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Panem Bakery in Ireland
(Vol. II, No. 1 -- Summer 1998)
Ireland may be the land of good solid brown
soda bread (delicious at breakfast; deadly
by dinner), but few bakeries in the country
have mastered the fine French tradition of
crustiness. Perhaps it was sheer cussedness
that kept us looking for good French bread
in Ireland, but cussedness is sometimes rewarded.
We found a delightful (tiny) French bakery
on the River Liffey at Ha'Penny Quay. Panem
Bakery had a kitchen the size of a galley
on an airplane, done entirely in stainless
steel, and a seating area that could accommodate
about six slender children comfortably, but
it managed to turn out baked goods in ways
that defied several fundamental laws of physics
and architecture (whose chief branch, you
will recall, is confectionery).* Peg found the petite pain particularly pleasing,
while Lisa noshed on a chocolate croissant
that Kant would surely have ruled sublime.
*On pastry-as-architecture, we turn to Antonin
Careme (the cook of kings and king
of cooks),
who was the personal chef to Prince
de Talleyrand
(later known as King George IV), Tsar
Alexander
I, and Baron de Rothchild. Careme was
one
of the first masters of haute cuisine.
An
abandoned child, he worked his way
up in
kitchens of working-class restaurants.
Careme
writes that "the fine arts are
five
in number, namely: painting, sculpture,
poetry,
music, architecture--the main branch
of which
is confectionery." (Thanks to
Glenn
Kuehn, philosopher-chef of Southern
Illinois
University at Carbondale, for the biographical
information.)
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