Americans Toast French Flour

Some bakers, and bread-lovers with gluten sensitivity, swear by the more expensive import

- Alina Dizik

U.S. bakers are discovering a new trick for crusty baguettes, flaky croissants and airy loaves of bread: an ingredient produced thousands of miles away.

Hobby bakers are skipping their local grocery store and tracking down flour made in France at bakeries and online retailers. Many say the imported flour doesn't trigger their sensitivity to gluten like domestic flour does. Others tout a superior product.

Proponents say there's plenty to love about French flour. Justin Ward is a France-based chef and baker who spends time in the U.S. consulting for bakeries and restaurants and hosts cooking classes. He started selling three kinds of French flour in the U.S. this year from Minoterie Girardeau.

Many of his customers are novice bakers looking to re-create French recipes. Some purchase his imported flour after finding their recipes flopped with a U.S. product, which tends to have more gluten, he says.

"If you try to make the same French recipe and use American flour, you are going to find you've made concrete," he says.

Armin Alaedini is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University who researches gluten sensitivity. He says he has anecdotally heard of travelers to Germany, Pakistan and Switzerland having less sensitivity to gluten when eating local breads.

The flour in the U.S. differs slightly on a molecular level, but research on the topic is scant partly because "it's difficult to pinpoint that the symptoms that you have or didn't have are because of a single thing you did or did not eat," he says.

Flour power