"How can you tell how good bread is without tasting it?"

"Not the smell, not the look, but the sound of the crust.

Listen.
[bread crackles]
Oh, symphony of crackle.
Only great bread sound this way."
~ Colette on breads in Disney's Ratatouille

I love buying bread from the bakeries. It's probably one of the simplest pleasures of French life. I'll walk into a boulangerie and ask for a baguette, most of the times just a demi-baguette parceque it'll just be for me and I can't finish a whole baguette myself before it loses its nice crunch crust and it's soft airy insides. With the dozens of loaves of breads standing against the wall with their deliciously warm scent, I order my bread. The person behind the counter then twists a piece of paper around my bread and I watch with anticipation. I pay and take my new purchase out into the streets and back home. Once out into the streets, I smile with my new delicious purchase. What’s the first thing I do? Even before taking a bite out of it for a tiny taste, or to stave off my hungry George till I get home, I give my bread a bit of a squeeze. Not too hard that I crush into the supple airy center, but just hard enough to hear that “symphony of crackle”. As I hear the beautiful sounds that come from my bread, I begin to snack on my bread as I continue my walk home with the nice soundtrack of my regular boulangerie adventure found in my lovely loaf of fresh French bread.

*edit: French baguettes are really meant to be eaten that day. In fact, the sooner the better. Day old baguettes really aren't as good. It's sadly an unfortunate 180 from what it was the day you bought it...