July, 2004

Books written specifically for the working baker are somewhat hard to come by. Publishers are in the book selling business, and in the past few decades there just weren't that many bakers to sell books to. However, that has changed and we're starting to see publishers who see a growing market for artisan baking books, publishers that aren't fearful of detail or text, using lively photography that doesn't seem stuck in the 70s..

above, Frédéric Lalos prepares beer bread, brushing on a mixture of beer and rye flour.

Written in English and French, Le Pain - l'envers du décor Bread - behind the scenes is a remarkable book for the working baker, setting out the detail that gives Frédéric Lalos's bread its structure and character. Frédéric, the owner and baker at Le Quartier du Pain, is a revered baker in France. At the tender age of 26 he was awarded the title of Meilleur Ouvrier (Best Craftsman) in France, a prestige judged by his peers throughout the country, and the award is seen as a mark of excellence. After a period as the head baker for Lenôtre, he left to start on his own. And now, finally, a book that states plainly his methods and chosen ingredients without any attempt to hide behind design and glossy presentation. It's a working book, and I like it.

Recipes are given in metric, which makes adaptation and scaling easy to calculate. Dough temperatures are given throughout, and there is a welcome sense of precision and clarity in the method. The language used in the translations isn't always correct, though the mistakes are small and the meaning is still clear.

above, the blistered crust of a pain au levain, showing a good lift and tear in the loaf.

Nearly all of the recipes use a combination of commercial yeast and natural leaven, a practice that is common in many artisan bakeries as it uses the leaven as a form of natural 'improver' (increasing the shelf life, broadening the flavour in both the crust and crumb, and encouraging an irregular aeration in the crumb). Though increasingly, some artisan bakers avoid having any commercial yeast on the premise (let alone in the loaf), this book shows a method that allows bakers to improve quality without sacrificing too much production time.

The photography, by Moussa Elibrik, clearly shows crust detail and crumb structure, and most recipes are illustrated with step-by-step photographs that get in close to stay instructive as well as beautiful. The pictures have a loose, snapshot quality that gives the book a relaxed, intimate feel, and a sense that you're in 'Le Quartier du Pain' with Lalos. It’s a very useful book for the bakery bookshelf.

click picture to enlarge

Le Pain - l'envers du décor, by Frédéric Lalos
photographs by Moussa Elibrik
Les Editions de l'if, Paris, November 2003
Pages 256 pages
Text Bilingual French-English

available from
Les Editions de l'if
www.editionsdelif.com
1, Rue d'Enghien, 75010 Paris, France.
(Tel) 33 1 40 22 62 42 (Fax) 33 1 40 22 62 56

editionsdelif@editionsdelif.com

or from Amazon France click here