World History Class: French Revolution Baking Project

From Paul-Michael Ogburn, History Teacher:

In World History, our 10th graders have been studying the French Revolution. Our students got to experience the divisions that drove the revolution first-hand by baking three types of breads that each represented a different class.

Our peasant group made famine bread, our version using rye flour, wheat bran, and vinegar (real famine bread was stretched with whatever coarse grain was on hand, and sometimes even sawdust). Our second bourgeoisie group baked Pain d'Égalité, the "equality bread" the revolutionary government actually mandated in 1793, trying to force rich and poor to eat the same loaf, an idea that ended up satisfying no one. The third group was our nobles who made rich, buttery rolls studded with dried fruit, the kind of luxury only the nobility could ever hope to afford. Tasting all three side-by-side gave students a stark look at the inequalities that fueled a revolution.

The class has also been learning some fun facts about the French Revolution & cake! They didn’t have cake as we know it today. References to “cake” at the time would have actually meant a sweetened, yeasted bread such as brioche. Marie Antoinette, in fact, never said “Let them eat cake.” The phrase first appeared in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions book. In the book, Rousseau mentioned “a great princess” who supposedly remarked that if the peasants had no bread, they should eat brioche. Rousseau, a critic of the monarchy and advocate for radical social reform, likely included the line to increase division and highlight the inequality and obliviousness of the elite rather than to quote a real royal. What an effective piece of propaganda, since it’s still commonly repeated over 200 years later!