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In Sourdough Panettone and Viennoiserie, Thomas Teffri-Chambelland provides recipes for naturally leavened breads. Photo: Shutterstock

Sourdough Panettone and Viennoiserie: how the history of bread in France is ‘the story of people’

  • In his 2020 book, Thomas Teffri-Chambelland explores how ‘celebration breads’ tell of people’s ‘joys and sorrows, their farming, their trading, and their social classes’
  • It also includes recipes for Vesuvian apricot panettone, chocolate panettone, kugelhopf, croissants, Belgian cramique, brioche and more

If you’re one of the many home cooks who got into bread baking last year, during the pandemic, and panicked when stores ran out of commercial yeast, knowing that you could let your breads rise with a natural starter might have come as a revelation. But wild yeasts have been around since before our ancestors even began baking the first forms of bread.

As Thomas Teffri-Chambelland writes in the introduction to Sourdough Panettone and Viennoiserie (2020), “The purified yeast that is now used in nearly all bakery fermentations only became widespread in the early 20th century. This is an absolutely key point. It is important to understand that before the end of the 19th century, all bread dough, whether plain or enriched, was fermented with leaven. The products had virtually nothing in common with the ones we are familiar with today such as croissants and Parisian brioche.

“These items, which we call viennoiseries, appeared with the use of yeast. In a way, yeast brought them into being. So they are relatively modern products, having only been around for just over a hundred years.”

At its most basic, bread is composed of only three ingredients: flour, water and yeast or starter (we’re talking about leavened breads, as opposed to flat breads such at matzoh or tortillas, which don’t contain yeast).

Sourdough Panettone and Vienoiserie by Thomas Teffri-Chambelland. Photo: SCMP / Jonathan Wong

Teffri-Chambelland, a biologist by training and founder of L’école Internationale de Boulangerie, in Noyers-sur-Jabron, France, does not cover these relatively simple breads in this book (he does in his previous two volumes, which are not available in English). In Sourdough Panettone and Viennoiserie, the author is writing about far more luxurious breads, ones eaten for celebrations. “For centuries, all over the world people’s daily bread was enhanced for celebrations by adding sugar, eggs, fat, or dried fruit depending on what was available […] No era or area of France is without its specialty celebration bread.

“This history of celebration breads, which has yet to be researched and written about, is the story of people. It tells of their joys and sorrows, their farming, their trading, and their social classes. There is the Landes pastis with spices and rum that evokes the region’s overseas trade; the buttery Parisian brioche with egg replacing all the water in the original bread dough recipe, a symbol of the opulence and luxury specific to the Parisian elite of the late 19th and early 20th century; and the Provençal pompe à l’huile, which contains no eggs or butter at all since the historically poor region of Provence had to settle for olive oil,” he writes.

The book features recipes, some of which are from famous bakeries. Photo: SCMP / Jonathan Wong

“Steeped in an often-ancient past, all the viennoiseries featured in this book are fermented with natural leaven. That is something unique. Some of these viennoiseries, such as the iconic panettone, have always been fermented with sourdough […] Other products, such as the sourdough croissant, are thoroughly modern concoctions since leavened puff pastry came about with the introduction of yeast in the late 19th century. So giving the croissant a contemporary twist by fermenting it with leaven is not a return to an ancient form but an interesting way of moving forward and shaking up tradition!”

On his website, Teffri-Chambelland writes that his books are for both amateurs and professionals. His first two chapters, on theory and practice, have charts, graphs and information on subjects such as the change in pH in relation to bacterial density during the phases of refreshments, and flora development through the different stages of production.

If that’s beyond comprehension, you can skip straight to the recipes, some of which are from famous bakeries. They include sourdough Vesuvian apricot panettone, chocolate panettone, kugelhopf, croissants, Belgian cramique, brioche, leavened puff pastry and fougasse d’Aigues-Mortes.

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