WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE AT EUROPAIN 2018

*Originally published 2/8/18

If this is your first time reading check out my post Europain 2018: Getting Ready For The Most Exciting Weekend to get some background information and see why I was so excited for this weekend (a.k.a. it’s the first part of this 2 post series).

​This past weekend I spent 4 days at Europe’s biggest bakery exposition and learned quite a lot about the baking industry not only in Europe but around the world. With seminars on ancient versus modern wheat, chocolate tastings from around the world, pastry chef demonstrations and over 400 exhibitors, I returned home pretty exhausted every day. Interested in what I did this weekend? Read on for this weekends highlights.
 
Day 1: Highlights
The night before the first day I spent at least an hour trying to plan my schedule with critical precision. I wanted to get the absolute most out of this weekend so I made sure to plan my schedule accordingly (a.k.a. I had 5 minutes to go from one section to the next, which meant I couldn’t stay for the Q&A session and considering the enormity of the exposition I had to more or less speed walk everywhere.) So, as you could probably already imagine I was in a constant hustle the first day.

Ancient and Modern Wheat Highlights
I know you guys are just as excited as I am to learn about ancient and modern wheat! Don’t worry I won’t give you the full breakdown of the hour long hot debate but I will give you some nice highlights! But before I do that I want to note that the panel consisted of Jean-Francois Berthelot, a farmer, miller and baker, Alain Bonjean, an expert in modern seeds, and Isabel (I didn’t catch her last name) a wheat researcher. These people seriously know their stuff! So without further ado…the highlights from the debate!

• Cultivation of wheat started about 20,000 years ago. 
  
• There are multiple types of wheat (spelt, soft white, durum, etc.)
  
• There is no legal difference or distinction between ancient and modern wheat but most experts seem to agree that ancient wheat is generally wheat varieties cultivated before the 1950’s while modern wheat varieties are cultivated anytime during or after the 1960-1970’s.
  
• The industrialization of farming led to farmers genetically modifying the crop to make it shorter, easier to grow and more fertile. 
  
• Some believe that the genetic modification of wheat is the root cause of the rising gluten intolerance we see today due to loss in nutritional density, diversity and digestibility. However, there isn’t enough research yet to confirm these correlations and frankly, it’s not that simple but an interesting thought none-the-less.
  

I honestly could write a whole post about the discussion they had regarding the classification of ancient and modern wheat, links to gluten intolerance and celiac disease, and the genetic modification of wheat. I kept it nice and simple for you here! If you are interested, leave me a comment below and I’d be more than happy to explain further. :)
 
What does all of this have to do with cake? Well, wheat is harvested and then milled to make flour which goes into cake! Ta da! 

The Pastry Chef Demonstration Miracle & Aftermath
Pastry Chef demonstrations consist of you watching a master create a recipe right in front of your eyes. PLUS, you get to taste it after. Hopefully, unless there’s a giant mob, which there always is, that fights over the samples. 
 
Pastry Chef François Perret of the Ritz Paris created a gorgeous 5 star honey, almond, and pear dessert. As he assembled different components of the dessert, he passed out the candied almonds he made which were amazing! The plated dessert consisted of chopped fresh Williams Pear, candied almonds, a scoop of vanilla ice cream encased in an igloo of whipped cream, topped with a cookie (resembling a honey comb) topped with honey. He made enough desserts for everyone that initially came to the demonstration and stayed the whole time but of course people see food and stick around to grab some as they walk by. ​

​Long story short, when the dessert was completed I saw the pastry sous chef, Jeremy hand the last sample to the couple next to me. :( Sadness. My heart sank. But just then, Jeremy walks over to the demonstration dessert plated by the pastry chef François Perret, picks it up, walks over to me and sets it in front of me. I turned into a bright red tomato!! God is good. My heart stopped. Here I was looking down at a gold trimmed plate with the dessert that was just made in front of me. I looked back up and Jeremy was there again with a silver spoon for me to dig in. I didn’t hesitate. Three bites in to this delectable dessert of multiple layers and textures, I wasn’t even ready for what was about to happen… ​

​From behind me the crowd of people managed to somehow obtain tiny sample spoons (I assume from fighting someone to the death) and literally swooped in and started eating off my plate. UHM WHAT?!? I was stunned. So stunned, I froze in fact and that started a chain reaction of the rest of the mob munching on my dessert. I felt like a poor injured zebra being attacked by a swarm of hungry vultures. Below is a photo for reference.

Day 2 Highlights
The second day at Europain started off pretty well, or so I thought. I managed to get there with plenty of time to spare before the demonstration I wanted to see, so I decided to check out some of the exhibitors in the mean time. Of course, what I didn’t realize was they switched the first and second pastry chef demonstrations meaning when I casually arrived early to the first one I was at the end of the one I actually wanted to see! :( At least I still got to try the rich chocolate tart!
 
Mustard Whipped Cream?!?
I stayed for the next demonstration since I already had that time planned to be there for the first one titled, Strawberry and Mustard. Yeah, not a combination I would typically put together and if you know me I’m a pretty picky eater. Hence why I went the route of pastry because I love almost everything sweet. ​

​Anyway, the dessert consisted of strawberry jam, a raspberry, a layer of crunch and topped with mustard whipped cream. By itself mustard whipped cream is well…mustard whipped cream. Exactly how you would imagine it. Except here mustard is all from Dijon so it had a certain spice to it. I don’t think my palette is refined enough to enjoy the flavors the pastry chef was trying to convey in this dish. 

​Would you try mustard whipped cream?
 
Cocoa beans and chocolate from around the world
I was excited for this one because well, put simply, I LOVE chocolate. Giving me a space where I can learn more about it and try different types? Heaven.
Cocoa bean farmers from around the world each had a station to showcase their regions cocoa beans and the resulting chocolate bar.
 
The first lady that I talked to instructed me to simple peel off the skin from the bean and eat it. Now, eating chocolate and eating a cocoa bean are two completely different things. To put it in perspective, imagine 100% dark chocolate. Eating a cocoa bean is sooooooooooo bitter. That’s because the chocolate bars we know and love are filled with cocoa butter (fat), sugar, and milk (in the case of milk chocolate)!
 
Each region that grows cocoa beans has its own unique taste, smell and appearance. The variations in flavor are so slight you have to really make sure you cover all of your taste buds to detect it but there definitely is a difference and when you notice it, it seems huge. I always thought chocolate was just chocolate but now it’s so much more than that. I plan on studying more into chocolate so maybe I’ll turn into Willy Wonka? ​

2017 World Pastry Chef Champion
*Imagine me jumping up and down while saying this*
I met the 2017 World Pastry Chef Champion, Jean-Thomas Schneider!!!!!!!!!!
And he taught me how to make an amazing lemon crème and lemon mousse for the replicated half lemon dessert he demonstrated. What’s even better than that? I GOT TO TRY IT. And it was out of this world!

​After taking a photo with him and scratching that off my bucket list, my first thought was, “note to self: new life goal – World Pastry Chef Champion”
The world isn’t even ready yet ;) ​​

Day 3 Highlights

​Agri Ethical
I mentioned this seminar in my last post and I was really excited to hear from the founder of Agri Ethical – the European equivalent to Fair Trade. Those of you who know me well know that I am very fond of the idea of Fair Trade and am glad the future is heading that way. For those that aren’t sure what Fair Trade means, it’s basically the idea that the farmers harvesting our products are paid fair wages, improve our environmental farming conditions and provide better products for consumers! Sounds great huh? Yup! It is! So I’m really glad this organization, Agri Ethical is making steps towards implementing that concept in France.
 
Coupe de France des Ecoles
The Coupe de France des Ecoles is basically a competition for student teams from different schools to go head to head and create masterpieces of sugar and bread. They worked tirelessly throughout the weekend and created beautiful works of edible art. It was exciting to watch students work and compete with the skills they learned in class. I couldn’t help but think that soon I will be one of those students!

Day 4 Highlights
 
Mondial des Arts Sucrés (International Confectionary Art Competition)
 
The Mondial des Arts Sucrés (International Confectionary Art Competition) was mesmerizing to watch. There were a total of 16 countries that competed: Ecuador, Russia, Taiwan, France, Canada, Venezuela, Morocco, Colombia, Ukraine, Brazil, USA, Japan, Singapore, Mexico and Georgia. Each team consisted of one female and one male pastry chef to represent their respective countries.
 
Here’s a list of everything they had to make for the competition:

• 20 plated desserts
• 20 individual small ice cream cakes
• 30 x 2 types of confectionary
• 4 entremets (small snack dessert)
• 1 sugar centerpiece
• 1 chocolate center piece
• 1 sugar and chocolate presentation stand for their confectionary

 
Just typing that list was exhausting, I couldn’t imagine having to make it all!
Each country had plenty of people in the crowd cheering them on with flags. There was some really great energy there! The theme this year was French luxury.

Masters de La Boulangerie (Bakery Masters)
I have never seen bread like this before. Honestly, I didn’t know there were so many different types of bread other than sandwich bread and a baguette. There were 3 different categories of the competition:

• Nutritional Bread Making
• Gourmet Baking
• Artistic Bread Making

The USA competed in Gourmet Baking represented by Jeffrey de Leon and Artistic Bread Making represented by Jacob Baggenstos. Unfortunately we didn’t win either of the sections BUT we did a great job and the competition was fierce. 

​The 2018 winners in each category are:

• Nutritional Bread Making – Peter Bienefelt – The Netherlands
• Gourmet Baking – Déborah Ott - France
• Artistic Bread Making – Peng-Chieh Wang - Tawian

 
This is a huge honor because there are (now) only 9 Master Bakers in the entire world! 

So there you have it! A behind the scenes look at Europe’s largest baking exposition. I hope you enjoyed this post because I truly did enjoy every second of this past weekend, despite the fact that I came home exhausted every day. I’m so excited for my pastry courses to start next week and going to Europain was only a little introduction into my future career and life. And you know what? It looks pretty sweet.
 
Yes, that pun was intended.
 
So what do you think? Would you be up for the challenge of eating bread and sweets all day for an entire weekend?
 
P.S. I should mention that this entire expo was in French with only a couple of the seminars being translated so forgive me if some topics aren’t as thorough as you hoped.
 
P.P.S. I should also mention I ate WAYYYYYYYY too much bread this weekend but it was for a good purpose: education. ;)
 
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