Despite a significant culture of bread in Argentina, French bakery products such as baguettes, croissants, or chocolate bread are very rare. Rodolfo Saez, owner of La Panaderia Francesa, is the only one promoting these products in his city of Tres Arroyos.
Eager to share his passion for bread and specifically French bakery with the locals, Rodolfo Saez organizes a bakery fair every year during the national holiday, where he offers all kinds of French bread and pastries. Having been immersed in this world since childhood – in the Saez family, one is a baker from father to son – this self-taught man was happy to talk to us about his profession with great enthusiasm.
Being the owner of La Panaderia Francesa, an artisanal bakery, I develop my own recipes and personally take care of the clientele. I work the bread in a traditional, artisanal way, with sourdough starter, a double fermentation, and I use no additives or preservatives.
My grandfather lived in a small village named Goyena, populated mostly by immigrants from Majorca, near the city of Pigue, a city of French immigrants. After my grandfather’s death, my father, already married, decided to move to Tres Arroyos and bought an old bakery named “La Francesa”. My maternal grandfather from the same village was French and was named Meunier. That’s where the name “La Francesa” comes from.
This passion comes from my father. I remember he always ensured that the bread was well made. Moreover, I remember he would take the bread to check if it was crispy, smell it, and in the end, he would smile because the loaf was perfect.
I am part of the third generation of this family tradition bakery, so I grew up in this environment. I make the bread, I supervise, I take care of the customers and ensure that the products are well made every day.
We want to transmit this family history of bakery tradition and communicate with the customer so they know they are buying a product that is rich, fresh, and made with passion.
My training is exclusively family-based. When I was little, I watched my father knead, then, I started kneading as if it were a game. I also learned pastry with an excellent pastry chef who worked at La Francesa. Afterwards, I read numerous books.
I have already tried working with different cereal flours, with wholemeal flours and organic flours but I would like to perfect in French pastry.
What excites me the most is the moment when the bread comes out of the oven and is just as I had imagined it. It must be irresistible, appealing, and tasty. Every day is therefore a new challenge for all these reasons.
It’s been a few years since I started kneading. Now that I have returned to my hometown and have a family, I would like to pass on the passion for bakery to my sons as my parents did with me.
The breads I make are varied and made from type T55 wheat flour. I make “mignon”, baguette, country bread, “galleta de trincha”. I also offer a wide variety of breads with whole wheat, flax, chia, wheat germ, rye, or even rye with prunes and nuts, bran, barley, as well as whole Arabic bread. I also produce organic whole wheat flour and organic whole rye flour. Likewise, I make pumpernickel, coca de pan, lavender bread. The last variety I produce is the whole triticale bread.
They particularly like whole bread with flax, chia, and toasted sunflower seeds as well as whole wheat bread with rye flour. Rye bread with raisins or prunes and nuts and country bread are also very popular.
