Just Don't Call Them Artesian

The debate over what can accurately be called artisan bread rages on. So which side do you support?

There's a natural cycle in the bakery business. Small bakers develop and perfect new products, which become popular with their customers. These retail bakers share their ideas with other independent bakers, whose customers also enjoy the new taste sensations. Through word of mouth, more consumers become aware of the products, and start requesting them at the local supermarket bakery. Before you know it, there's a genuine product phenomenon taking shape. At this point, the larger wholesalers and food manufacturers step in, automate the item's production and introduce it to the masses.

While this is the efficient market at work—bringing the cost of a product down through mass production and distribution—the process may not lend itself to retaining the integrity of the original product. For example, wholesalers introduced soft cookies into the market following the rise in popularity of cookie shops. While the cookie shop cookies were soft because they also were served warm from the oven, wholesalers couldn't duplicate both qualities. So, although soft cookies are still popular, and in fact wholesalers are looking into developing new lines, they're not quite the same thing as the original cookies produced by cookie shops.

Bagels are another good example. Originally, bagels were made using a process that required them to be boiled before being baked. This resulted in a unique product that had a chewy crust, combined with a moist interior. Cement donut isn't too far off the mark in describing the qualities of boiled bagels on day two, however. Steaming the bagels instead of boiling them produced a bagel with a less-tough crust and a somewhat softer interior, and allowed the growth of a whole new group of bakeries that specialized in these types of bagels. Following that trend, wholesalers added an array of bagel products to the bakery aisle, causing frozen bagel sales to fall while introducing a whole new group of customers to bagels.

Of course, purists insist that the real bagel, the only bagel, is the one that's boiled. All others are just weak imitations, according to them. And, in a way, I agree. I've had some products that were called bagels that really were just bread rolls with a hole in them. To me, if you're going to call a product by a name, you should make sure that the product retains the characteristics that originally separated it from other products. So, I fall solidly in the camp that says, "If it ain't boiled, it ain't a bagel." That's not to say I don't enjoy eating bagels produced by the steaming method. Some of them are pretty darn good, too. But, to me, it's really not a bagel, and consumers who've never had a boiled bagel are missing the fun and unique eating experience that only a boiled bagel can provide. The sad part is, if they've never had a boiled bagel before, they don't know that their steamed bagel is just a derivative.

Now, a whole new cycle of argument over terminology and product names has gotten underway. Small bakers started to recreate the style of bread-making that used to predominate before modern methods of bread production were introduced. These bakers, who relied on natural fermentation and hand-molding, consider themselves artisans. They consider the bread they produce a unique product that springs from the process, and that cant be duplicated via automation.

Of course, these breads have become phenomenally popular, and the usual marketing cycle is taking place. Larger producers are now making artisan breads, and selling them in frozen and parbaked forms for finishing on the premises in restaurants, supermarket bakeries and non-bread-shop bakeries. The rub for the smaller bakers is the larger wholesalers' appropriation of the term, "artisan." Much like the debate over what to call a bagel, the name can make a difference in what consumers will come to expect such a product to be.

According to my dictionary, the word "artisan" has a short, succinct definition: its a noun that's another word for craftsman. That's it. One word. In fact, properly speaking, we should not use the word artisan as an adjective, because it refers to the person who practices a trade, or the one who creates or performs with skill or dexterity, especially in the manual arts (Webster's definition of a craftsman).

But, semantics aside, the manufacturers of equipment to produce artisan-style bread aren't seeking to substitute a different process in its production, unlike the steaming substituted for boiling of bagels. In fact, they appear to be bending over backward to create equipment that can simulate an artisans gentle touch when dividing and molding the loaves. Stone hearth tunnel ovens—which are built like tanks to support all the extra weight—are now available to ensure that the crust of the finished breads is as close as possible to those baked in smaller hearth ovens.

The automation of artisan-style breads will continue, despite the protests of individual bakery artisans, who truly do maintain contact with each and every product that goes out the door. That's just the nature of marketing today. But I do agree with the individual bakers who say that it should be made a little more clear whether there is a real artisan in the bakery, or whether the bakery is manufacturing artisan-style bread. To the vast majority of American consumers, who don't have access to independent retail bakeries, their first introduction to a product they haven't had before may form the opinion they have of the product category in general. So, I guess I'm on the side of the individual artisans. If wholesalers are going to make a product that's an extension of something developed in a small, retail bakery—especially a specialty product—let's give credit where credit is due, and clarify that the product is in the style that an individual artisan created. (Bagelmakers, shouldn't it be steamed-style bagels?) That's the least we can do.

*Artesian (pronounced ar-tee'-zhen) vs. artisan (pronounced ar' ty san) There's no such thing as an artesian bread, or anything artesian except a well. An artesian well is one in which the water is under pressure, causing it to flow to the surface naturally. Whatever you do, don't call bread made by an artisan artesian unless you'd like to see some blood under pressure.

Carol Meres Kroskey is the award-winning former senior baker editor of Bakery Production and Marketing magazine, a trade magazine that covered the entire bakery industry. Her baking experience includes stints at various retail, hotel and supermarket bakeries as baker and pastry cook. She also spent several years as an experimental baking technician for the American Institute of Baking, and as a test baker at The Long Co., a co-op for independent wholesale bakers. Carol can be reached at carol.kroskey@prodigy.net.