After studying business at university, and a short period of travelling, Valentin came back to Sainte Foy last season to help his father, Serge, in the family supermarket business. He especially wanted to revamp the boulangerie, and said, “This was a great learning opportunity and gave me the chance to see if there was anything I could add to what we were doing” says Valentin through a large grin that makes me think there’s more to come. “After we had closed down the supermarket at the end of last season, I rode my bike up over the Pass de Petit Saint Bernard, through Italy, down to Greece and on in to Turkey. Everywhere I went, I saw these fabulous, family run bakeries serving their local communities with tasty bread, made in a local style with local ingredients. Their customers loved it, and I felt sure that it would work well back home in Sainte Foy”.
You can feel the enthusiasm when Valentin talks of using organic ingredients, sourced locally. He is so excited about making tasty, healthy bread in his father’s boulangerie in Sainte Foy Station, that I already want to taste it. But that will have to wait, because there is more to Valentin’s story before we start tasting. “First, I had to convince my father that it was a good idea. We were going to have to refit the réserve downstairs with fridges, proving ovens, and a large mixing machine. We would need a new oven as well, and all this was going to require a level of investment that a summer cycling through Italy wasn’t going to fund!” The idea of a father helping his son to develop the family business is nothing new, but the idea still needs to be sold, and there is a look on Valentin’s face that suggests that there might have been a healthy exchange of ideas.
“My father is a savvy businessman, and could see that this would add something positive to the business. The boulangerie was already part of the supermarket business, but the bread making was ready for taking to a new level. The investment in new equipment would increase the asset value of the business, and the improved quality of our bread would bring more and more customers into the shops.” Then with another of his engaging smiles, he tell us that “my father really bought into it, and from that moment I knew it would work.
Valentin explains the process of making bread from organic and locally sourced ingredients. He tells me that they can’t actually call it organic because that involves having separate areas for organic and non organic baking, and space doesn’t come in abundance in Sainte Foy. He is passionate about owning the process from start to finish, from farm to table, and bringing high levels of quality to each stage. “This is important if you want to produce the best bread possible” he states with a sense of pride. “I’m connected to the land and nature, my grandfather was a farmer, my father grew up on the farm, and I now bake bread. I feel this connection strongly, and I’m proud to take our farmers’ grain and turn it into bread that everyone wants to eat.”
I ask him whether eating his way through Italy, Greece and Turkey was enough to give him the bread making experience required to make this project work? The smile turns to an expression of understanding this complication, but the smile remains nonetheless, giving me a sense that he has an answer to this conundrum.
Jean-Claude, a baker whose skills have been proving for 23 years, provides the knowledge behind the bread making process. He worked with Serge last year and has an impressive saviour faire when it comes to all things to do bread making. Jean-Claud puts a freshly floured hand on the dough and tells us that it’s now ready for dividing and weighing into 400g lumps, ready for proving. I have no idea how he knows this, but his confidence is infectious, and I believe him.
We leave Jean-Claude with his dough and venture back upstairs into the shop area, and sit down at one of the small tables with a view out onto the snow covered wooden decking. From the cozy warmth of this little bread and cake shop, we watch snow flakes tumbling out of the sky on the other side of the window, settling on an ever deepening bed of snow.
An energising espresso for Valentin, and un allongé for me, and the tasting begins. Where better to start than the baguette apéro, a small moist baguette stuffed with either chorizo and soft French cheese, or olives and soft French cheese. These are designed to be eaten as apéritifs, and are absolutely delicious.
Next we tried various baguettes, all of which I want to take home with me. The bread here has a truly “moorish” quality, and a satisfyingly natural taste for which Valentin is waiting for me to tell him that I can taste the nature in this baguette!
All that is left now, is for Valentin to ‘mettre la main à la pâte’, get to work, as they say in France, and keep the shelves well stocked to feed the mountain lovers in Sainte Foy!
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