On a breakfast table in a French family, nothing is more important than fresh, tasty bread. French families buy fresh bread from boulangeries, the French word for bakeries, every morning. That means a typical baking day usually starts at 4:00 am and ends at noon. You would also be surprised at the number of independent boulangeries in cities, towns, and small villages. Among the dozens of types of French bread, baguette and croissant are what Taiwanese people are most familiar with. Baguette, literally meaning “a stick”, has golden-brown crust, with ivory-cream center, cereal aroma, and soft, chewy dough. In 1993, the French government enacted a law to protect the quality of “the pride of France.” The law states that a real baguette has to be made with wheat flour, water, salt, yeast, and nothing else. No additives or preservatives are allowed, which means it goes stale within 24 hours. A standard baguette is 250-300 grams in weight and 55 to 65 centimeters in length. Legend has it that it was Napoleon who contributed to the shape of baguette. He asked bakers to make a “stick-like” bread to make it easier for soldiers to carry their bread around down their pants. Warm and buttery, croissant is a common French breakfast food at the weekend. Typical ingredients include flour, yeast, milk, butter, egg, and salt. An important process is that the butter has to be put between the layers of dough but not to be incorporated into the dough. There are countless legends about the origin of this pastry. The most widespread one is associated with the Battle of Vienna. In 1683, Vienna was under siege by Turkish army. The Turks were trying to dig underground tunnels. However, bakers working in the middle of the night heard the digging and alerted Austrian soldiers, who had enough time to stop the digging and defeat the Turks. To celebrate the victory, bakers in Vienna made a pastry in the shape of crescents, a thin, curved shape they saw on Turkish flags, and they called the pastry “Kipferl”, the German word for “crescent”. When Austrian princess Marie Antoinette came to France and married King Louis XVI in 1770, she introduced to this country her favorite pasty, which came to be known as croissant in French.