As nation goes hungry, North Korea’s elite develop a taste for baguettes

By Kyle Lawrence Mullin Mar 30, 2015

As secretive as North Korea attempts to be, it regularly fails to keep wraps on the indulgences of the Hermit Kingdom’s rich and powerful. From former leader to Kim Jong-il’s love of cognac and sushi, to his son Kim Kong-un’s love for fast cars and fine French cheese, the extravagances of the reclusive nation’s elite have been widely reported.

Now, another French specialty is whetting the appetites of the DPRK’s elite: the baguette. That’s right, those wholesome, freshly baked loaves have become the treat of choice for anyone who’s anyone in Pyongyang these days.

According to Choson Sinbo, a DPRK-friendly newspaper in Japan, the regime has allowed the staff of one of its factories travel abroad on a mission to hone their baking skills.

The trip is not without precedence: last year, AFP reported that top Hermit Kingdom chefs planned to make a similar trek to France’s Ecole Nationale d’Industrie Laitiere, which specializes in the hard mountain cheeses North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is said to favor.” However, those North Korean culinary experts were refused because the head of school said, “We are a school that operates on a human scale.”

CNN says there is “no word yet on whether they’ve succeeded” with the baguette mission. But that report did cite The Great Leader’s other recent worldly food forays, such as his recent decree that a DPRK factory begin to produce chewing gum. The article also noted more dire details about North Korea’s food standards, like the fact that The World Food Programme recently declared that rations for the isolated nation’s general population are at a three-year low, with an average of only 250 grams per person per day which is, coincidently, the average weight of one of the baguettes that North Korea’s privileged elite hope to snack on whenever they please.