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Gourmet Food Gems In Paris - Part Ii
By Phil
Food is more of an art (and for some, a religion) in France, and if there's one thing the French know how to do well, it's food. So I knew I would be remiss in my duties if I did not go and seek out Paris's finest gastronomic glories for my readers of paris-eiffel-tower-news.com. Sampling the following is not optional – it's a must!!!
In Part I, I revealed to you the Raspail organic food open street market and the Lafayette gourmet food court. Now, I offer you two more of those Parisian gourmet food gems.
Real French Bread
In France, almost anyone will tell you that Poilane bread is the pinnacle of Parisian baking. First established 75 years ago, Poilane is now run by Lionel Poilane, who took over the business from his father about 30 years ago and boomed it: the shop sells 15,000 loaves of bread each day, i.e. 2.5% of all bread sold in Paris, by weight.
The secret of Poilane bread is steeped in tradition. Lionel himself conducted an extensive research project on the 'ethnography', as he put it himself, of his craft. Poilane bread is made from wheat grown only on farms employing sustainable techniques with sea salt from the French Atlantic Coast. It's baked for over an hour in Poilane's specially designed wood-burning ovens, and will easily keep for a week in its original white and green paper bag.
Poilane bread traces its heritage back to the genuine regional French bread, but the business is remarkably modern. Today, the family manages a new shop in London and a 'manufacture' on the outskirts of Paris producing the goods that are sold in more than 2,500 restaurants and shops in Paris alone, and about 20 countries around the world. Poilane is one of the few 'global bakers' today, taking advantage of the Internet and the large FedEx hub near the Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport to ship the bread worldwide. The goods land on dinner tables within 48 hours of their cooking.
The bread itself is decidedly old school: thick, chewy, and rich with a dark, fire-tinged flavor. Traditional French bread is not the ubiquitous white bread used in baguettes. It used to be a dark, wholesome stuff eaten by poor people when they could not afford anything else. It almost disappeared from French tables because of its very history. So much so that the old saying "He ate his white bread..." means that he mused and fooled around instead of working diligently, and now he's in for hard times (and only dark bread).
After World War II, the height of chic was white bread, imported from Austria. Poilane is very unique in that in a city where you can't walk two blocks without running into a baguette, he refuses to produce any!
Poilane's bread has won him famous fans over the years: Frank Sinatra and Lauren Bacall used to enjoy a loaf from time to time, and Robert De Niro is a customer.
There's one person in the shop who speaks English, who confirmed taking bread back to the US is no problem.
Poilane's
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