What do you think?
Bread of Three Rivers: The Story of a French Loaf
The author's passion for French bread takes her on fascinating quest for the basic ingredients found in her favorite breads.
242 pages, Hardcover
First published November 21, 2000
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 11, 2019
Interesting carving of the components of what is bread - good bread, sandwich bread, French bread, and pain trots rivieres. Lots of details which I didn't follow that closely, so probably helpful that they were repeated. Pictures would have been wonderful for some of the locations visited but that might have defeated the word pictures Sara worked so hard to create. Liked her characterization of the people she worked with while tracing the journee.
February 10, 2020
Salt, wheat, and yeast all seem so simple and obvious. After reading this book, you'll never take what goes into making a baguette for granted.
January 4, 2022
Interesting, especially the chapter on salt.
January 7, 2010
Comparing this to "A Year In Provence" is a joke, isn't it? This isn't a "gee, aren't the French cute and grumpy" sort of book. While this book does have charm in its portrayals of the people she interviews,a good deal of it is taken up by technical descriptions of how yeast is made, how drinking water is processed, etc. The sort of person who loves a Mayle book's eyes will glaze over.
Truthfully, I found Taber's detailed descriptions a bit hard to focus on myself--I think she could have found ways to simplify what she learned. And sometimes when she's musing in what she feels is a deep and meaningful way, she sounds pretentious.
Most important of all, where is SOME kind of recipe for french bread? Where is Taber with her hands deep in dough, trying to recreate the experience?
The creative spark that takes those ingredients she describes and turns them into something beyond the ordinary is missing in this book.
Truthfully, I found Taber's detailed descriptions a bit hard to focus on myself--I think she could have found ways to simplify what she learned. And sometimes when she's musing in what she feels is a deep and meaningful way, she sounds pretentious.
Most important of all, where is SOME kind of recipe for french bread? Where is Taber with her hands deep in dough, trying to recreate the experience?
The creative spark that takes those ingredients she describes and turns them into something beyond the ordinary is missing in this book.
September 8, 2009
I love the idea of this book, but the reality just didn't do it for me. I expected the book to be more about the search for the perfect loaf of bread, but the author had basically discovered the bread she wanted to profile from the beginning, so the book was more about the technical aspects of the bread and its ingredients. I think that this could have been very interesting, but it just wasn't. I never wanted to read the book even though the writing was good, and when I realized that it felt more like a burden I needed to push through, I decided to abandon it (take that, OCD!). Maybe I'll return to this next year when my sister and I begin our year of bread.
December 22, 2009
A little chemistry - some geopolitical issues - a bit of cuisine - and some agriculture. It all adds up to a delightful read from an author who wanted to get the bottom of what exactly makes a wonderful loaf of French bread. Is is the yeast? The salt? The water? The wheat (much of which, it turns out, comes from Nebraska)? Or is it just French traditional savoir-faire? A bit of all that, as the author discovers in conversations with salt farmers, hydro-engineers, bakers, and others involved in the making of French bread.
January 27, 2014
Actually a 3.5 star rating; I enjoyed the author's journey of discovery that her idealized loaf of French bread consisting of four simple ingredients, flour, water, salt and yeast was much more a discovery of culture, science, modern society and life, especially of what makes each of us different but ultimately the same. Any reader of John McPhee and perhaps William Least Heat-Moon should find this book enjoyable.
Currently Reading
December 22, 2008Salt, water, wheat & yeast...
October 4, 2009
makes you want to go out and find a good bread bakery or better yet, take a trip to France and find a good bread bakery.
Want to Read
November 22, 2009I took a workshop on the Personal Essay with Sara this weekend. Am looking forward to reading her book!
December 31, 2014
Good gathering of information; the writing varies and is sometimes clumsy.
January 17, 2015
In a search for good bread, Ms. Taber travels to France not only visiting a baker but also following the sources of the ingredients: salt, wheat, water and yeast.
July 12, 2009
90% boring, 10% charming, but I will hear what the book club has to say.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews