I was reading an article in Spanish that was posted on the Cihuatlan Facebook page about The Magical History of birote or bolillo. My translation wasn't going too well so tried to find it in English and sure enough it was on the Guadalajara Reporter, a Blog and a few other places. The story goes that the origin dates back to 1864, when a Belgian named Camille Pirrotte arrived in Guadalajara as a sergeant in the French army. Pirrote was charged with teaching the locals to make French bread, but he soon realized that he could not find yeast anywhere in the city. Pirrote improvised and left the dough out to ferment for a few days, which turned out to be a fine substitute.
It sounds like some bread makers organization wanted to patent the name Birote because with the elevation and climate of Guadalajara this bread could not be duplicated anywhere else in Mexico. The patent was going to be for Jalisco similar to the Tequila name. But we are at sea level and in Jalisco so bread made here should not be the same as that made in Guadalajara. All descriptions say crunchy outside and soft inside like French bread but I don't consider any local bolillo crunchy. Crunchy only in Guadalajara? Other descriptions also call it salty and I find those here very bland.
2 comments:
I agree with your assessment. They remind me of hamburger buns.
I guess I didn't buy enough of them when living next to Lake Chapala to make a comparison. I may have become unexcited about them here so didn't bother there?
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