Le goût d'autrefois: Pain au levain et attachements nostalgiques dans la société contemporaine

From a point of view that is complementary to studies denouncing the exploitation of collective memory for commercial ends, this article concerns the individual appreciation of goods intended to seduce a mass market by means of nostalgic allusions. Basing itself on an ethnography of the marketing of bread by the multinational entreprise Le Pain Quotidien, this study explores the way the individual affect of nostalgia is articulated with nostalgia as a market strategy. By looking at the links between the commemoration of the past and individual sensuous experiences, it illustrates the forms of attachment which consumers develop towards products appealing to nostalgic memories. It also brings out in a new way the different temporalities that nostalgia creates within the framework of mass consumption.