Pain á l’Ancienne

Pain à l’ancienne is daily bread for much of rural France. A country relative of the pain de Paris and the baguette, pain à l’ancienne is a more rustic bread because it is made with a bit of whole wheat flour. You will get the best results from a stone-ground, coarse grind of whole wheat flour; you want lots of flecks throughout the loaf. When I stayed outside of Cahors, near Villefranche de Rouergue, I visited a baker who worked alone in what looked like an abandoned s