6 ms·

Baking with the Bread Whisperers of Paris

48 points by bootload 9y ago

dk1138 9y ago
This article is really doesn't tell me much about the bread-making process, the people who make it, or what the author actually did while on-site besides touch a hunk of dough. Was expecting more, especially from Saveur.
- neaden 9y ago
  Agreed. It did make me hungry for bread though. I have a friend who is a baker here (in the US) but I imagine it is quite different then working in France. The bakery she works does make bread, but the vast majority of what they sell are different kinds of sweets. I think there is a much lower demand for fresh bread here.
  - CocaKoala 9y ago
    I spent some time post-college working as a baker; our primary output was bread (with some cookies, cakes, and brownies etc as well), but the vast majority of our bread was sold to local restaurants. If you're running a bakery that's selling direct to consumers, I can imagine that it would be pretty hard to make ends meet on bread alone. This had the curious result that when I was in Carmel-By-The-Sea a few weeks ago, I went in to what was ostensibly called a "bakery" and tried to buy a baguette, only to be told that they only sold pastries and cookies and didn't make bread at all. I was extraordinarily put out by this.
    - ceratopisan 9y ago
      Selling to restaurants is reliable but low-profit, because you're selling in bulk. Selling direct to consumers has a much better margin. Margins are not high in baking to begin with, so it helps. The direct demand can't be scheduled as easily, though, and baking bread is always at least hours of prep. This is something that is a balance for any bakery - front end and back end operations; I have yet to find someplace that didn't do both.
    - smacktoward 9y ago
      Was it a French bakery, by chance? The French have traditionally distinguished between bakeries that bake breads and rolls (which they call a boulangerie) and bakeries that bake pastries and sweets (a pâtisserie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A2tisserie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A2tisserie). I dunno how much that distinction still holds in modern France in the era of the supermarket, of course. But it wouldn't be surprising to a see an upmarket French-inspired U.S. bakery using it as a way to signal authenticity.
      - CocaKoala 9y ago
        It was called "Carmel Bakery", so it didn't label itself as either a boulangerie OR a patisserie. It was very misleading.
        schoen 9y ago
        About 400 miles to the north, there used to be a palindromic bakery (the Yreka Bakery): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yreka,_California#Palindromes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yreka,_California#Palindromes
noahmbarr 9y ago
Ghostery counted 95 libraries -- without blocking, it literally cripples my MBPr on load.
- devopsproject 9y ago
  > cripples my MBPr on load AMD E-350 laptop from 2011 loads fine. Something is terribly wrong with your computer or your config.
  - keithpeter 9y ago
    Thinkpad X200/4Gb/Chromium 57/OpenBSD: takes around 20 seconds to load (not very good adsl) then scrolls fine and smooth. No add-ins.
patrickg_zill 9y ago
If I can find the recipe I will post it , there is a great French style bread I have made in the past. It takes a lot of elapsed time but not much extra time in terms of what you have to do. And the results are sublime.
- patrickg_zill 9y ago
  Not "exactly" the same recipe, but close. I remember that I let it rise 3 times and punched it down and re-kneaded (not just the stretch-and-fold), separated by maybe 45 minutes each time. I seem to recall that I used King Arthur brand flour (no GMO's) and used bread flour with a smaller amount of thoroughly mixed in whole wheat flour. Using the oven, I pre-heated to 375F and used a spray bottle to mist water onto all sides of the oven. Another suggestion of putting a cup of water into a cast iron skillet placed on the bottom rung of the oven, would probably work also. The purpose is not to dry out the crust so much that it becomes uncomfortably hard. http://www.tastebook.com/blog/recipes/2699447-Pain-l-Ancienne-Rustic-Bread/?redirect=true http://www.tastebook.com/blog/recipes/2699447-Pain-l-Ancienn...
kendallpark 9y ago
During college I did something similar to what the author did--volunteered at a local bakery to learn the secrets of bread making. That volunteer work lead to a summer job. A few sporadic notes from the experience: - Good bread is less about secret ingredients and more about process. - Milling flour on site was how we made moist loaves with little to no added oil. The natural oils in the wheat go rancid quickly after the wheat is milled. Similarly, nutrient levels tank. - Bakery hours are awful. In order to have fresh loaves for the day, the sponge person is up before 3am mixing everything for the first rise. - Breadmaking is an art. Ingredient proportions are more like guidelines and the actual amount of flour/water/etc can vary wildly with the weather/climate. - Random skill acquisition: I can "dual-wield" loaves of bread on the kneading table (aka knead two loaves at the same time for higher throughput). Also I can roll rolls. Which is harder than you'd think. Zero regrets with the experience. A few days ago I realized we forgot to buy buns for the pulled pork sandwiches we were making and I was able to look up a recipe and make my own from scratch. The pulled pork was good, but people flipped out about how fantastic the buns were.
- keithpeter 9y ago
  Interesting: so when you say 'no added oil' you mean just the fresh-milled flour, salt, water and sourdough/yeast?
  - Pulcinella 9y ago
    Pretty sure GP means yes. Bread literally just needs flour, salt, yeast, and water. White flour has little to no oil. Whole wheat flour does but the oils to go rancid too quickly. You don't need just-milled whole wheat flour to make good whole wheat bread. White flour doesn't need any added oil. Edit: Anyone interested in learning to cook, Americas Test Kitchen Cooking School (And also Cooks Illustrated Cooking Science and Science of Good Cooking) would probably be good for much of HN's audience. It is much more of a cooking "textbook" than most cookbooks. It explains what you are doing and why you do it instead of just a big list of recipes. There is also Modernist Cuisine but those are really pricey.
    - 9y ago
paromi 9y ago
nice baking video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUuKstAWof4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUuKstAWof4
FoeNyx 9y ago
> a meal without bread is unthinkable in France. It's an overstatement, it's totally thinkable (and in fact people often don't eat any bread depending on the kind of meal).
gumby 9y ago
The bread under discussion is itself part of a revolution. Since the invention of the steam oven a century before, French bread was the insipid, if iconic, industrial baguette. TOday's loaves are the result of a 1980s a reactionary movement in bread baking led by Lionel Poilâne. Poilâne revived artisanal bread, much more delicious and satisfying, which now we take for granted. (Amusingly people liked his bread so much that there were always queues outside the bakery in the morning. In the Soviet Union they printed photos of this in the newspaper to show that even in the West there were bread queues, so all the claims of a better life there must be propaganda.) The article also mentions Guy Savoy: his restaurant has three stars which is presumably why he is name-dropped. What they should have mentioned is that when you eat there, not only does the sommelier pair wine with your course, but a bread "sommelier" comes by with a special cart and recommends specific breads for each course as well. Poilâne's shop in the 7th retains a lot of anachronisms: walk in and everybody greets each other, and the ladies behind the counter liked to hand little treats to my son when he was small.
- joshrotenberg 9y ago
  We were in Paris on vacation a couple of weeks ago and visited Poilâne. Wow. Lots of variety in this tiny shop, and everything we tried was amazing. We ended up going back the same day for more.

48 points by bootload 9y ago

This article is really doesn't tell me much about the bread-making process, the people who make it, or what the author actually did while on-site besides touch a hunk of dough. Was expecting more, especially from Saveur.

neaden 9y ago
Agreed. It did make me hungry for bread though. I have a friend who is a baker here (in the US) but I imagine it is quite different then working in France. The bakery she works does make bread, but the vast majority of what they sell are different kinds of sweets. I think there is a much lower demand for fresh bread here.
- CocaKoala 9y ago
  I spent some time post-college working as a baker; our primary output was bread (with some cookies, cakes, and brownies etc as well), but the vast majority of our bread was sold to local restaurants. If you're running a bakery that's selling direct to consumers, I can imagine that it would be pretty hard to make ends meet on bread alone. This had the curious result that when I was in Carmel-By-The-Sea a few weeks ago, I went in to what was ostensibly called a "bakery" and tried to buy a baguette, only to be told that they only sold pastries and cookies and didn't make bread at all. I was extraordinarily put out by this.
  - ceratopisan 9y ago
    Selling to restaurants is reliable but low-profit, because you're selling in bulk. Selling direct to consumers has a much better margin. Margins are not high in baking to begin with, so it helps. The direct demand can't be scheduled as easily, though, and baking bread is always at least hours of prep. This is something that is a balance for any bakery - front end and back end operations; I have yet to find someplace that didn't do both.
  - smacktoward 9y ago
    Was it a French bakery, by chance? The French have traditionally distinguished between bakeries that bake breads and rolls (which they call a boulangerie) and bakeries that bake pastries and sweets (a pâtisserie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A2tisserie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A2tisserie). I dunno how much that distinction still holds in modern France in the era of the supermarket, of course. But it wouldn't be surprising to a see an upmarket French-inspired U.S. bakery using it as a way to signal authenticity.
    - CocaKoala 9y ago
      It was called "Carmel Bakery", so it didn't label itself as either a boulangerie OR a patisserie. It was very misleading.
      - schoen 9y ago
        About 400 miles to the north, there used to be a palindromic bakery (the Yreka Bakery): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yreka,_California#Palindromes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yreka,_California#Palindromes

noahmbarr 9y ago

Ghostery counted 95 libraries -- without blocking, it literally cripples my MBPr on load.

devopsproject 9y ago
> cripples my MBPr on load AMD E-350 laptop from 2011 loads fine. Something is terribly wrong with your computer or your config.
- keithpeter 9y ago
  Thinkpad X200/4Gb/Chromium 57/OpenBSD: takes around 20 seconds to load (not very good adsl) then scrolls fine and smooth. No add-ins.

patrickg_zill 9y ago

If I can find the recipe I will post it , there is a great French style bread I have made in the past. It takes a lot of elapsed time but not much extra time in terms of what you have to do. And the results are sublime.

patrickg_zill 9y ago
Not "exactly" the same recipe, but close. I remember that I let it rise 3 times and punched it down and re-kneaded (not just the stretch-and-fold), separated by maybe 45 minutes each time. I seem to recall that I used King Arthur brand flour (no GMO's) and used bread flour with a smaller amount of thoroughly mixed in whole wheat flour. Using the oven, I pre-heated to 375F and used a spray bottle to mist water onto all sides of the oven. Another suggestion of putting a cup of water into a cast iron skillet placed on the bottom rung of the oven, would probably work also. The purpose is not to dry out the crust so much that it becomes uncomfortably hard. http://www.tastebook.com/blog/recipes/2699447-Pain-l-Ancienne-Rustic-Bread/?redirect=true http://www.tastebook.com/blog/recipes/2699447-Pain-l-Ancienn...

kendallpark 9y ago

During college I did something similar to what the author did--volunteered at a local bakery to learn the secrets of bread making. That volunteer work lead to a summer job. A few sporadic notes from the experience: - Good bread is less about secret ingredients and more about process. - Milling flour on site was how we made moist loaves with little to no added oil. The natural oils in the wheat go rancid quickly after the wheat is milled. Similarly, nutrient levels tank. - Bakery hours are awful. In order to have fresh loaves for the day, the sponge person is up before 3am mixing everything for the first rise. - Breadmaking is an art. Ingredient proportions are more like guidelines and the actual amount of flour/water/etc can vary wildly with the weather/climate. - Random skill acquisition: I can "dual-wield" loaves of bread on the kneading table (aka knead two loaves at the same time for higher throughput). Also I can roll rolls. Which is harder than you'd think. Zero regrets with the experience. A few days ago I realized we forgot to buy buns for the pulled pork sandwiches we were making and I was able to look up a recipe and make my own from scratch. The pulled pork was good, but people flipped out about how fantastic the buns were.

keithpeter 9y ago
Interesting: so when you say 'no added oil' you mean just the fresh-milled flour, salt, water and sourdough/yeast?
- Pulcinella 9y ago
  Pretty sure GP means yes. Bread literally just needs flour, salt, yeast, and water. White flour has little to no oil. Whole wheat flour does but the oils to go rancid too quickly. You don't need just-milled whole wheat flour to make good whole wheat bread. White flour doesn't need any added oil. Edit: Anyone interested in learning to cook, Americas Test Kitchen Cooking School (And also Cooks Illustrated Cooking Science and Science of Good Cooking) would probably be good for much of HN's audience. It is much more of a cooking "textbook" than most cookbooks. It explains what you are doing and why you do it instead of just a big list of recipes. There is also Modernist Cuisine but those are really pricey.
  - 9y ago

paromi 9y ago

nice baking video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUuKstAWof4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUuKstAWof4

FoeNyx 9y ago

> a meal without bread is unthinkable in France. It's an overstatement, it's totally thinkable (and in fact people often don't eat any bread depending on the kind of meal).

gumby 9y ago

The bread under discussion is itself part of a revolution. Since the invention of the steam oven a century before, French bread was the insipid, if iconic, industrial baguette. TOday's loaves are the result of a 1980s a reactionary movement in bread baking led by Lionel Poilâne. Poilâne revived artisanal bread, much more delicious and satisfying, which now we take for granted. (Amusingly people liked his bread so much that there were always queues outside the bakery in the morning. In the Soviet Union they printed photos of this in the newspaper to show that even in the West there were bread queues, so all the claims of a better life there must be propaganda.) The article also mentions Guy Savoy: his restaurant has three stars which is presumably why he is name-dropped. What they should have mentioned is that when you eat there, not only does the sommelier pair wine with your course, but a bread "sommelier" comes by with a special cart and recommends specific breads for each course as well. Poilâne's shop in the 7th retains a lot of anachronisms: walk in and everybody greets each other, and the ladies behind the counter liked to hand little treats to my son when he was small.

joshrotenberg 9y ago
We were in Paris on vacation a couple of weeks ago and visited Poilâne. Wow. Lots of variety in this tiny shop, and everything we tried was amazing. We ended up going back the same day for more.