Apollonia Poilâne Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and author of four baking books, including “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes.” On each episode, I hang out with the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes. We are so excited to be back with a brand new season, and I can't wait for you to hear all the delicious conversations we've been whipping up.
I'm so excited for today's guest, who is here all the way from Paris. It's Apollonia Poilâne, the third-generation leader of Poilâne, a renowned Parisian boulangerie established in 1932 by her grandfather Pierre Poilâne. The bakery is known for its large round sourdough loaves known as miche Poilâne, which are baked in wood-fired ovens. They also offer classic French pastries and sablés, which Apollonia brought for me and I found to be mind-blowingly delicious. Apollonia is also the author of the 2019 cookbook, “Poilâne: the Secrets of the World-Famous Bread Bakery.” And she operates the IBU Gallery in the Palais-Royal with her sister, Athena. Apollonia has an incredible story of how she wound up operating Poilâne at just 18 years old and how she has maintained its legacy as one of the best bakeries in the world. We talked about her wonderfully charismatic father, her brilliant artistic American mother who was an architect, and the person to first suggest to Apollonia that she apprentice at the bakery at age 16, and how being half American and half French has influenced Poilâne's bread baking traditions. It was a truly fascinating conversation, so stay tuned.
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Let's chat with today's guest. Apollonia, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk all about your incredible professional baking journey, your family, the bakery, and your book.
Apollonia Poilâne:
I'm extremely excited to be here today with you.
Jessie Sheehan:
So first, can you share an early baking memory with us? Perhaps one from the bakery, it could also be one from home, or actually, I would love both if you have them.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yes. I do.
Jessie Sheehan:
Memory can be of something you baked or just something that you ate. Either one.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Okay. So I apprenticed starting when I was 16 years old and a bakery childhood memory is learning how to manage to shape properly one of my four pound dough into a properly shaped miche. And that was an incredible experience because I had the feeling that I was giving a breath and a life in some ways to this piece of bread, whereas my small, tiny little hands was sticking to the dough and for the longest time I was just not managing to do it. I remember going up that morning to my dad's office and saying, "What is not to love about this craft?" So that's one of my professional memories.
On the personal side, I have very fun memories of baking with my father. We did a lot of shaping together, but my parents had friends who had a small wood-fired oven in the south of France, and we did pizzas a few times at theirs. And my father and I did the dough together, and that was so much fun. And so those are things that, of course, start creating your culinary or baking education in some ways. And then in terms of flavors, well, I have to be partial to my little butter cookies, my little sablés, my little punition butter cookies because they come in different colors. We use a wood-fired oven so we can have different shades of baking, and I love them when they're super cooked, the caramel. It's just so nice.
Jessie Sheehan:
So is it true? I read that your crib as a baby was made from a wicker bread basket?
Apollonia Poilâne:
100% true.
Jessie Sheehan:
Please tell me everything.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Okay.
Jessie Sheehan:
Also one more thing, I also read, you were born in New York City.
Apollonia Poilâne:
I was.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is that true?
Apollonia Poilâne:
So I am a product of two cultures. My mom was American, my father was French. I was born in New York, raised in Paris. My father was a baker. And so my parents, being rather original people, they had a lot of personality, and they thought that it was absolutely normal and appropriate to use a big bread basket. It's a big one. It's not the one that we let the dough rise in, but they basically repurposed one of the baskets that we would normally put the warm batch of bread coming out of the oven into a crib. They raised the bottom because otherwise, they'd probably have to go halfway into the basket to pick me up. But we still have that basket, so I could use it if I wanted to someday.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh. I love that. And so were they just visiting New York, or had they moved there temporarily?
Apollonia Poilâne:
No, my mom very much had her network in New York, so when came the time of birth, it was pretty obvious to them that that's where it happened.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love. So now I want to talk a little bit or a lot about the history of Poilâne Bakery. So I wanted to start with your grandfather. And it's funny, when I think of Poilâne Bakery and I think of you, I feel like it's like the family business.
Apollonia Poilâne:
It is. In many ways it is.
Jessie Sheehan:
Which it is. It was started by your grandfather, Pierre, in 1932 in a Parisian neighborhood filled with artists and craftsmen. He sounds like an incredibly charismatic guy. Can you just tell us a little bit about him?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yeah. So my grandfather and my father were two very charismatic and passionate people. My grandfather has roots in the Normandy region, so that's the west part of Paris. And at the time that he started in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, so this area in the left bank of Paris, which was filled with artists and craftsmen, he found a natural audience for his craft, which is an art in and of itself. And I think that copains, so people with whom you share breads, the bistro where you would have a glass of wine and have a piece of bread and cheese just naturally managed to get things together. But what's interesting was at Paris at the time, people wanted to eat white-floured baguettes. It was the new bread. It was the trendy bread because people ate the equivalent of several baguettes per day. And so there was a bakery at every street corner, and my grandfather decided that he was going to go back or do more of the bread that he grew up on, which honestly was a pan-European bread that has fed generations and centuries of people. He was very passionate about it because he felt it was something that you can share in that fosters that community and builds it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love this adjective. I'm not sure if you said it or someone else said, but the idea about this very unfashionable ... I love that adjective for the bread, but it was an unfashionable bread. But he actually was interested in doing something that set him apart.
Apollonia Poilâne:
100%. And I think it speaks as to the personality, the very strong personality. But my grandfather who was like, "I'm going to make this bread because I believe in it and it's delicious. It carries and fosters any number of things, but just mainly it nurtures a community." And then my father taking over in the '70s, structures a business with the same strong-will, deciding that he was not going to go the classic root of industrialization and production lines, he was going to create a manufacture. That's when my mom came into the picture. She helped design a round-shaped building where we have 24 ovens. Each baker works exactly the same way as they do in the 6th arrondissement, or at that time we only had another store in Paris in the 15th. And we bake the breads with a single pair of hands, so a human being that is in charge of the production from start to finish. And that really greets whatever weather and season it is that day. Our own mood actually matters in baking in my view. And how do we accompany this into making a seamlessly identical bread every single day.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also love, just to your grandfather for a second, this idea that people in the neighborhood in which the bakery was maybe didn't have as much money where they were artists, they were craftsmen. And so the idea of a bread that was going to last a very long time was incredibly important to them. To your word nourishing. I think that is included in that. The long shelf life, which we will talk about later on when you had an epiphany about that, that led to your book. I loved that idea that he was trendsetting, he was thinking about what he wanted to do that was different and he was also doing it in a way that fed his community. Brilliant.
Apollonia Poilâne:
100%. And it's also, yes, you can eat white bread, but it's fast sugars and just be wary of it. It's wonderful to have a white flour baguette if it's well-made and have it as a sweet snack essentially. But if you want to have something that's going to help you carry out your day as a painter, as a craftsman, whatever, you're going to have to have more substance.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back. Cherry Bombe's summer issue will be out in early June. Stay tuned for the cover announcement, but I did hear that there will be multiple covers, and I can't wait to see who's on them. To get this issue, subscribe to Cherry Bombe magazine, so you'll be the first to receive it when it's released. Subscribe at cherrybombe.com or click the link in our show notes.
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Now I wanted to talk about your dad. As you said, he followed in your grandfather's footsteps. He really turned it into a business, opening more stores, distribution all over Paris, and even abroad. But I love this. He was... Or I'd find this so interesting. He was reluctant at first. Can you tell us about his transformation and what that transformation for him taught you and your sister about the power of bread as it were?
Apollonia Poilâne:
100%. My grandfather forced my father into the business when he was 14. At that day and age, you could apprentice when you were 14. Now it's more 16. You'd have to be under extraordinary circumstances otherwise, but that's not the point. My grandfather forced my father into the big house. My father's like, "I have no idea what I want to do in life." And I think there were a couple of miserable years for him, or at least in his own words. But what's more interesting is that at some point, greeting people, because my grandfather had built a reputation in the neighborhood and so forth, my father greeted a group of perfumers that asked my father to come talk to them about the flavors and the smells, the scents of bread. And what my father understood... And I'm oversimplifying things a little. But what my father understood was that bread relates to every single domain of knowledge. And of course it never leaves people indifferent because it's an essential food. But beyond that, it really is a magic connection to other human beings. And that's what I think my father understood. Maybe not as thoroughly at that moment, but he started gaining interest because he realized that his craft was actually making people interested in what he was doing.
Whereas the prevalent thought at that time in France was that if you wanted to be a baker, you'd have to be tall, strong, and silly. To not say stupid. My master of apprenticeship is smaller than I am, and I'm not that tall. And you can't be silly. You can't be stupid when you're baking bread because the sensitivity it requires to listen to the dough and know how to adjust and accompany it, it just doesn't match.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also loved reading ... I know he took over in the '70s. I loved reading about how charismatic he was, like his dad. I loved reading that he was this dapper dresser and this travele,r and this book collector. He not only wrote cookbooks, but he also collected. Were they all about bread or they were just food in general?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Well, bread and ancillaries. So flour making, a little bit of cooking. He actually wrote a book with Jeanette Matthews on baking with bread, and he excavated a bunch of traditional recipes using bread, which I realized after I wrote a book on exactly that. But that's okay.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now I wanted to talk about your mom. As you mentioned, she was American. I'd love to talk about the role she played in the bakery. I read something about FedEx, but then I also read about La Manufacture Poilâne.
Apollonia Poilâne:
So my mom was American, and she was an architect. I think really... And I had discussed this growing up with her. She viewed herself, especially in France where she couldn't exercise as an architect, as a designer. She helped my father ... It's very beautiful. I had conversations with both of my parents individually where they've shared with me what one taught to the other. And in the case of my mom, towards my father, my father said she helped him have an appreciation of materials, of fabrics of style. My father definitely had that interest, but my mom helped shape that. And her architect's gaze on things was something that gave a lot of structure. And so I think, of course, I don't know all of what went on, but growing up in this family, I could tell how there was a balance between both of their qualities that were tapped into structure, but also greeting whatever nature or things life brings you. And I think that's what my mom brought with of course, the American side. So my grandfather had already greeted Americans at the bakery, but I think my father having met my mom then reinforced that virtuous circle because, quite naturally, they were drawn to coming to the United States. And in many, we were able to share the gospel of good bread.
Jessie Sheehan:
Your mom actually, even though perhaps she wasn't legally able to be an architect in France, she did design La Manufacture Poilâne. And I loved learning that even ... And maybe sometimes when you read something when you're researching, it's no longer true. But what I read is that still today there are no thermometers.
Apollonia Poilâne:
There are not. So it's interesting because what we are trying to do when you bake, I so appreciate the interest of using a thermometer, but also it all depends on what you're actually trying to measure. So just if we focus on this wood-fired oven, there's a place where we put the wood that creates a flame, and the flame basically heats up the interior part of the oven, the bricks that soak up the heat. And then once the flames die off, we put a bowl of water on top which creates steam, and we put the loaves in the back, the pastries in the middle, the cookies in the front, and all of that bakes. Now, if you wanted to check the temperature of that, the marginal minute little number doesn't make so much of a difference. However, if you use a thermometer at the front of the oven, you'll get one temperature. It will be drastically different than the one at the end. The other thing is that a temperature is not evocative of the quality of the heat. It's not very palpable of an explanation.
But you can have the same temperature that when you look on your phone and that you see it's X degrees, but it feels like Y. It's the same thing with the ovens. And when it comes to our wood-fired ovens, when we apprentice, we do work with some different thermometers to help people get that understanding and have that feeling under their skin. But if you use an infrared thermometer, the infrared is basically bothered by the ambient flour that's clouding up the signal. It's both from a practical point of view, but also sometimes the most incredible technologies are just not necessarily very adaptive to the context.
Jessie Sheehan:
Did I also read that sometimes there'll be a small piece of paper?
Apollonia Poilâne:
That's exactly how we test it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Apollonia Poilâne:
So the way we test it, is we put on our peels, we put a piece of paper, bring at the end of the oven, count a few seconds, then bring it back. And the color of the paper comes out and gives us a range of the temperature. And to be honest, that's enough for us. It's not about the precision, it's about where do you put the degree of precision you want. And so yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Does this mean also no timers? Are you setting timers for your bread or is-
Apollonia Poilâne:
We have a clock in the bake house, so that will be our timer. But no, we don't set a timer.
Jessie Sheehan:
The bakery I worked at, we would have these tiny little magnetic or we'd carry them around on our aprons.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that makes sense for certain contexts. For the wood-fired oven, it doesn't.
Jessie Sheehan:
Quick question because I was so curious. How did your parents meet? Did they meet in Paris?
Apollonia Poilâne:
They met in New York because their respective best friends at the time were dating.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that. And another question, I think I know the answer because your English is practically accent-less. But did your mom speak English to you growing up and did your dad speak it too with her?
Apollonia Poilâne:
So growing up, my mom would speak in English, my father in French. I'm so thankful to my parents and I wish that ... All of my friends who have several languages in their background, they do that. And it's such a cool tool. Languages just as much as bread are a vector of communication and it creates bridges between people, it fosters understanding. And I think that to me is an incredible treasure that one should carry and nurture.
Jessie Sheehan:
And obviously your dad spoke English, even if he spoke to you guys in French.
Apollonia Poilâne:
It was funny because both of my parents spoke their respective languages with heavy accents. My sister and I might have made fun of our parents at some point. But yeah. No. It was super cool.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. You touched on this, but I just wanted to bring it up again. You recognized even when you were little that your parents were these unique and original people. When you're little to know that, what kinds of things made you realize, oh, they're different than this person's parents?
Apollonia Poilâne:
So several things. Off the top of my head, the first thing is that is your fridge. I would go to a friend's place, I was like, their fridge, first of all smells really bad. It's so different than the one that I have at home. So that was the first thing. And then we're talking about dressing. My parents loved to dress and they dressed very differently than all of the parents that I would see coming to pick up their children at school. So those are subtle cues that from the get-go, I got the idea that my parents are... They're pretty cool people. They're very independent in their way, they function, and it goes up to their dresses. And then, of course, it's the way they thought and they shared how their learnings in life and how they went about their lives. That to me was very... There's something... In French you would say original. So I don't know, it's a mix of independent and free thinkers. That's the way I like to think about it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now I wanted to talk about you in relationship to the history of the bakery. Again, we touched on this, but how would you say being half American and half French influences Poilâne's bread, baking traditions?
Apollonia Poilâne:
I think, so mainly it's about the openness to the world. You have to understand that in France, there's a bakery at every street corner, and that creates a very narrow-minded ambiance. May not even be true nowadays because there's much fewer bakeries than there used to be, but the culture of that is there. Being of two cultures means you're expanding your horizons. And for me, I cannot conceive of a world where you are not open towards the others, go beyond your neighborhood. It also helped that we are historically in a neighborhood that attracted foreigners. So we're very open and not insular. There's a few places in France where I've seen that as well. And Alsace the region east of Paris is one where that's very true as well because they were pushed from one nation, Germany to French to another throughout history. And so they also have that culture of openness and trying to greet differences. And that's something that to me has infused a lot of how I think, but also it encourages me to go and look outside the realms of my neighborhood, my country. Whatever.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I love that. You can think of American compared to French. At least as an American in France, I always want to be a little less exuberant or a little less ... Not less open, but it almost feels like I want to match the French way. And I love that what you actually are trying to do is have both. There's nothing that's going to change about the French traditions or the French vibe of the bakery, but that the way you were raised, way your sister was raised, it's going to be a different thing.
Apollonia Poilâne:
100%. I am a hybrid and to some extent I will say it means that you have to work a tad bit harder to blend into the French culture, to blend into the American culture because you're a little bit of both, which means you're lacking a little bit of both as well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I also love that your dad recognized the importance of the two cultures and instructed you. I don't know if you and your sister in terms of life or just you in terms of the bakery because that's where you wanted to be. But that it was important to embrace both. He knew that and understood that and wanted that for you.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yep. Yep.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you knew at a very young age that you would take over the bakery. How young is young?
Apollonia Poilâne:
As far as I can remember, honestly. Look, I learned how to count giving back cash change. Probably won't exist in the years to come, but whatever. I learned precision and generosity with my grandfather overseeing how I put cookies in bags. I earned my first pocket money by licking and gluing stamps on envelopes for the end of the month's invoices for our clients. I think for me it was pretty obvious it was there. And what's beautiful is that throughout the years that sense of obviousness remained for different reasons. And it's been 22 years since I followed my parents footsteps. So materially, I have one line on my CV, I'm in charge of the bakery. But I feel like I've done so many jobs, and that richness is something that just reinforces my convictions, that I'm exactly where I need to be.
Jessie Sheehan:
This is just a question that I'm always curious about. Birth order, and siblings, and families. What do you think about it? Probably just because you're very different personalities. But what do you think about it spoke to you and not to your sister? Because it's interesting.
Apollonia Poilâne:
My sister was just never into baking. She loved the culinary arts more on the F&B side of things, but she has become a visual artist, an interior designer. Look the same way that the bakery came naturally and became more and more obvious to me, her pathway was similar in a different direction.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. I've read this, but I wasn't sure if it was true because you never know. But was it true that you had also thought about following in your mom's footsteps or that art and design and architecture also spoke to you?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yeah. So when I was a kid, I loved to play around with floor plans that my mom had in her practice. So I do remember very distinctively saying ... Because people always ask you, "So what do you want to be when you're bigger, when you're an adult?" Whatever. I would say, trying to honor both of my parents, I'd be like, "Well, I'll be a baker in the mornings because bakers work in the mornings and I'll be an architect in the afternoon," because I had to honor my mom's profession. The reality was it was very clear that I didn't have the talent to become an architect. That was very clear to me. It is an interest that I have. You can like some piece of art and just not realize that you're not an artist.
Jessie Sheehan:
So unlike your grandfather and your dad, your dad never forced you or expected you to take over from him?
Apollonia Poilâne:
No. And in fact, pathologically not because so much so that my mom was the one who when I was 16, was like, "Yo, if you're serious about taking over the bakery at some point, you're going to have to start learning your craft." And so there's these traditionally long May holidays where there's any number of days off and I started working in the bake house.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I have a note about that. I loved it that it was actually your mom who suggested it.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yeah. My father was like, "No, no, no. I'm not forcing you. I'm-"
Jessie Sheehan:
He was probably so triggered.
Apollonia Poilâne:
100%. Wouldn't you be?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. A hundred percent. And then was there ever any pushback from anyone about it being like a male profession and here you were wanting to do it as well? Were there female bakers there when you did your apprenticeship?
Apollonia Poilâne:
There weren't. And I think there was never a question. Realistic about it. And I think more and more as I grow older, I am less overseeing of this is a male ... It is a women's know how and I do want to insist on this because it is women that have carried on sourdoughs throughout the years and civilizations across the world but it has become a male profession. I'm aware of it, but I don't care. But what I realized is that it's not a given and that you cannot hide behind your little finger or ignore it because people will remind you of that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I read somewhere that I think this is something that you said that it's a men's business, but a woman's craft.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
I just loved that articulation.
Apollonia Poilâne:
And I had that articulation taking over the bakery of a fellow baker. She had a store and bake house in the 19th near le Buttes-Chaumont's garden in Paris. And like us, she had a wood-fired oven. She fell in love with that oven and that's how she came to take over that bakery with a beautiful setting. And there was a point where in her life for personal reasons, health reasons, she wanted to step down. And when we were talking ... I don't know. I had this sprout of a thought that yeah, we are a women's know-how in a male-dominated craft.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. So you took over the bakery at 18 due to the death of your parents, essentially during your gap year between high school and going to school in the United States at Harvard. Can you tell us about that decision?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Or lack thereof.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right. Or did it feel like a decision? I think I read, or I can imagine this to be true, it was so ingrained. It was almost like maybe you didn't even make the decision. You just had this path, and you followed it.
Apollonia Poilâne:
I noticed that you used the word ingrained, which is telling of how important our craft is in who we are as human beings. But yes, there was a sense of obviousness for me. Like yeah, I grew up with this bakery. I knew exactly ... I had followed my father on numerous occasions such that I really had a good sense of what was going on. I didn't have the work experience, but I also had his great team to work with to blend that. Was it perfect? Absolutely not. But you have to start somewhere. And that's how after my parents accidental passing, I was able to take over the family business without for a blink of a second wondering, do I do this or do I not? There was a sense of obviousness. I was there.
Jessie Sheehan:
What made you want to go to school in the United States?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yeah. So my American background was important.
Jessie Sheehan:
Did you guys go back and forth as kids?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Not really. I really grew up in Paris, but we did come to the US for summers every once in a while. I don't know. There was something about French universities that is not as appealing as American universities. It's funny because throughout my four years in college, a lot of the kids didn't like the core curriculum and I was like, "Guys, you just do not understand the beauty of being able to study cross-sectional things." It's actually great that you can ... I guess no one wants to be forced to learning into something that they don't necessarily like, but having those basic tools, it just nurtures openness and curiosity, creativity. But for me more specifically, it was about I wanted to study economics business, but the core curriculum helped me expand on interests and not just be in my little funnel.
Jessie Sheehan:
I was going to ask if the major in economics was born out of your parents' passing, or if you knew you were going to go to college to prep for running a business?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Exactly. That was exactly the thing. Even though I have multiple interests, that was the one that was like, no, no, I'm going to college to get education, to prepare myself to eventually take over the family business. Happened a little sooner than planned.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. You literally ran Poilâne from your dorm room.
Apollonia Poilâne:
I did.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I just wanted to ask that logistically. There was no Zoom, right?
Apollonia Poilâne:
There were no Zooms. There were phones. Great team. Really, a great team. Frequent travels. So I would go back and forth. The starting point are the human beings with whom I worked and the complicity and teamwork that we had worked on for a year, but many years before that, because they had seen me in the bake house growing up and the bakery generally speaking. So when I took over, we could really focus on how do we recreate our team and how coming back on a regular basis how I could get things going. I was remote working before it's time someone post-pandemic remarked that and I was like, "Hey, you were right."
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. You were doing it already. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Were they FaceTiming. Like how did it work?
Apollonia Poilâne:
No. No. No. We used conference calls and stuff and then we also ... Just, if you have structure, it helps a lot. And we had our routines. I woke up earlier than students. I'm a baker. I love to wake up early, so it's not a problem. And I also made really good friends in the dining hall because of that. I did party probably a little less than some students, not all. But yeah, you make it work.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love this idea that the team that was there built by your dad, probably not your grandfather, but just built by the history of the place was there for you. It's not like ...
Apollonia Poilâne:
We worked together.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. That really made it possible. And that's obviously such a tribute to your dad. The history.
Apollonia Poilâne:
100%.
Jessie Sheehan:
That nobody was like, "What? He's gone, then I'm gone." I also read about this, which I thought was so interesting. To some degree, it was as if you were training for this moment to take over from your parents or from your dad your whole life, that being the daughter of an entrepreneur, it means that in some ways you're schooled from forever in the business that that entrepreneur has.
Apollonia Poilâne:
That is so true, and it's really important you pointed out because it's something that was not obvious to me until I met a business school professor specialized in family businesses. And he contends that family businesses, the children are taught from birth how the parents operate. And so that creates for a tradition of ... It's essentially their executive education or their education from the crib. And when I went to college, it was about the technical stuff. It wasn't about the rest of the craft.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. That's also so interesting.
Apollonia Poilâne:
So yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So I want to talk about the bakery today. I loved reading about this. The bakery is decorated with art that was bartered for bread when your grandfather ran the bakery. Is that right?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yep. And still today. We received an eggshell tempera rendition of our cookies from Canada through the mail. The woman that painted these cookies and this beautiful little stack of cookies with a gorgeous rose next to it. It's incredible. And whenever there's a new piece of art, we try and work with rest of the artworks so that we can-
Jessie Sheehan:
Rotating.
Apollonia Poilâne:
We rotate the artworks.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Do you have that in all the locations, or is it mostly the original?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Mostly in the original, but in all locations, because we always have a little office or a little place that we display something. And you are referring to the back room of our mother's store in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. That room is lit up by a bread chandelier, and we've been doing a bread chandelier since my father, who met Salvador Dali in the '60s, asked him to make a whole bedroom made out of bread. And so since that period, we've hung a bread chandelier in the back room. What happens is that whenever ... Bread dough will eventually crumble a little. It doesn't fall on people's heads, rest assured. But when we look at it and it shows signs of fatigue, we replace it. And what I've been asking my bakers in their recent years is to really put their inspiration. So the one we hung up last was just around the season of harvest, so it's full of wheat ears, and yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Everything at Poilâne is baked in a wood oven. Is that unique or different or is that many bakeries have... It sounds so amazing and obviously I've been in places with wood-fired ovens. But is that par for the course or is that pretty unusual?
Apollonia Poilâne:
It is pretty unusual nowadays, and it's also a lot of work to use the wood-fired ovens we use because essentially you're heating up an oven that's made of bricks, and then you try and maintain that heat by reheating it, by refiring it basically. It's more work because each oven has their own way to go about things and its specialties, its limitations. The thing that I love with the wood-fired ovens is that it creates really dry heat, but one that really surrounds you, envelops you. The experience you have when you come down to the bakery is that you're surrounded by this warm cushion of heat.
How it affects the dough is that when it bakes it, you have your four pound batch of shapes miche and you put it in the oven and it both expands into this beautiful loaf, but it also cooks thoroughly the outside leaving a porous surface to allow for the heat to infuse in the middle of the loaf and properly, thoroughly cook the inside. It's something that I think is quite unique to these wood-fired ovens and that I appreciate. You don't have the chewiness. You have nice crusty caramelized flavors. The fact that the interior is cooked allows for the breads to keep longer because the moist tends to facilitate mold. Back in the day ... I'm going to give you the nitty-gritty stuff.
Jessie Sheehan:
Please.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Back in the day when vendors were trying to convert people from wood-fired ovens, which was the norm to electrical ovens, they would say, "Buy my oven because your bread will retain more water and you'll be able to sell water at the price of bread," which is fascinating as what of the impact of these two techniques or these two types of ovens.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about the apprenticeship. The training of the bakers, which you did at 16.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Started it at 16.
Jessie Sheehan:
Started at 16.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
What does it entail? Are people coming in to work for you who have already gone to school for baking?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Some.
Jessie Sheehan:
Are they off the street but you give them an opportunity and do you start everyone at the same place?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yeah. In a nutshell, wherever you come from, the reality is that you will, on the first day of your apprenticeship, observe, and on the last day your master of apprenticeship will observe you. It's usually is nine months, but sometimes it's shorter with people who have that thing. Some it's experience, but mostly it's a sensibility. What happens is that you start testing and trying the gestures and it's through repetition, it's through seeing how it's changes from one month or one season to the next, how you acquire or develop a mental library of experiences that you can pick and choose from to adapt your gestures on a daily basis so that apparently the loaf looks exactly the same, but the work behind it has been very different.
Jessie Sheehan:
So I read about the 80-year-old starter, but now I'm wondering-
Apollonia Poilâne:
92.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's what I was going to say.
Apollonia Poilâne:
In fact, 93 this year.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. So incredible.
Apollonia Poilâne:
When my grandfather started in 1932, he started a sourdough, which we carry on today. And what's specific about our sourdough ... Because first of all, I don't view sourdough as a category of bread, but as a technique. And I say this because sometimes in America, we tend to use the word sourdough as a category of bread, and I feel it's slightly deceiving. But to my point, when we make sourdough at Poilâne, we take a piece of dough from one batch. When we're baking the batch of bread, we keep it aside to nurture the starter of the following batch. So, essentially, since 1932, this process has been going on. It parallels how us as human beings are a product of two human beings and how that eventually creates another generation. And so that continuum is slightly different than how we, for the most part do sourdough at home where we have our sourdough culture, and then we retrieve like you do in a savings account, some of the stock.
So from one batch to the next, if you typically start a new batch of bread, you have a piece of dough from the previous batch over which you add wheat flour, salt, water, and then mixing it, you get our bread dough and we'll move most of it into the bread box to proof a first time but we'll leave a piece aside, which will begin being the starting of the next generation of batches of bread. And this has been going on for generations of bakers and generations of Poilâne.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is that unique to Poilâne? Is that an unusual way to do things?
Apollonia Poilâne:
It's rather unique and it is unusual because it's more work. You have to make sure that you continuously bake if you do it that way. Which would be something where I would say if you were to start baking or start a commercial bakery, you don't have to start that way. You can start building your practice towards that goal. I have no qualms when people say, "I started home baking with yeast." Yeah, whatever. Get your hand seasoned. Test and try. There's no right or wrong answer. It's all about proportions as well.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you would never take that small piece of the dough from this batch and put it in the refrigerator and then use it the next day? It's really a-
Apollonia Poilâne:
No. Not really. So on Saturday nights in our main store, since our store is closed on Sunday, when we're finished with the batch of baking, we'll keep the sourdough, we'll refrigerate it to slow down its fermentation so that when the baker picks up on Sunday afternoon for the Monday morning batches, then they can start again. And that's interesting because refrigerating essentially slows down the fermentation. That's what it's about. It's a slow proofer, it's slo-mo's the proofing. So yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
You sell some brioche. Yes?
Apollonia Poilâne:
We do.
Jessie Sheehan:
So do you use sourdough in everything, or is there some commercial yeast?
Apollonia Poilâne:
We use a little bit of yeast in the brioche. And I think for me, yes, sourdough is incredibly flavorful identity and just very unique in general, but there's no harm in using yeast if you use it properly. And yes, this is self-serving, but that's not the point. What I'm trying to say is it's okay to use yeast. It's about how you use it. And we do use yeast in our brioche and it's so delicious.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you use instant or active dry? It might be a different term?
Apollonia Poilâne:
No. We use fresh.
Jessie Sheehan:
Fresh. The third one. Fresh. And I also-
Apollonia Poilâne:
That again, it's a different yeast than the dry granules and stuff.
Jessie Sheehan:
I also read that it literally takes six hours to bake a loaf of Poilâne bread.
Apollonia Poilâne:
That's just a loaf.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. That's incredible.
Apollonia Poilâne:
The hours are important because they're good reference point to say, "Wow. That's work." But then it's about what's the work that goes in it. Because if you're going to refrigerate the dough to slow down its fermentation for convenience, then yeah, I can probably add 12 hours if I wanted to that I've ... Just scratch the surface of what we're saying is what I'm trying to.
Jessie Sheehan:
I just wanted to talk a little bit about the menu and just mention a few things. First, there's the miche Poilâne. And I had a question. Is a boule a miche?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yep. Same thing.
Jessie Sheehan:
Same thing.
Apollonia Poilâne:
When I took over the family business, and it was the early 2000s, I got so frustrated with the number of names that we call our main baked sourdough loaf that I started listing all of its names. It has a gazillion ones. The way I view my craft is that I said the intersection between cereal grains and fermentation. And so I try and be more precise nowadays in my language. Not using the word flour to generically mean wheat flour, but talking about the grain because it starts with the grain. And then not using the word sourdough generically either, because my rye bread is also a sourdough bread. There's no reason not to mention that. So yeah, miche and boule, exact same thing.
Jessie Sheehan:
So I read a little bit about what goes into the miche Poilâne. It does say flour with plenty of wheat bran. Is that the equivalent of saying whole wheat?
Apollonia Poilâne:
So it's not a whole wheat, but it's close enough. In the spectrum of things it's a type 80. It's stone ground flour where we do want to keep as much of the beautiful nutrients that it has and the natural oils that it has, so you don't have to add gluten or whatever to enhance your flour.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's an Atlantic sea salt that goes into it from Guérande in Brittany.
Apollonia Poilâne:
It's impossible to pronounce.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's a distinctive flavor. And I guess because of that or a strong flavor, maybe it can be used in smaller quantities. Is that correct?
Apollonia Poilâne:
That is correct. That is correct. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And should we picture a fine sea salt or more like a kosher?
Apollonia Poilâne:
A coarse sea salt. It is on the grayer side of things. I mean it really is a sea salt.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then I love this. Regular tap water. You've said you do not need special water.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yeah. So it's regular water and we do filter it and we do check it, but we don't use ... And I think, look, Nathan Myhrvold in Modernist Baking did an incredible job at saying we all want to believe that the New York bagel comes distinctively in New York due to the water. It's not true. It doesn't hold. The facts are the science are just really hard on that one. And I love that. I love that he goes and debunks these myths because there's no shortage of magic when it comes of bread. It brings communities together, it creates life. It creates so much more magic that why do we have to focus on this one?
Jessie Sheehan:
And is that the same recipe that your grandfather would've used?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yeah. 100%.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Except that from one season to the next and from one batch... Yeah. From one year to the next... One harvest to the next, the word I was looking for, things change subtly. There's some years where the wheats are better than others, but that's just the geography. How the weather impacted the growth of... In terms of breads, we do mainly wheat, rye, and corn. Every time it's 100% of that flour because our bakery is not about that mixing. And so it's stone ground and it has that purity to really express what is the flavor of that year's harvest. But that also means that you have to greet that it's not going to be the same every year.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then I wanted just you to tell us a little bit about the punitions. Would you call them shortbread or would you just say butter cookie?
Apollonia Poilâne:
I'm going to call them sablés. We opened in 2000 a bakery in London, and quite naturally my father wanted to call our cookies shortbread cookies. But if you call our little punitions shortbread cookies in London, people will expect them to be undercooked by our standard because they think of the Scottish shortbread cookies and that makes so much sense. And so I remember taking over the family business and being like, "We just need to ditch the name and call them butter cookies because that's what they are." And sablés is a little fancier to say. It has this sandy texture. Really they are shortbread butter cookies that have a sandy texture that are incredible because they are baked in this wood-fired oven, which gives it distinctive flavors. I like them when they're well-cooked. And the reason why is because it develops just basically Maillard's principle. The flavor profile is so incredible. I respect people who like them better on the whiter side of things. That's fine. I like them quasi-burnt, but each to their own on that one.
Jessie Sheehan:
And this was the punitions is named after a game that your grandfather played with his great-grandmother?
Apollonia Poilâne:
That's correct. And so she would call her grandchildren saying, "Come and get you little punishments," and open her hand to a handful of cookies.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I think I read that maybe you had added at least at some point a gluten-free option to the menu.
Apollonia Poilâne:
So I view my craft as this crossroads between grains and fermentation. And so I started working when I was in college my junior year on a 100% corn flour bread. Without using any gums, eggs, or sugar because I'm not making a cake, I'm not making a brioche, I'm making a loaf of bread. And then I thought ... By the time I started commercializing the bread, it was 10 years and I was like, "If I only come out with a new bread every 10 years, I'm going to lose a bunch of customers before I can make my point." So I developed a family of cookies, choosing seven grains that are important to me. They're important because they represent the different terroirs of the world in terms of grains. In passing, what I wanted to make sure was valorizing, whatever unique qualities they had, and some of them happened to be gluten-free, so I would want to make sure that they stayed that way.
With the oats biscuits I use... Biscuit is also a word we use in French. So I use it, and I realize it's deceiving in certain parts of the United States. So, just using cookies. Our oat flour sablés, because of the unique qualities of the oat, I was able to make that one without using butter. And the reason why I did that one was because I was thinking, okay, so I'm making this range of cookies, great. With the corn flour, I can put a little less sugar because the corn has a naturally very sweet flavor, and if I'm going to boost different qualities, let's make sure that some are going to be gluten-free. So whatever. At some point, I was like, if there's ... And this was a summer where there was a little bit of tensions on the price of butter. I was thinking if at some point there is a real crisis with no production of butter because there's a drought, I'm screwed. I'll have nothing on my shelf. So I need to make sure that at least one of my cookies is butterless so that I can make sure that I have something on my shelf.
Jessie Sheehan:
So smart. So I wanted to talk about your book. There have been many, but your English language book. And in the foreword to the book Alice Waters says that Poilâne Bakery revolutionized bread in America. I think I understand what that means, but what does that mean to you when she says that?
Apollonia Poilâne:
It's a huge object of pride. It's extremely flattering. It really is a testimony as to how much my father was good at sharing what he believed when it came to breads and how he thought that it connected very obviously with people.
Jessie Sheehan:
So it was your first English language book. What made you want to write-
Apollonia Poilâne:
In English?
Jessie Sheehan:
It in English or in English period?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yeah. I wrote it in English precisely because I didn't have an English language book and I was like, "Look, I have my French customers, that's great, but I actually need to be talking also to my American audience." English is a rather prevalent language around the world and so it was obvious for me. And also to be honest, I wrote a bunch of papers as a young adult and university, so English came a little easier to me than French at that point.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us about your revelation in Brittany when you were eating whole wheat sourdough a week after you'd baked it and how that led to your book.
Apollonia Poilâne:
I should tell you it's more than a week. I didn't want to scare anybody, and I've since enhanced the number of days that I was able to keep the breads. So I'm probably going to scare some auditors here, but I did keep my wheat sourdough breads 21 days fresh in Brittany.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's incredible.
Apollonia Poilâne:
But in Brittany, because the air is saline and I think it helps a lot. It's not the same thing in New York where it's super dry and hot and your bread is stale in a couple of days. Or in the summer where it goes moldy because of the humidity and your fridge is actually the best place to store the bread. But that's beside the point. It's two weeks into my summer break and I still have a piece of bread and it's holding up. It's not extremely fresh, but I can cut it, it's fun. I can have my morning toast with it. And I thought to myself, wow, my bread is incredible. And what's more was like I thought if I think this, even though it's been over 10 years that I've been in charge of my family's business, that's also pretty incredible and a testimony as to the beautiful heritage of my grandfather and my father. So I was like, if I view this this way, I need to share this worth of the world. It's a little pretentious, but that's really where it stemmed from. I was like, "I love my craft. I want the world to know how cool bread baking is."
Jessie Sheehan:
One thing that comes out that you write about in the book is that bread is a great standalone food, but it's also an ingredient that you pay attention to in the book. Can you tell us about that?
Apollonia Poilâne:
Two things, and I'll segue for a second here. So when you take bread, there's some people who like it ultra-fresh or some people who like it stale. As a baker and with everything we've just shared, you'll understand that my mind was like, well, how can I get both of those ends meet and appreciate? They'll convert, but at least if they can appreciate the other person's stance, that would be great. But what's more was realizing bread when it's super stale, you might want to find a different purpose to it. And the natural one is crouton bread crumb. Yeah. But historically, you couldn't waste bread because it was so precious. So there is an extremely rich resource of recipes around the world using different breads where people just say, "Look, if we have stale bread or bread that didn't work, we'll find a use to it." That was the other message of the book was sharing with the audience, the readers that when you have a piece of bread, it's not only the food, it's not only how it fosters community, but it's also a great ingredient in your pantry.
Do not waste bread. If you are at that last crouton ... I'm only half joking here. But if you're at the last trimmings of the bread and for whatever reason it went stale, put it in the processor, make bread crumb out of it. And if you're fed up with bread crumb, I use coarse bread crumb for granola. And that's a great way of lightening granola because granola is made of grains that are mostly like flakes. It's not cooked originally, so it's heavy. So using coarse bread crumb adds lightness to it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that you also encourage your readers in the book to bake with their five senses, and I want you to tell us about that. But I loved this story that when you have a piece of bread before you eat it, you like to break it and smell it and that you've had old friends of your parents say to you, "Oh my gosh, that's what your mom and dad did."
Apollonia Poilâne:
Yeah. Yeah. That's usually how we test. That's the family tale for sure. For sure. So when you open a slice of bread and you tear apart from the middle, you get the freshness of whatever's contained in that slice. It carries all of the work of the baker, yes. But also the two, three years prior in the field where the farmer has selected, developed the amounts of grains necessary and then harvested the grains for that year's crop. And so for me, when I open a slice of bread and I just smell it really is a trip into those stories and environments and it's just so beautiful. And to be honest, some smells are not as good as others. And I think it's also a great way of, if you are at a restaurant and unfortunately the bread for whatever reason is not that great that day, just eat the crust because it's usually the part that's better baked, and so it's more digestible as well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us about listening to the bread. Using that sense, which people don't think about.
Apollonia Poilâne:
So there's distinctive gestures and noises when you're in the bake house that echo what's happening. But think of it on your average day, you have those specific sounds that correspond to that 8:00 A.M. this, that 10:30 that. In fact, radio stations apparently historically don't move a lot of the way they are organized in time because people have those frameworks of references. It's really to move it and it's a question of habit. The point is, I think one of the most beautiful aspects of bread baking when the bread comes out of the oven and we stack it on the rack and we let it cool, which is really the last stage of bread baking because the bread cools off, bakes a little longer, loses a little bit of water, and at that point the bread crackles. And just the sound of it is so beautiful. And it's beautiful because it starts like a little nothing. It's like the sound of the bread's coming out, the peel going in, out. So it's that mechanical and repetitive gestures and then it goes stag. So there's this almost very powerful gesture and then all of a sudden from the quasi-silence rises, the beautiful little sounds of the loafs crackling. It reminds me a little bivet of the piece paragon... and how all of the little elfs, little by little come out. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And that is such a beautiful way to end. Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Apollonia, and I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Apollonia Poilâne:
Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Don't forget to follow She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and tell your pals about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Thank you to CityVox Studio in Manhattan. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie and happy baking.