Speaker 1: My name is Eva Longoria and I am mate remez
Speaker 1: Racon and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that
Speaker 1: explores our past and present through food. On every episode,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
Speaker 1: and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2: So make yourself at home, even broche.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 1: Everyone, Welcome back to Hungry for History. We're doing things
Speaker 1: a little bit differently today. We have a very special guest, Clements,
Speaker 1: salutes from the Santa Monica Bakery Petit Grand bou Lingerie.
Speaker 2: Clements is a dear friend.
Speaker 1: Not only is she a dear friend, she's a baker
Speaker 1: whose work reminds us that bread has always been about
Speaker 1: much more than just nourishment. Through her careful sourcing, meticulous process,
Speaker 1: and her presence in the community, she taps into Bread's
Speaker 1: long history of labor care and quiet revolution, and The
Speaker 1: New York Times said that eating one of her croissants
Speaker 1: felt like inhaling warm buttery aroma.
Speaker 2: Welcome Clemons.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy to be here. I miss you.
Speaker 2: I miss you too.
Speaker 1: I was seeing you so I wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: you because first of all, you're the best baker and
Speaker 1: just one of the best humans that I know. You're
Speaker 1: one of the first people that I met when I
Speaker 1: moved to LA and it's like, I see you and
Speaker 1: I just want to hug you, But I really wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to you about you know, because you're so
Speaker 1: passionate about what you do, and bread has always carried
Speaker 1: so much meaning far beyond the bakery, especially in moments
Speaker 1: of tension, of social tension, and we're living one of
Speaker 1: these moments in the US now. It's the first week
Speaker 1: of February. We're in the midst of intense national unrest.
Speaker 1: On January thirtieth, which was just last Friday, there was
Speaker 1: a coordinated national strike, widespread protests around the country in
Speaker 1: response to everything that's going on with ICE, you know, Minneapolis,
Speaker 1: the fatal shootings, kidnappings, you know, no new processes, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, like so much. Many businesses closed in solidarity,
Speaker 1: but Mariny small businesses stayed open with intention, and you
Speaker 1: were one of these businesses.
Speaker 2: So so what did that look like to you?
Speaker 1: What values guided this choice, and how did your community respond?
Speaker 3: So it was not an easy decision to decide to
Speaker 3: stay open. I have a deep respect for bakeries like
Speaker 3: Proof who decided to close, and I can understand how
Speaker 3: they came to that decision, and I one hundred percent
Speaker 3: support everybody who did close and actually feel like it
Speaker 3: was an incredibly brave and courageous thing to do. When
Speaker 3: I was thinking about what to do, I called a
Speaker 3: couple of other small business owners, all the bakery and
Speaker 3: restaurant owners, and then did some deep thinking about what
Speaker 3: it meant to strike, who we were striking against, how
Speaker 3: the strike was organized, and the reasons why, and then
Speaker 3: how that would impact the community and our staff. Number
Speaker 3: One is, when I think about a strike, I'm thinking
Speaker 3: about striking against something that is like systematically unfair and unjust,
Speaker 3: and striking for the sake of striking, and not hitting
Speaker 3: an organization, a system, or a business that is harming
Speaker 3: people Like I wanted to be more intentional. If we
Speaker 3: were striking against a particular entity that was very specific,
Speaker 3: it would have made a really big impact. But I
Speaker 3: felt like the small businesses of our community have taken
Speaker 3: the brunt of so much in the last eighteen months,
Speaker 3: between the fires and the economy and a variety of factors.
Speaker 3: It just felt like all of us small businesses who
Speaker 3: were deciding and kind of being pitted against by some
Speaker 3: trolls against each other for deciding to strike or not
Speaker 3: to strike, to open, not to open. It just felt like,
Speaker 3: why are we taking the brunt of this when our
Speaker 3: workers are the most vulnerable were our owners are the
Speaker 3: most vulnerable owners economically speaking, And if we're closing, we
Speaker 3: are also closing the impact of conversation and the reason
Speaker 3: why we have hospitality. For me, hospitality is a deeply
Speaker 3: political business. We are here to create discussion and community
Speaker 3: and treat people, make them feel good, and have them
Speaker 3: come in and understand our process, why we do it
Speaker 3: and why that's impactful. And I don't mean political as
Speaker 3: in red and blue. I mean political in the way
Speaker 3: that every business decision you make has a really deep impact,
Speaker 3: just like every customer's purchases have a really deep impact
Speaker 3: on our society culturally, economically, and politically speaking. And so
Speaker 3: by staying open, I felt like I was staying really
Speaker 3: true to that. Meaning if we lost a really busy day,
Speaker 3: that would impact our purchasing from the farmer's markets. And
Speaker 3: if we lost today, it would mean you know, I
Speaker 3: could have closed and paid the employee they're hourly wage,
Speaker 3: but I could not have afforded to pay them the
Speaker 3: twenty five percent of their income that they get from tips,
Speaker 3: and it just didn't feel fair to put that burden
Speaker 3: on our workers in la or in the business owners
Speaker 3: that are dealing with a shit time right now. To
Speaker 3: be perfectly honest, this is a very difficult climate to
Speaker 3: be a small business owner in. And when we make,
Speaker 3: you know, donations to organizations, it's not like Walmart that's
Speaker 3: getting a massive tax break. We're doing this because it has,
Speaker 3: you know, a deep meaning and impact for us. And
Speaker 3: while it does affect our bottom line, I think it
Speaker 3: creates a conversation and a stance that our community can
Speaker 3: get involved in. So by deciding to give away ten
Speaker 3: percent of gross sales, which is really our margins, to
Speaker 3: certain organizations, we were taking a stance and for me
Speaker 3: having a larger impact on taking part in writing some
Speaker 3: wrongs rather than closing and essentially closing the conversation.
Speaker 1: I love the image that you posted on social media
Speaker 1: when you announced that you would be staying open. That
Speaker 1: was the fist holding the bread the baggat.
Speaker 3: So I can't take credit for that image. There are
Speaker 3: a few of us other female business owners who were
Speaker 3: talking right before we all decided to stay open and
Speaker 3: crafted that image just to collaboratively with the wording to
Speaker 3: try to explain our reasons for staying open. And again,
Speaker 3: it wasn't easy, but but we were you know, we
Speaker 3: were so committed to getting the communities to understand why
Speaker 3: we were staying open in a really positive way. And
Speaker 3: you know, I had a lot of trolls. We lost
Speaker 3: some customers really really uh huh yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 3: But you know, you can't please everyone, and and you know,
Speaker 3: we can explain it all we can, but but in
Speaker 3: the end, you know, we we had to make decisions
Speaker 3: for our businesses and our staff and all of the
Speaker 3: vendors that are affected. You know, when you strike or
Speaker 3: when you close, or when there's fires and where there's emergencies,
Speaker 3: it's the reverberated effects that are really impactful, and it typically,
Speaker 3: you know, goes down to the most vulnerable people in
Speaker 3: our communities. It's the people who are fixing our equipment,
Speaker 3: who are farming for our produce.
Speaker 1: So that's where that came from. It's tied to the
Speaker 1: French resistance. I was like, oh, this is so common,
Speaker 1: So I love that. It's all you know, women that
Speaker 1: women bakers that you said that were that were this
Speaker 1: because it was like the women that marched into Versailles.
Speaker 1: And it's just like it's such a powerful image and
Speaker 1: it's so simple, like there's it's the hand and the
Speaker 1: and the bread. We're not this was not just a
Speaker 1: financial decision, like we are angry and for us, sometimes
Speaker 1: resistance means like making economic choices that are very.
Speaker 3: Very well thought through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you have this like this lineage right, this
Speaker 1: because you had your background also your family was in
Speaker 1: the hospitality business, wasn't right, And it's like so you
Speaker 1: have this like this resistance in your DNA this right,
Speaker 1: and it's like it's part, it's part. So you said
Speaker 1: that you lost some customers and you've had some trolls
Speaker 1: like if someone had never thought about bread as political,
Speaker 1: what would you want them to notice differently, Like what
Speaker 1: would you want them to learn from this?
Speaker 2: I say, just turn it around.
Speaker 3: Your purchasing decisions have a great deal of impact on
Speaker 3: the communities that you live in, and so if you're
Speaker 3: going to boycott a business and turn around and buy
Speaker 3: something on Amazon, then perhaps you should really think about
Speaker 3: like your everyday daily choices and how they affect labor,
Speaker 3: how they affect sourcing, how they affect the environment. Those
Speaker 3: are bigger conversations that we need to have as a
Speaker 3: culture because they're all so impactful. And if we lost customers,
Speaker 3: oh well, you know, I think the overwhelming support and
Speaker 3: the fact that our sales went up and we were
Speaker 3: able to donate so much is more impactful than the
Speaker 3: people that we lost. But yeah, like when you buy bread,
Speaker 3: everyone listening, you are making a vote for the kind
Speaker 3: of economy and society that you may not realize you
Speaker 3: are participating in. So you know, when you're buying most
Speaker 3: of your food at a very large scale grocery store,
Speaker 3: I just need you to understand a few things. Number
Speaker 3: one is the margins are very very tiny, very small,
Speaker 3: and the people who pay for that are the people
Speaker 3: who are making your food. So let's take a jar
Speaker 3: of salsa for example. When you buy a jar of
Speaker 3: salsa and it's on sale and it's two dollars off,
Speaker 3: it is not like a collaboration between the grocery store
Speaker 3: and like the coupon market. It is the producer of
Speaker 3: the salsa that is paying for that. In addition to
Speaker 3: paying for that, they're paying for slotting fees, which are
Speaker 3: the fees that allow you to be more eye level
Speaker 3: and in the center of the display that you're seeing.
Speaker 3: And it is reverberated through lowering the cost of producing
Speaker 3: that salsa. So it means if you are with a copacker,
Speaker 3: which is a company that manufactures your products for you
Speaker 3: so you can sell it at a very low price
Speaker 3: and take advantage of some production savings, it means that
Speaker 3: you're going to save a few cents per jar by
Speaker 3: switching to the supplier that they have made a deal
Speaker 3: with for say the the tomatoes that they are using
Speaker 3: in the salsa, or if they don't want things to
Speaker 3: separate in your salad dressing, it's the xanthem gum, which
Speaker 3: is made from corn that is used to keep it
Speaker 3: from separating so that you don't have to shake the
Speaker 3: bottle well before using. These are all like reverberated things
Speaker 3: that affect the people who are growing your food, making
Speaker 3: your food, packing your food, and making the biggest business
Speaker 3: decisions in the food world.
Speaker 1: You used to run the Gormandis School of Cooking school,
Speaker 1: and I used to teach there, so yes, I know,
Speaker 1: I loved I love that place, and I've been to
Speaker 1: the Santa Monica Farmer's Market with you, so I know
Speaker 1: firsthand you live and breathe this. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: how you you run your businesses, this is how you
Speaker 1: live your life. And the sourcing is just so important
Speaker 1: to you. You're so committed to this because you just
Speaker 1: explained it.
Speaker 2: Just it's the it's the.
Speaker 3: Whole ladder shopping at farmers' markets is It's not just
Speaker 3: like a fun, cool hipster thing that you know, it's
Speaker 3: kind of taken on, but it is a political statement
Speaker 3: and it is not convenient, and it does take time
Speaker 3: out of your day, but it has an impact. Like
Speaker 3: when you know, I had kids really young, and I
Speaker 3: had wick and you know, like before this the EBT,
Speaker 3: the food stamp situation, and I remember feeling like I'm
Speaker 3: using this federal money that has been set aside by
Speaker 3: the farm bill to pay a farmer directly rather than
Speaker 3: taking it to a big box grocery store. And that
Speaker 3: felt really impactful and that, you know, and nobody sort
Speaker 3: of wants to be in that position where they are
Speaker 3: wondering where to get like the best quality produce for
Speaker 3: your kids and doing the best that you can. But
Speaker 3: I think that we are lulled just in this false
Speaker 3: sense of everything should be easy and we have a
Speaker 3: right for everything to be so clean and simple and
Speaker 3: convenient all the time. Like that's really I think lulled
Speaker 3: us into a false sense of complacency rather than activism.
Speaker 1: So you have I remember walking through the farmer's market
Speaker 1: with you, and all of the farmers were like, hey, climak,
Speaker 1: everyone you knew, you knew everyone, and everyone came up
Speaker 1: to you, and it was so it was like such
Speaker 1: a community. I love it so And yeah, that I
Speaker 1: feel like that ends up in your menu, your relationship
Speaker 1: with you know, the farmer, with the with the miller,
Speaker 1: with that. You know, everything just ends up, you know,
Speaker 1: ends up in that. And actually, and it also must
Speaker 1: be difficult, right, and in a sense is it?
Speaker 2: Or maybe it's not. You're running your business harder or no.
Speaker 3: It's just it's no, okay. So here's the story going back.
Speaker 3: So my grandparents had a restaurant with a little bit
Speaker 3: I was like in the middle of nowhere in France,
Speaker 3: and then my father ended up running it for a
Speaker 3: while and and so in the summers I would go
Speaker 3: and work with them, you know, like I was nine
Speaker 3: or ten or whatever, and like running the lice cream
Speaker 3: cart or you know, making cakes, and and I would
Speaker 3: go outsourcing with my grandfather and then my dad. You know,
Speaker 3: we'd go down and get all our produce and you know,
Speaker 3: directly from the farmers or the growers. And then we
Speaker 3: went to go pick up goat cheese. One day and
Speaker 3: we went to this woman's farm where we source all
Speaker 3: our goat cheese from. And I remember we had just
Speaker 3: been to the big box store to pick up things
Speaker 3: like chocolate, and I remember seeing the prices of the
Speaker 3: goat cheese. And then we went to her farm, and
Speaker 3: you know, I was probably in my early teens, and
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, cheese is so much more expensive.
Speaker 3: And He's like yeah, but you know, if we don't
Speaker 3: get cheese from her, like she will lose her farm
Speaker 3: and she will no longer be our neighbor. It was
Speaker 3: kind of one of those like eye opening things that
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I okay, that makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And that's how I feel about sourcing at the market. Like, yes,
Speaker 3: we drive a little out of the way or bike
Speaker 3: a little out of the way or whatever to get
Speaker 3: our stuff, but then people in our community who we
Speaker 3: love and we cherish get to stay in there and
Speaker 3: be a part of it and recirculate that money close by,
Speaker 3: rather than you know, going off to some li large
Speaker 3: conglomerate somewhere that we don't know their practices, or we
Speaker 3: do and we don't like it, but we feel like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's easier, so let me just do this because it's easier.
Speaker 3: So shopping at the farmer's market has always been a
Speaker 3: part of sourcing for that reason, but also because of flavor. Right,
Speaker 3: Like when we shop at the market, like our berries
Speaker 3: were picked forty eight hours before and they were picked
Speaker 3: at their peak of ripeness. So I hear all the
Speaker 3: time like, yeah, it's a little more expensive. I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: let's talk about strawberries. Right, So if you go to
Speaker 3: Costco and you get strawberries, I'd say like fifteen to
Speaker 3: twenty percent of that berry is white at the collar,
Speaker 3: it's picked way before it's ripe, it doesn't have any
Speaker 3: really high sugar content. But then you end up throwing
Speaker 3: away fifteen percent of that berry when you're hauling out
Speaker 3: the inside because you just want the flavor of it. Right,
Speaker 3: Like if I'm making jam, or if I'm using berries
Speaker 3: for garnish, but when I'm getting at a farmer's market,
Speaker 3: it was picked at its peak of ripeness. So it
Speaker 3: might look more expensive upfront, but the flavor and the
Speaker 3: quality is just a mess.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's so interesting because it's so it's so obvious, right, Oh,
Speaker 1: if you go straight to the source and then that source,
Speaker 1: that person can then have a livelihood, and then yeah,
Speaker 1: I charge a little bit more, but then you know
Speaker 1: what's going into your body, and you don't have all
Speaker 1: sorts of GMOs or all sorts of whatever going into
Speaker 1: your body, and you're gonna be healthier because then you're
Speaker 1: not gonna end up having to see a doctor.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah. It's just it goes on and on.
Speaker 2: So so I love it.
Speaker 3: I love talking to one of the millers that we
Speaker 3: work with, and for years it's like it's so hard
Speaker 3: to push whole grains on people, so I like, don't
Speaker 3: lead with that. I just say put it in their
Speaker 3: mouth and then they're like like why is this so good?
Speaker 3: And you're like it's got a whole grains, Like, oh
Speaker 3: I don't like holy flower. I'm like, okay, well it's
Speaker 3: because there's ten thousand different types of whole wheat in
Speaker 3: the world, and when you're at the grocery store, you're
Speaker 3: just tasting too, right, Is that true?
Speaker 2: It's only two at the grocery store hard read.
Speaker 3: When you buy bread flour, it's always made from a
Speaker 3: heart red wheat when you buy sorry, which it is,
Speaker 3: But when you're buying whole wheat flour, it just says
Speaker 3: whole wheat flour. And it's always like a hard red wheat,
Speaker 3: which is really lovely. It's really high in tannins, and
Speaker 3: it's really intense, and it's a very thirsty kind of grain,
Speaker 3: which means that your products are going to require more
Speaker 3: liquid or just be drier because you might not know
Speaker 3: to adjust. And it's really intense. It like a burgundy,
Speaker 3: like a red wine. And when I'm playing with other
Speaker 3: kinds of whole grains, like my favorite is spelt, I
Speaker 3: think about different flavor profiles and the fact that spelt,
Speaker 3: for example, has just a slightly nutty flavor and it's
Speaker 3: not as thirsty, it's more extensible, it creates a more
Speaker 3: tender crumb, and it has a totally different flavor profile.
Speaker 3: So I think that as we broaden our ideas and
Speaker 3: think less about maybe just taking things for granted and
Speaker 3: become more like slightly more critical thinkers or be more curious.
Speaker 3: That's when we experience the greatest amount of like, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, surprise too. I enjoyment.
Speaker 1: So what responsibility do you think food businesses have right now,
Speaker 1: given climate change and inequality?
Speaker 2: What would you say?
Speaker 3: I think it's it's a little bit of unfair question.
Speaker 3: I would reframe it maybe because when I think about
Speaker 3: the responsibility, I feel like I want to put it
Speaker 3: on the consumer, because my responsibility is to make payroll
Speaker 3: and make rent and create a business that's economically sustainable
Speaker 3: so that even in hard months, like no employee has
Speaker 3: to get their hours cut, right, So it's about like
Speaker 3: that's my responsibility as a business owner. On the flip
Speaker 3: side of that, I am a consumer as well, and
Speaker 3: so I try to model what I think that I
Speaker 3: need my customers to do, which is to favor purchasing
Speaker 3: directly and then like enjoying products as quickly as they
Speaker 3: come out. Right. So I think when people are like, oh,
Speaker 3: your question is like it's so good and I'm really
Speaker 3: really proud of it, But I think it's because it
Speaker 3: has some whole grain flour in it, and people don't
Speaker 3: expect that, and they you know, they're like, I can't
Speaker 3: point to why I like it this way, and some
Speaker 3: people don't like it to be perfectly fair. But all
Speaker 3: of that just comes from sourcing, right. So then my
Speaker 3: responsibility as a baker or like a creative is to
Speaker 3: make the best product possible, to get people to you know,
Speaker 3: have joy and want to come back and support it,
Speaker 3: and make it less price conscious, but more about the experience.
Speaker 1: If bred was a revolutionary tool in seventeen eighty nine, what.
Speaker 3: Is it today? Great question, I would say, yeah, wheat
Speaker 3: and corn products, because the French Revolution was really about taxation, right,
Speaker 3: and what do our tax dollars go more towards rather
Speaker 3: than the Defense Department? It is the Farm bill. And
Speaker 3: two really big, highly subsidized crops that are really important
Speaker 3: to our diet are wheat and corn. So corn, tortillas
Speaker 3: and bread.
Speaker 2: Let's go okay, yeah, corn is in the news. Corns
Speaker 2: are in the news now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fullic acidermapolic acid, yeah, yeah, Okay, whole other conversation,
Speaker 1: We could have a whole other hour, whole other hour.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, so much to think about. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Clements always thank you, always so so eye
Speaker 1: opening to just to hear you speak and your passion.
Speaker 1: And I always learn so much from everything that you
Speaker 1: have to say. And every time that I have a
Speaker 1: conversation with you, I always change a little bit about
Speaker 1: what I of.
Speaker 2: How I live, and what I do.
Speaker 3: I love that and I think back to the classes
Speaker 3: that you taught just about the history of food and
Speaker 3: the trajectory of them, and I think to each one
Speaker 3: of those all the time. So thank you for opening
Speaker 3: my eyes. And those are the people that you reached.
Speaker 3: It's impactful.
Speaker 1: Special thank you to my friend Clements from the Santa
Speaker 1: Monica Bakery, Pettit Grand Blingerie.
Speaker 2: Thank you everyone who joined today.
Speaker 1: See you all next week when you talk about the
Speaker 1: history of butter fig.
Speaker 3: Hungary for History is a hyphen a media production in
Speaker 3: partnership with Iheart's Michael Bura podcast network.
Speaker 1: For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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