From our blog itParis
According to Le Parisien, which is the most incredible bread in Paris? That of Pane Vivo! We take you into the universe of Sicilian wheat and the coolest mother yeast in the capital. And we talked about it with him, Adriano Farano, the founder of this 100% Italian boulangerie! With a past as a journalist and an experience that led him first to Paris and then to California, Farano is back in the Ville Lumière. His goal of him? Give him life to the pain qui fait du bien! And you chercheurs d'emploi, listen: Pane Vivo is recruiting.
Pane Vivo lands in Paris: le pain qui fait du bien
Let's be honest, there is certainly no shortage of bread in Paris. France boasts an ancient tradition in the field of bakery. The fragrant perfume that overwhelms us, for example in the 4th district, a stone's throw from Notre Dame and in full baguette reign. And yet, bread that is so attractive can hide some traps. This is why we want you to reflect on its digestibility. In fact, if you cannot digest the sandwich eaten during the break, you should ask yourself why.
Will it be the latest gimmick of your boss? Or yet another bottling in the metro, in close encounters at blast furnace temperatures? Well, no. That feeling of bloating or sometimes stomach pain is determined by the type of flour in your sandwich. We talked about it and much more with Adriano Farano, journalist and founder of Pane Vivo, le pain qui fait du bien.
Hi Adrian! Thank you so much for being here with us at ItParigi.it. Tell us your story! As a journalist first in Paris and then in the States and now again here as a boulanger. Why the choice to found Pane Vivo in the Ville Lumière?
Thanks to you, it's a pleasure! Well, bread struck me about three years ago. Then there was a conjuncture of other events, including the birth of my third child. I had recently sold my start-up in California and after nine years living in Silicon Valley, I needed a new challenge. Getting my hands dirty gave me other sensations compared to those of apps and journalism, and that's how it started.
Just think that I built the first clay oven with my own hands and the feet of my children! I started selling my bread in California, but both I and my family were longing for Paris where we had also lived for nine years. In Ville Lumière I had developed my journalistic career, I had founded the magazine Cafe Babel. We were missing Europe, the art and beauty of Paris and so I decided to find Pane Vivo here. Of course, the return was not easy: we found ourselves in the middle of protests for pensions and demonstrations of the yellow vests. Despite this, we have strengthened and joyfully jumped into this new adventure.
Here in Paris have you found a hostile or proactive environment for the launch of your boulangerie?
The old guard was very hostile, especially at the beginning. Instead, consumers welcomed us with open arms. I remember well the conversation with a baker awarded the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France. He was looking at me from the top of his thirty years of experience in the boulangerie, judging me a newbie! For him the ancient grains, which I insisted on proposing, were too expensive. He defended the modern varieties of wheat, more profitable but also more harmful to the body. Consumers, on the other hand, immediately understood the novelty of Pane Vivo and appreciated us immediately. Then, you know, the bread recalls stories that have their roots in spirituality in general and in Christianity in particular.
Even in Ancient Egypt, bread was revered as a divine element. And if we go even further in time, bread has marked the passage of Man to the Neolithic! It was Homo Sapiens who used a pestle to crush the oat grains first and then the wheat ones. Man then observed the miracle of fermentation and this is how bread was born. Who knows why, however, the magic of leavening with whole grains, known since prehistoric times, has been "forgotten" over the centuries ...
Today there are more than fourteen additives in bread, too much salt and too rapid leavening with beer yeast! All of this is harmful to our health. Pane Vivo, however, wants to return to tradition with a futuristic vision of our product. In short, we want to combine the goodness of traditional with the modernity of today's science, for example by appealing to gluten analysis that we commissioned before choosing our flours.
Adriano, please tell us, a physical and a moral ingredient, essential for making the best bread in the world. Or at least to make that of Pane Vivo
The indispensable physical ingredient is definitely flour. Most bakers go around the large industrial mills and track down the best offer to receive useful financing when starting their business. Large mills often finance the creation of boulangeries. So their aim is not to find the best flour for our health. the nutritional side of wheat is totally overshadowed. Just think that, very often, the nutritional card of the flour is completely missing.
I spent three years testing hundreds of flours for the launch of Pane Vivo. Then, I analyzed the ones I thought were most interesting and the choice fell on a Russello durum wheat flour. It's an autochthonous Sicilian flour, whose ear has a slightly reddish color. The beauty of this wheat is that it has a highly biodegradable gluten in the human body, ie 100% digestible.
The second indispensable ingredient, the moral one, is the word. Bread needs to be explained and that's what we do at Pane Vivo. It's a magic that oscillates between Myths and Logos and the choice of Sicilian wheat takes us back to Greek legends. Diodorus Siculus, a historian from 90 BC, says that the goddess Demeter had donated the grain to the Siceliotes for having consoled her with the rat of her daughter Persephone, by Hades. It's nice to wrap our customers in the embrace of the mythical story. It's pure light. In fact, for us, our salespeople are not mere the sellers'. We prefer to call them éclaireurs: that is, bearers of that light which is our bread, of a real educational activity in the direction of the consumer.
In a provocative post on the net, you mentioned the high glycemic rate of the baguette. Do you want to explain, once again, why bread is often indigestible?
Well, if you tell me about that white wheat baguette that people would like to criminally raise to France's cultural / food heritage, let me tell what I think about. White bread is extremely harmful to the body. But if you make the same baguette with a whole and noble wheat, the result is sensational and healthy! In short, there are three problems with an indigestible bread:
- Wheat: modern variety grains are preferred which are more profitable, but harmful to health;
- Flour: the white one is deprived of the endosperm, of the germ in short, that is, of the most noble part of the wheat. That's why there are too many traces of sugar in the flour;
- Fermentation: brewer's yeast is harmful! In fact, it develops a too fast leavening which prevents the body from assimilating the minerals contained in the plant. Instead from Pane Vivo we use only the mother yeast that comes from a whole milling. All this to create an all-round food, finally doing justice to bread
Where can we find you in Paris and what are Pane Vivo's future plans?
You can find us in the 20th arrondissement, Menilmontant district on 49 rue de la Chine. We also have around a dozen distribution points throughout the French capital accessible on our website. For example, from RAP, The best Italian epicerie in Paris, distributes our bread and we are very proud of it. Pane Vivo's future projects include continuing to make pain qui fait du bien.
Our company is very successful and we are looking for new éclaireurs or girl scouts, who love bread like us and are bilingual in French. Because as I said before, our bread must be explained and told: the customer deserves to be informed. Our consumers have the right to get to know the taste and health magic of our products up close.
Adriano, we thank you for this nice chat and wish you the best for your boulangerie
Thank you!
Are you listening éclaireurs and girl scouts? If you think you are the rare pearl, the right person to emanate the light of Pane Vivo products, the lucky boulangerie awaits your applications. Visit the Facebook page or the Official website and submit your CVs in the "contacts" section.
Bonne chance, alors et bon appetit! And always remember that:
Bread is the kindest, the most welcoming of words. Always write it in capital letters, like your name.
(Signboard of a Russian coffee)
