Longer Than a Football Field: French Set World Record for Longest Baguette

Make baguette great again! The French have entered the Guinness Book of Records for making the world's longest baguette. They managed to take the title from the Italians, who set the previous record in 2019.  The baguette, which is about 235 times longer than a traditional baguette, was made in Surenay, a suburb of Paris, during an event of the French Confederation of Bakers and Pastry Chefs.

The baguette is 140.53 metres long, which is slightly longer than a football field.

After much work with the dough and almost 11 hours of baking, the team of 18 French bakers who took part in the Suresnes Baguette Show successfully coped with their task.

The dough was kneaded and shaped on site from 3am on Sunday morning, and then baked from 5am in front of the public in a mobile oven on wheels specially built for the event. It consisted of ingredients according to a traditional recipe: 90 kg of wheat flour, 60 litres of water, 1.2 kg of salt and 1.2 kg of yeast.

This record "appreciates the national symbol of our gastronomy, as well as the artisans who perpetuate its know-how," Mayor Guillaume Boudy said on the city's website. 

Part of this giant baguette was cut, spread with Nutella and then shared with the public. 

This achievement is a great source of pride for French bakers. And rightly so. The French baguette was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2022.  

"The record could not stay with the Italians," said one of the participants.

After baking, measuring and trying, the baguette, which is normally 60 centimetres in size, was distributed to the homeless.

The previous longest baguette, 132.62 metres, was made in the Italian city of Como in June 2019.