French Bread

2AM – That’s what time they said we needed to arrive to watch them baking French bread. Oh dear.

It started with Mike’s favorite bakery, Pascal. He loves their bread, particularly a rustic bread that we later found out was a special recipe of theirs that is only available at their boulangerie. During my morning walk, I noticed a door around the side of the building where, every so often, I would see a couple of men covered with flour busily working away. Well, I thought, how much fun would it be to watch them baking REAL French bread? My French instructor helped me write a few sentences to ask if we could watch sometime. I was ready! But, the bakery was closed for a week so we had to wait. Finally, Friday morning they were back. I struggled through my request in French and, thankfully, the owner spoke a few words of English. The short story was that in two weeks he was moving his baking operation to Carces and with our upcoming trip to Italy our only opportunity was that very night. Ok…we can work with that. So, what time should we arrive? 2AM. I knew it would be early but I really didn’t think it would be that early.

Mike and I decided it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. We set the alarm for 1:30AM and trundled into the village, flashlight in hand. Maggie and Enser arrived earlier that day. We left them peacefully sleeping. When we arrived at the boulangerie, flour was already flying. Gilles (we found out his name as we were leaving) was heaving 50 pound bags of flour into an enormous mixer. He nodded to us and was pleasant but it was clear that he was there to work and time was of the essence. He moved at warp speed and never stopped even by the time we left at 5:30AM. He did not speak English and my lack of French vocabulary for baking meant that we primarily watched. Even with limited conversation, it was an experience!

After the flour went into the mixer, he followed that with buckets of water, blocks of yeast and a tower of salt (measured with an old balance scale). After it mixed, he weighed out a mound of dough into big bins with more handfuls of flour thrown here and there. As we found later in the process, each bin would make twenty loaves of bread and there were twenty bins. In the space of a few hours he transformed that pile of dough into more than 400 loaves of bread – baguettes, navette, ficelle, boules and campagne. He also had a few loaves of whole grain breads already rising when we arrived.





Each bin of dough was dumped (with more handfuls of flour) into a machine that puffed the dough and sliced it into twenty equal squares. He put each square onto a large, wooden board to rise. He hoisted these big boards around the bakery and they were clearly very heavy. Once that process was finished, a different machine was rolled out from a corner. Each square of dough was dropped into the machine which rolled it into a specific thickness. Long thin rolls or thicker, shorter roles dropped into a tray. He had large wood trays with long sheets of fabric ready for the dough. He laid the dough on the fabric and folder the fabric so that there was a layer of fabric between each roll of bread dough. There were several boards full of baguettes made this way. Ficelle loaves were thinner and shorter; campagne had ends rolled to a point by hand; navette was two small rolls joined together at the ends; and boules were round loaves. There were 400 in all.



The whole grain loaves were ready for the oven first. He laid them on a long conveyer belt that was on rollers so it could be rolled between the two sets of ovens. He slashed the tops of one type of bread and left them to rise.




By now it was 4AM and the owner, Pascal, arrived. He was in charge of pizza. He handrolled four large, square pans of dough (same as the dough used for the bread) and topped them with tomato sauce or carmelized onion, dotted with olives and anchovies.



In between the bread making process, Gilles laid out croissants (plain and chocolate in large and small sizes) to rise above the ovens. In this boulangerie, the croissants were pre-made and came in a bag. It appears that each boulangerie specializes. Another boulangerie in the village, Poulliard, does not make their bread on premise but they do make croissants and pastries from scratch. Nonetheless, as we found out later, these croissants were excellent. When they were ready, Gilles slid them into the hot ovens (almost 500F). It wasn’t long before the first fragrances of baked bread and croissants filled the tiny bakery space.

Finally, Gilles pulled out trays of another type of dough that he had apparently made before we arrived. Pascal explained that this bread was their specialty. It was a recipe unique to their boulangerie. Unlike the earlier process, this was an unformed lump of bread dough that he sliced, twisted and placed on the rolling conveyer. There was no measuring. Each loaf was different. This was the bread that is Mike’s favorite. They made two types - a plain and olive loaf. While all the other types of bread are sold by the piece, this bread is sold by weight. We watched as Gilles sliced it up and slid them into the oven. We stayed until they emerged, fresh, hot and browned. Wow.

Before we left to go back to bed, we learned that Pascal and Gilles are cousins. Pascal lives above the boulangerie with his wife and their baby daughter. She’s frequently in the boulangerie in her stroller sitting quietly as her mother sells the bread. As we were walking out, Pascal gave us a bag of warm croissants (plain and chocolate) and a loaf of Mike’s favorite bread – still warm from the oven. Heaven!



We were glad to have the opportunity to see this baking process and, I have to say, it’s not the romantic notion that I’d envisioned. It is very hard work - hoisting big bags, carrying heavy boards, and constantly rolling large equipment around a small space. They raced the clock with no time to spare so that the bread would be ready for early morning customers. They must make enough money to survive but they aren’t getting rich. A typical baguette sells for 1 euro. It’s a lot of work for $1.25. And, we’re very thankful that they go to all the trouble. Later this morning at our house, there were happy smiles around the breakfast table which was filled with fresh croissants and bread. We thank Pascal and Gilles for allowing two curious Americans to watch and learn even though we seemed to always stand in their way. We’ll be in tomorrow and the next day for their bread with this time with the knowledge of all that went into the making of it!