Baguette

As their French name suggests, these long, thin loaves of bread do look like ‘little rods’. The French have such a fondness for their baguette, with its crunchy golden-brown crust and snow-white crumb, that it appears daily or twice daily on every table throughout France. Traditionally, baguettes were not baked in a tin but shaped into a thin loaf and left to rise between the folds of a cloth. Before baking, the loaf is slashed in its characteristic diagonal pattern.