A more believable explanation is that the baguette debuted in 1919, after a new labor law prohibited bakers from working between the hours of ten p.m. and four a.m., presumably to give them time to sleep. The problem was that if bakers wanted to have bread to sell to their early-morning customers, they had to come up with a loaf they could bake quickly. The fast-cooking baguette was the solution, and it became so popular that, along with the Eiffel Tower and the beret, it’s probably one of the first things we think of when we think of France.
