Q&A with Chef Alain Coumont: Founder of bakery-cafe Le Pain Quotidien

CL.com: You're an advocate of the organics movement. Why?
AC: Fifty years ago, everything was organic. There were no chemicals, no people in white coats walking around in fields. Now people think it's impossible to farm without chemicals. It's funny – some people used to ask me, "Is it safe to eat organic?" In some people's minds, it's dangerous to eat a fruit when pesticides haven't killed the bugs, or that all the fungus has not been killed.

Now, essentially everything is polluted with metals, chemicals and discarded pharmaceuticals. Even the food industry uses more chemicals now than ever before, and people are eating more processed foods with even more chemicals than ever before.

It's just good to go organic.

CL.com: And your different bakery-café locations around the world source their own local ingredients?
AC: Yes – in Canada we can certainly source local organic flour and other necessary products. In our Dubai location we have to import flour from Belgium, but we use their cheese and eggs and dairy. All my bakeries use as much local and organic products as we can. It makes sense! There's less shipment using local products, which means less money spent by the business.

CL.com: What advice do you have for home cooks baking their own bread?
AC: Good bread is a hard thing to make at home – it's hard to bake bread in a conventional oven. I bake my bread on stone. The impact of the heat on the stone transforms the water in the bread dough into steam, giving the bread a kick. This impact of heat is hard to recreate at home. Some people put a slab of stone on their oven rack, which will help.

That said, everything happens before the baking – the fermentation process is important. At home, you also have to have the right type of flour. You need flour with a higher protein content; otherwise it will be too doughy. When making good bread, you need elasticity for the dough to expand.

Canadian Living's step-by-step photographed recipe for Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread will help you bake your own beautiful loaf >>

CL.com: What's your favourite baked good?
AC: I spend so many nights baking that I prefer a good piece of organic, whole wheat sourdough with real body – a brown bread where you can really taste the cereal flavour.

Le Pain Quotidien opens four locations in Toronto in 2008, followed by locations in Vancouver and Montreal.

See the goodies featured at Le Pain Quotidien's first Canadian location on the next page! >>

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