic, almost like munching through toasted light bulbs, in a good way. The crumb within gives great chew and offers as much toothsome taste as the exterior itself: no fluffy pap here. The next day, post-moisture transfer from inside to out, the remaining stump is denser, longer-chewing, and great as café-au-lait dunk or hummus scoop. Not quite so transcendent, but an acceptable morning-after usage.
Unlike smaller, perhaps more truly artisanal bakers, La Première Moisson fills that space where accessibility, variety, affordability, and consistently high quality intersect.
La Premiere Moisson also offers gorgeous classic pastries, good-quality charcuterie, and a wide range of prepared and packaged foods, not to mention some attractive spaces for sitting down with a good coffee. The Gare Centrale outlet is a great option for train travelers -- I recommend the roast-pork sandwich and an oaty energy bar for a VIA Rail trip to Toronto. But it is the company's breads -- some 40 in all -- that are the focus. They range from savoury to sweet, including multi-grain, organic, dinner loaves, and breakfast brioche. And, of course, my one true love, the baguette. Monthly specials -- like raspberry bread or tomato and parmesan focaccia also rotate through for ongoing variety.
Unlike smaller, perhaps more truly artisanal bakers, La Première Moisson fills that space where accessibility, variety, affordability, and consistently high quality intersect. They are currently branching into grocery-store distribution and specialty-food shop kiosks, where it remains to be seen what new mass-market exigencies take hold. On the human front, the company is family-run and founded on a high-profile series of new-world-order values. Outlets are partnerships, rather than franchises; food production follows slower, less technologically influenced processes; environmental and nutritional safety is nurtured. Knowing all this makes my baguette taste even better, I think. For today's conscious-consumption market, La Premiere Moisson offers food that's good in the mouth and good in the head.
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David Szanto is a food writer and consultant based in Montréal.
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