French Bakers Keeping Art Of Bread-Making Alive

Robert Haumonte has been a baker all of his life, starting at age 14. To look at his ruddy face and muscled shoulders, you’d think he was a farmer until you catch sight of the hands flat-fingered and square, with the pale sheen acquired from working all day, six days a week, with wheat flour.

Artisan bakers such as Haumonte are vital to the French habit of consuming baguettes at breakfast, lunch and dinner - more bread than any other European nation.

From medieval times, bread has been strictly controlled in France and the price of plain white bread is still subsidized today, so a baguette costs less than 5 francs, or about 80 cents. The French are adamant in preferring a white loaf (“They don’t know what’s good for them,” Haumonte says).

Haumonte comes to our home to fire up our centuries-old bread oven, a mystery to us when we first found it hidden in an outhouse inhabited by hens. I spotted a characteristic half-moon iron door, opened it, and there was the classic shallow vault and circular floor about three yards across.

But what about the flue? I swiftly displaced the birds and set a light to some logs to find out. Flames roared out of the oven mouth like a dragon, disappearing up a chimney built outside and in front of the oven door. How on earth could the bread be baked inside?

Haumonte solved all that. First he swept the ash from the flat floor of fire bricks, then he spread carefully dried branches and set them alight with newspaper. Long, slow heating of at least three hours is best so the bricks warm evenly and retain their heat as long as possible.

More logs are added as needed until the bricks of the vault, dark at the start, sear white and clean as the soot burns off at 550 degrees or more. Then Haumonte rakes out any remaining glowing ashes and wipes the oven floor with a quick swirl of wet rag on a long pole.

The bread itself, meanwhile, has been rising nicely in the warmth of a shelf behind the chimney. Some 10 hours earlier I’d watched Haumonte mix the four ingredients for classic baguette - flour, water, salt and yeast -in the form of levain, a soft, fluffy sponge of dough kept back from the previous day’s batch. He had kneaded them on the wooden work surface to a deceptively soft, elastic mass that required considerable force to manipulate.

After about five hours, when the dough had doubled in bulk, he tipped it out and kneaded it again to knock out the air. The dough seemed almost to have a life of its own, and Haumonte explained that flour and yeast have a symbiotic relationship, with the yeast feeding off the sugars in the flour and the flour developing a rich flavor in contact with the yeast.

“Good bread must rise slowly,” he insists. “Never try to rush it.” Now he cuts the dough in chunks, weighing each one on an ancient brass scale to be sure it checks in at the legal 14-plus ounces.

It is in shaping and raising the loaves that Haumonte’s full skill comes into play. He takes a chunk of dough and with gestures almost too swift to follow, he pats, folds, rolls and seals the loaves, elongating them for baguettes and flattening, then folding them for a fendu or broken shape.

For raising the loaves, there’s no fuss with baskets or cylindrical metal molds; Haumonte simply lays the loaves on a dish towel, pleating it to separate each loaf.

After long, slow rising of at least three hours, each loaf is rolled onto the peel, the long-handled wooden shovel for placing the bread in the oven. Final gestures include slashing with a razor so the bread puffs evenly, or cutting and pulling open the sides for an ear of wheat, or snipping the top for hedgehog spines.

Then into the oven goes the bread, with another rapid, expert jerk to deposit it directly on the hot bricks. It is the bricks, plus steam from a drenched cloth set to one side of the oven, which gives wood-baked bread its crisp, dry crust.

Baking is not only physically trying - a traditional bakehouse is routinely more than 100 degrees - but many bakers are forced to retire with eczema or asthma caused by constant contact with flour.

The hours are wearing, too. For most of his life, Haumonte has worked from midnight until noon, sleeping in the afternoons. Social life? He looks surprised. “C’est un bel metier (It’s a great calling),” he says. Clearly, that is enough.

Ear of Wheat

One of Haumonte’s favorite loaves is shaped like an ear of wheat, perfect for breaking into individual crispy rolls. He uses plain white dough, but I like to add some whole-wheat flour for nutty flavor.

1/4 cup butter

3 tablespoons honey

2 cups lukewarm water

1 tablespoon (1/3 ounce) active dry yeast

3 cups stone-ground whole-wheat flour

3 cups unbleached flour, more if needed

1 tablespoon salt

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in honey and 1/4 cup lukewarm water. Sprinkle over yeast and leave until dissolved, about 5 minutes.

Place flours on work surface with salt. Make large well in center. Add dissolved yeast and remaining water. With fingertips, mix ingredients in well. Using pastry scraper, gradually draw in flour and mix it with liquid ingredients with other hand to form smooth dough. It should be soft and slightly sticky. If very sticky, work in more flour.

Sprinkle work surface with flour and knead dough, pushing it away from you with one hand and holding down one side with other. Peel dough from work surface, give it a quarter turn and continue kneading until very smooth and elastic, 5 to 7 minutes. Add flour sparingly, as dough becomes less sticky during kneading and should be soft and pliable.

Shape dough into ball. Transfer to oiled bowl and flip dough so top is oiled. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Leave dough to rise in warm place until doubled in bulk, 1-1/2 hours.

Turn dough onto lightly floured work surface and knead just to knock out air, 15 to 20 seconds. Cut dough with knife into 2 equal pieces. Flour hands and pat 1 piece of dough into a 12- by 6-inch rectangle. Starting with long side, roll rectangle into cylinder. Pinch overlap to seal it and form a seam.

With palms, roll cylinder, stretching it to a 20-inch log. Flour dish towel generously and set loaf, seam upwards, at one side. Pleat towel along side of the loaf. Shape other loaf and set it on towel against the pleats. Cover loaves with dry dish towel and let rise in warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Roll 1 loaf onto oiled baking sheet so seam is downwards. With large scissors, make V-shaped cut about halfway through loaf, 2 to 3 inches from one end. Pull point of dough outwards from loaf. Make second cut 2 to 3 inches from first on other side of loaf. Repeat cuts and you will see the wheat ear take shape. Repeat with other loaf.

Bake loaves at 425 degrees until well browned and bottoms sound hollow when tapped, 25 to 30 minutes. Eat when very fresh.

Yield: 2 loaves.