Three cheers for Luddism
In my hometown lives a baker. The very ordinary name of his business (“Madison Sourdough”) hides the fact that he’s a European trained master pastry chef. Croissants, danish, brioche – the stuff is, if not worth dying for, certainly worth driving several extra miles across town early in the day to grab the last items before someone else gets them.
Still-life with Brioche by Chardin (Wikipedia Commons)
Now, I’ve been a fan of most of what he makes for quite a while, but his brioche are some of the best pastry I’ve ever eaten. Which has led to a couple of very interesting conversations:
About a month ago my faithful readers may recall I was in Washington DC during the time of the Inauguration. One of the mornings there I found myself, with Daughter #1, in a very authentic french patisserie in Bethesda Maryland. Guess what was in the pastry case? Brioche! But these looked a bit different from those I’ve become accustomed to in Madison. A long conversation with the woman who ran the shop followed. She had baked everything in the shop herself. She had serious doubts as to whether the so-called brioche from Madison was the real thing, and in what would have to be described as a passionate defense of her craft, grabbed a brioche, sliced it in half, and stood there while we sampled it, with the following (please imagine a strong French accent): “If this is not the best brioche you’ve ever had, I want to know it…”
