Poolish Baguettes

Bernard Ganachaud, in the early 1960s, made the poolish baguette the first legitimate alternative to the 60-2-2 baguette of the Parisian masses. When he retired thirty years later, his la flûte Gana was a licensed commodity, and bakers who paid for the right to make it were allowed to charge an extra franc above the government-controlled price. In the Coupe du Monde bread competition, the poolish baguette is now the standard that all countries must replicate. In my visits to the boulangeries of Paris, the poolish baguette made at the original Ganachaud Boulangerie was the second best baguette I ever had (the first being the pain à l’ancienne of Philippe Gosselin). Ganachaud has a special medium-extraction flour (with his name prominently displayed on the bags, naturally) from which he makes his baguettes, and there isn’t any flour quite like it in America. It is slightly higher in ash content and bran than regular bread flour, more like clear flour (whole-wheat flour that has been sifted only once instead of the usual twice to remove the bran and germ). The closest I’ve come to replicating that flour is described below and it makes a wonderful baguette, perhaps as good as can be done outside of the magical environment of Paris and without true Ganachaud-endorsed flour. Some people prefer it to the Gosselin baguette. See what you think.