Commentary - Has the concept of Artisan Baker lost its meaning?

Part I.....

It has been said that there is no accounting for taste. This seems painfully true regarding breads available today from large chain food stores and from some artisan bakers. The dictionary definition of "Artisan" is: (Webster's New World Dictionary) -- " a skilled workman or craftsman" . A "Craftsman" is further defined as "a worker in a skilled trade", "an artist: sometimes said of one skilled in the mechanics of his art" .

Both of these definitions connote a certain sense of originality as well as limits. An artist makes only a few of each of his or her piece of art. A craftsman understands all of the nuances of his art. Artisans and craft persons make unique pieces, not easily duplicated, and retaining some of the originality of the art form represented. As a woodworker who has sold a fair number of original pieces, I differentiate myself from a carpenter or framer. I am nor inferring that I am a better person, only that I have learned a craft within which I must work to tolerances unknown or unnecessary to a carpenter.

Because of these stipulations, a craftsman can usually make only a limited number of pieces in any given time period. Once a person's craft is recognized as unique and different, demand for the work, whatever the field, often increases. Production becomes the rate determining problem. Without employing assembly line techniques, increased production is very difficult beyond a certain limited number. Utilizing assembly line techniques allows a quantum increase in productivity, but more often than not, quality decreases as production capacity increases. It is at this point that Capitalism rears its head. Please note that I did not say "ugly" capitalism. I am a capitalist. Many of us are.

Successful bread bakers are often faced with moving from the realm of artisan to capitalist producer. This is a difficult decision given the real increase in income which often accompanies expanding a bakery. Unfortunately too many want to be both artisan and entrepreneur. We contend that one is either an artisan baker, or a production baker, but seldom both. Past a relatively small number of loaves, a qualitative deterioration of the bread product occurs. We see this as an example of the law of diminishing returns, i.e. quality diminishes as the number of loaves made in a given time period increases.

But bread baking on a large scale is profitable. Recently, a new Vons Supermarket opened where we live. It sells "Artisan" breads...including the ubiquitous paper bag with a clear plastic window to hold the product. The bread is not terrible. It just is not a very good example of the bread it purports to be. Thus far we have tested the Kalamata Olive and Como loaves. Both are marketed as "European" type breads, but both are sour, as in San Francisco sourdough. It is fairly obvious that the servers in the store do not understand the products, and thus cannot answer even the simplest questions about how the bread is made. The baker either does not understand fermentation, or is unwilling to admit that he does. He does not admit to using a sourdough starter, yet the breads are acidic --- sour --- to the point that they cannot be eaten with any dish requiring a subtle bread. Interestingly, although the baker insists that all of the breads are made using yeast, yeast is not listed as an ingredient on the bag. Perhaps Vons has rediscovered the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

My response to this new "Artisan Bakery" in town was "Artisan my rear" (read another word beginning with the first letter of the alphabet). This effort by Vons is simply another attempt to capitalize on the renewed interest in European breads. It is a lucrative interest as the breads are sold for relatively high prices. The range is about $2.00 to $5.00 per loaf!

The breads seem to sell well even at these prices. To be fair to Vons, the positive local community response to their new bakery may simply reflect the paucity of good bread available in the area. Small local bakers, some of whom consider themselves true artisans, need to ponder this. If they don't, there may be a lot fewer of them in the future.

Since we are making enemies here anyway, I may as well voice my disdain for artisan bakers who, in fact, started as true artisans, but are now selling their breads in huge numbers to the likes of Costco and Trader Joe's. These breads, now baked by the thousands daily, are horrid. They lack flavor, most likely because the production schedules no longer allow the time to properly ferment the dough. The crumb is soft and cottony, and the crust is either too hard or over baked. We have bought La Brea Bakery bread at a Trader Joe's in California, and discarded it immediately upon tasting the first slice. It was not fit to make even bread crumbs or croutons. If these are artisan loaves, then the mud pies some of us made as children, were as good as our mother's and grandmother's home made pies.

Probably the most egregious aspect of these "Mega-Artisans" is their disregard for any of the thousands of bakers trying to maintain old world standards. The fact that colleagues are forced out of business seems irrelevant in the face of the profits to be made. Survival of the fittest? Sure. Who are the fittest? Bakeries with the best bread or the best marketing directors? Are these Mega-Artisans using the public? Possibly since many people would not know a loaf of European bread if they were hit over the head with it. When told that "This is a European style bread", they believe it. Thus the standards of good bread are lowered ,and the need to bake better breads reduced.

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Part II.....

The Commentary in Part I defined Artisan. We do so again, so that readers who may not have seen Part I will have a context for this section. The dictionary definition of "Artisan" is: (Webster's New World Dictionary) -- " a skilled workman or craftsman" . A "Craftsman" is further defined as "a worker in a skilled trade", "an artist: sometimes said of one skilled in the mechanics of his art" .

Both of these definitions connote a certain sense of originality as well as limits. Artisans are artists in the sense that their products emerge as much from their emotional feelings towards their products as from their need to make a living.

What puzzles us is the existence of so many artisan bakers in the baking universe. We recently noticed that the back section of the retail bakers magazine offered consulting services to artisan bakers. We wonder if these same people would have offered consulting services to Michelangelo and Da Vinci? Can you see it? "Want to be a sculptor or painter? We can help. Call 011-39-5551212."

This mindset is the same as that in large, multinational corporations where a "entrepreneurial staff" are allowed to be segregated from the rank and file so that they can act entrepreneurial. Apparently, the belief is that anyone can be creative anywhere, and that given a nice room entrepreneurs can be created. No one seems to consider that entrepreneurial freedom in a corporate bureaucracy is an oxymoron.

Don't we do the same when we support bakeries, or restaurants, which claim to make authentic bread and cuisine, but do it on a large, impersonal scale. Sort of like Mom or Dad making dinner for 300. It may be the same as when he or she made it for 6, but we doubt it. How many of you out there have complained when the bread at your local "artisan" bakery tastes too sour, has a poor crust, shows too many water bubbles on the surface from too much moisture in the oven, etc.? How about that last meal you paid $30-$50 for? If you ate pasta, was it cooked properly. Were the ingredients fresh? Did your salad come drenched in "Italian Dressing"? Was the fish fresh, or could you not taste the fish for the sauce covering it? Maybe the sauce was covering more than the taste of the fish. Was the service impeccable, or just adequate. When the waitress/waiter asked if everything was alright, did you answer "yes" even if this wasn't true? If so, why?

In Italy recently, we were told about a bakery that was reputed to have the best bread in the area. We finally found it, waited 45 minutes until it opened, and discovered that this was the new store. The old one no longer existed, and would we like to see the new plant that was in the rear. We saw it. The entire bread baking process was automated to such an extent that no one touched the bread until it came out of the oven and was ready to be bagged. Imagine! Flour came into the bakery from an outside silo, was dumped into the mixer automatically, was poured from the mixer onto a cutter/shaper and was fed into the oven by automatic feeders. We found it particularly disheartening. Bread, good, edible bread cannot be make if the substance is never touched by the human hand. The hands of a baker are so much more sensitive than the timing devices on an automatic assembly line.

To be polite, we bought a loaf, took it back to our apartment, and had it for dinner. It was terrible. But hey! It was antiseptic......

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