Aimie Runyan Explores Two Eras in 'The Paris Bakery'

Writer, speaker, educator and amateur baker, Aimie Runyan, chats with us to discuss her seventh published novel, A Bakery in Paris. Set in dual timelines, Runyan’s story follows Lisette Vigneau, a baker in 1870’s Paris, and Micheline Chartier, a student enrolled in a famous baking academy post World War II. ” Runyan explains, “A Bakery in Paris deals with women from the same family in the same little corner of Paris dealing with Paris in her darkest hour, which is, we have two of her darkest hours… we have the Siege of Paris in 1870, which is a time period that we don’t discuss much and it is basically the precursor to World War I when Prussia invaded France and got as far as Paris, and it’s a walled city and basically sealed the city off and it was a really hard time, and it was followed immediately by the Paris Commune where the common people, after the defeat of France, the common people of Paris rose up to govern themselves and it was put down horrifically and the emperor was deposed and the people got to govern themselves, but the troops put them down and the rule of the elite came back, but it was never replaced by a monarchy… in order to make it a little more accessible, I decided to have a second timeline set in 1946, the post war period… the people became very closed… people learned that they couldn’t trust other people and it was a dark period… I wanted to show the period when Paris is really coming up out of the ashes…”

Despite the seriousness of the time periods, readers and pastry-lovers will delight in the recipes found throughout the book. In the 1870’s timeline, Lisette opens her own bakery to feed her starving neighbors and keeps a notebook of recipes with personal notes added as she creates her delicious confections. Runyan explains, “It’s not a cookbook, it’s her notebook. It’s Lisette’s notebook, and Micheline starts adding to it… I wanted her to add to it. I wanted it to be a working, living document…” However, she advises readers against actually following the recipes. “…for those of you following along who are avid bakers, I would not suggest trying to follow them because they are, you know, put it in a hot oven. Well, what the heck is a hot oven? Which is about 450 degrees, but it would be easier to find more modern recipes…” As far as incorporating more food in her stories, Runyan has included recipes in a few other books and explains why baking is important in her historical novels. “…It’s really becoming a thing for me… foodie fiction…. I had a baker in my very first book… Baker was one of the most important, esteemed people in the town back in the 1660’s, especially, we can’t overstate the importance of bread in the French diet, and the further back you go the more true that is.”