Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [96]
I have never been much of a fan of the baguette, the long skinny loaf usually known abroad as French bread, but I became a fanatic of Ganachaud’s upmarket version. It is not only the best I have ever eaten but I am scared of it because once started I can’t stop. It is twice the price of a regulation baguette, which has been no deterrent to the sales.
There was a delicious chewiness to the crust and a pleasing consistency to the crumb and, much as I love butter, it didn’t need any. The flûte was no mere support for cheese but could stand very nicely on its own.
“No serious artisan need ever worry about competition from the factory,” said Ganachaud, “although if technology can make a bread with the same savor, I am not against it. However, the industrial bakery cannot furnish a bread that is really fresh.”
He was referring mainly to the baguette whose short but happy life is responsible for those bread lines throughout France three times a day. The round loaf that was the peasant’s staff of life could be counted upon to remain edibly fresh for several days. Big as a pillow, it took a while for all the moisture to evaporate from the crumb. The svelte baguette has comparatively little crumb and it goes dry in no time flat. Ganachaud’s flûte has a crust porous enough for the moisture to come in as well as go out and consequently it remains fresh for a few hours more than the average. As long as you don’t ask the perishable to be forever, a quality baguette at its peak can be memorable.
The Japanese, anxious to acquire the best of the West, wanted to franchise his flûte. Ganachaud gave them his usual “On my conditions or No Go.” Not only would the bread have to be made according to his rigorous specifications, but the ovens had to be adjacent to every point of sale. They agreed and now there are sixteen outlets in Japan where you can buy an authentic flûte Gana thousands of miles from the rue de Ménilmontant.
Meanwhile Ganachaud has created an artisanal network throughout France. Twenty independent young bakers have three-year contracts with him that allow baking and advertising the flûte Gana in their establishments. The contracts are renewable for another three-year period after which the bakers can go on producing the flûte with no more commitment to him. It is an odd financial arrangement and rather like six years in holy orders, but profitable.
At breakneck speed, Ganachaud related a little of his past. He was born in southwest France in 1930. His father was a small farmer who plumped up the family income by baking and delivering big loaves of bread to other farm families around the countryside. Bernard supplied a helping hand from the age of eight, both at the kneading trough and on the delivery wagon.
While studying at a stern Jesuit academy in Bordeaux he continued to aid his father prepare the dough and make the dawn deliveries. He was an excellent student, wanted to become a lawyer, and somehow found time to be active in the Scouts. But a daily schedule of five a.m. until midnight was too much for his health to sustain. He dropped his studies and concentrated on being a baker, applying all his intelligence and intensity to one of the oldest métiers in the world.
The real killer was lack of sleep. For the customer to have fresh bread in the morning, the baker must observe the fermentation at a fixed period in the night pretty much like a sailor on the watch who can sleep for a few hours only before the next stretch of duty.
Ganachaud decided to break the servitude by harnessing cold to slow down the fermentation and thus allow himself an eight-hour night without interruption. It was a freedom he had never