Other people's kitchens: Gérard's Bakery

Gérard Rubaud's bakery is perched at the top of a swooping road overlooking the Westford valley. Concerned about the two black labs that circled my car as I crested the hill, I hesitated at a crucial moment, then retraced my tracks in reverse before taking another shot. The drive continued upward, between undulating walls of stacked firewood.

The interior of the low wooden building where Gérard works is filled with burnished golds and warm browns that conjure bread's wheaten hues. The walls are lined with wood and the shelves with cookbooks. A battered Larousse Gastronomique sits on the expansive surface of a work table. The windows frame a grey and snowless landscape; its harsh lines underscore the glowing warmth inside the room. Smiling, Gérard comments that “this is a church of baking!”, and it's true. As his hands have shaped many thousands of loaves, baking shapes his life. He follows the nocturnal schedule of his lévain, a carefully nurtured wild yeast culture. When I arrived late in the morning, he was preparing his final batch of loaves, ending a work day that had started at 10:30 the night before.

Gérard trained as a baker in the 50's, during the last years of France's highly regimented culinary apprentice system. At the time, commercial yeast was largely unused outside of Paris, much less in the Alps where he was raised. As he describes the spread of commercial yeast and the rise of France's now-famed baguette, it's with the rueful tone of an epidemiologist. “It started in Paris, and spread outward from there”, he said, waving his hands in ever-larger circles.

His bread, the bread of the country, was shaped into boules, or miches, round loaves that weigh several pounds, and are sold by weight. He describes those years as a time of stringent standards, but little respect for culinary artisans. He says ironically that “baking is for those who can't read or write!”. Though Rubaud took to his training, his heart was in the steep alpine slopes where he spent his free time, skiing. “I baked so that I could ski”, he recalls, and his love for skiing became a career at Rossignol that eventually landed him in Vermont.

Now 70, Rubaud has been back in the bakery for many years. His back is twisted by stroke, and he moves slowly among the stacked maple logs and racks of loaves. Still, his hands are sure as he slashes the top of each loaf with a lame. With a slender peel that also serves as a kind of hand rail, he places each loaf carefully in the vast brick oven, whose interior measures 12x12 ft.

He explains that Mondays are his day for experimentation, and today he has tried something new. He tweaked the entwined variables of temperature and time, the most essential tools of a bread baker. He smiles. “I think it worked”, he said, “they have a very good smell today”. This baking is a singular, meditative pursuit. Gérard bakes just one kind of loaf, a rustic bread with a somewhat chewy crust and a moist, open crumb, flecked with whole grains. He has made it for years, and is attuned to the many variables that affect its consistency. He orders flour for three months, so that he can adjust to the differing protein content of each batch. Humidity is a factor, and temperature. Even, he says, the biochemistry of each baker. “You and I could make bread with the same recipe, same ingredients, same day”, he remarks, “but we have different bacteria in the air around us. It would be different bread”.

To him, this depth of knowledge is baking. He believes that sourdough is both the past and the future of good bread, notwithstanding the enriched loaves that some bakers produce. “You can put raisins in a loaf of bread, but it's not baking”, he said. Pausing, he added humbly, “of course, that is just my opinion”.

Over the years those opinions have been highly sought after. Gérard's apprentices have spread far and wide, starting bakeries of their own around the country, sometimes in Vermont. Scott Medellín of Jeffersonville's Slow Fire Bakery trained at North Carolina's Billy Bread. Billy trained with Gérard.

When he pulls the last loaves from the oven, I select a couple to take home with me. “Take a darker one and a lighter one”, Gérard advised, “so you can know the difference”. But I've eaten many of his loaves, and I know what I like. I slipped the two darkest ones into paper bags, where they radiated moist heat into my arms.

His baking done, Gérard takes a seat at the large work table, and gazes out over the undulating landscape. I wonder aloud if he's headed straight to sleep, but he shakes his head. “This afternoon, I make duck confit.” He smiled. “Duck meat is the healthiest meat, and duck fat the most delicious!”.