Boudin the Easy Way

As much as it would have been really terrible to be an 18th century political prisoner – what with the iron shackles and festering musket wounds and your dungeon’s unforgiving stone floors – that bread and water deal couldn’t have been too bad.

Maybe it’s just me, but a thick slice of bread smeared with animal fat is hard to beat. Restaurants know this, for the most part. Why else does anyone go to Red Lobster? Not for the crustaceans. For the biscuits, those tasty, tasty biscuits.

And as lucky as we are to live in San Francisco, we’re even luckier that it’s the birthplace of some damn good sourdough bread. Namely: that of Boudin Bakery, famous for its Fisherman’s Wharf bread bowls that sop and sog with clam chowder.

Those who live here seem, though, to sometimes be under the same impression as tourists when it comes to snagging some Boudin: that you have to brave all the dead-eyed waterfront crowds to get some.

Think again! The main Boudin branch operates on the tiny corner of 10th and Geary, manufacturing sourdough loaves day in and day out for the smallest trickle of wanderers. It’s been there since 1906, making most of the Boudin bread you see everywhere else around the city.

And it’s cheap. Most people compare downing a pint of Guinness to a eating a loaf of bread, but I tend to work the opposite way. A baguette here is about the same price as a pint of the good stuff, is bound to last you longer, can be safely eaten in public, and contributes about the same amount to your burgeoning waistline. Munch on.

Boudin Bakery, Main Branch
399 10th Avenue
[Richmond]

Image Credit: Boudin Bakery