The head of France’s most celebrated dynasty of bakers has urged her countrymen to end their love affair with the baguette and revert to what she says is the traditional Gallic loaf.

Apollonia Poilâne, who took over the family bakery at the age of 18 after the death of her parents in 2002, said that the French stick was not French at all, and that her business refused to sell it.

“It was imported from Austria in the late 19th century,” said Miss Poilâne, who wants her compatriots to return to the wholemeal bread she said they ate beforehand. She said that it was healthier, tastier and longer lasting.

Miss Poilâne, 23, was speaking in the bakery in Central Paris that was opened by her grandfather Pierre in 1932 and made famous by her father, Lionel, after he took over in the 1970s. The speciality is le pain Poilâne, a 1.9kg (4lb) round loaf made from grey flour, sea salt and dough left over from the previous batch. It sells for about €8 (£5) and is widely regarded as France’s finest bread.

Customers include Catherine Deneuve and Jacques Chirac in France and Robert de Niro and Steven Spielberg in the US, where it is transported by FedEx and sold for $40 (£20).

The family has two bakeries and a production unit in Paris and also a shop in Knightsbridge.

The dynasty was hit by tragedy when Mr Poilâne died, along with his American wife, Ibu, when his helicopter crashed into the Channel. At 5am the next day Miss Poilâne arrived at the bakery in Paris, announced that she was taking over and checked the first of the day’s loaves, just as her father used to do.

“I’d always been groomed to run the business,” she said, sitting under a replica of a chandelier that was made out of dough by Mr Poilâne for Salvador Dali. Her cot, for instance, was a bread basket.

For the past four years Miss Poilâne has managed the bakery while completing her education at Harvard Business School. She telephoned staff every morning and checked the bread from photographs that were e-mailed to her every evening. Loaves were sent by FedEx to her once a week. She graduated this month and returned for good last week, determined to develop the business, which has annual sales of about €14 million.

One of her challenges is to combat the belief that French bread is synonymous with the baguette. “Everyone used to eat the sort of loaves we make until the 19th century. There are a lot of bad baguettes out there,” she said, pinning blame on the spread of insipid white flour after the Second World War. “But things are improving. There is more grey flour used now, and it has far more nutrients in it than white flour.”But even if the market for wholemeal loaves is expanding, Miss Poilâne faces competition from a growing number of French bakers who are seeking to supply it.

They include Max, her uncle, who fell out with her father and opened his own boulangerie in Paris. Miss Poilâne’s side of the family sought to stop him from using the family name on his products, but the Paris Tribunal ruled against them last year.

As a result, the French capital boasts le pain Poilâne and its rival, le pain Max Poilâne.

Stick to the facts

— The word baguette literally means “little rod”, and is derived from Latin baculum — stick or staff.

— A popular but inaccurate belief holds that baguettes were invented during Napoleon’s Russian campaign when he ordered a new shape of bread to fit down his soldiers’ trouser legs.

— They were invented by Viennese bakers in the 19th century, using a new steam-injected oven.

— The baguette became dominant when a French law in the 1920s banned bakers from working before 4am. The traditional “boule” took a long time to prepare but the baguette would be ready by breakfast.

(Source:www.food-timeline.org)

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