In early 1950s France, the family meal still revolved around slowly fading restrictions. There was no talk of chic starter-main-dessert, but of a domestic rhythm: the evening soup that brings everyone together and nourishes on a budget, the Sunday meal that is carefully prepared when the market is generous, the jars and preserves the housewife stores away 'to have a head start,' and the hot drink that punctuates the day. Everything revolves around economy, bread, and what is kept for lean days.

Nothing goes to waste: stale bread becomes panade, fresh bread accompanies everything. In these years of recovery, bread remained the staple food, the one they blessed to find white again after years of deprivation.