NEWS JUST IN: We have a new bread supplier! In France, this is quite a big event - one which has compelled me to write a blog post on the matter.

If there's one food I consumed very little of in Asia, it was bread. They don't really do bread very well there - it's laden with sugar and is often quite greasy. And don't even think about getting your hands on a brown loaf (you'll just get the same bread as if you hadn't asked).

I don't think we 'do' bread much better in England. Yes, we have nice artisan loaves (sprinkled with seeds and peppered with everything from chilli to cheese) - and those, I love! But we don't have a 'bread mentality' like they do across the Channel. In fact, I'd go as far as saying the British (no doubt under the influence of the Americans) have become a bit 'anti bread'.

You don't have to eat dinner with many people to find someone who claims to be gluten intolerant. You might even get someone on the same table who doesn't eat bread because they're on some kind of no-carbs diet. Well, today, I'm here to do a bit of advocacy work for bread. A bit like the French bread industry did a few years ago, when it was revealed that there'd been a 28% drop in bread consumption over the previous decade. (By most people's standards, there wasn't really anything to worry about - 98% of the population were still eating a lot each day, just not three whole baguettes per person, as was apparently the case at the start of the last century!).

The importance of bread is one of my favourite things about France. There's bread in the morning, bread with lunch (well, something's got to keep everyone going during their TWO HOUR lunch breaks!!), bread with chocolate at 4.30pm (okay, this is actually an after-school tradition, designed to keep kids happy until teatime, but it works rather well for grown-ups too!), and there's always scope for more bread with the evening meal.

Oh, and they mourn the passing of a bread. Yep, I did just say that. When bread goes stale, it becomes Pain Perdue - 'lost bread'. Awwwww!! But wipe away your tears - because it's that same stale bread that gets used for making French Toast (which apparently isn't actually French in its origin).

Even if they didn't invent it, I can see why the French might end up making a lot of French toast. French bread goes stale quickly. You have to eat it fast! Although maybe not three whole baguettes in a day. I guess this is to do with them using fewer preservatives in their loaves.

So how, as a self-respecting French person, do you make sure the loaf or baguette you're eating is soft and doughy, with a crispy shell (that stabs you in the gum if you bite it at a bad angle)? You take it from the shop straight to the table, that's how. And I can only assume that's where the idea for our local bread drive-through, La Pétrisée, came from. As far as I can see, it's not a chain - not yet, anyway. It's an independent boulangerie with a USP to d(r)i(v)e for! Even with a humongous Super U around the corner, it succeeds!

I love that there's a market demanding the freshest bread man can provide. There's not even time for parking a car and walking into a shop for these people - the bread comes first. And the sooner it's driven home, the better. I love the fact someone's taken an entrepreneurial risk in opening a bread drive-through too - they knew it'd work, because they know the French bread lover's mind! C'est genial!

But there is something very nice about queueing up for a baguette at a regular boulangerie, and then leaving with it, all lovely and warm and tucked under your arm (especially for an English girl masquerading as a French citizen). And that's why I'm pleased we've found a new boulangerie - a traditional place in the pretty little town of Saint Jouan, not far from where we live. What with that and La Pétrisée nearby, there'll be no French toast for us; we can have our bread AND eat it - fresh!