Fête du Pain

The French love their bread.  I love their bread....almost as much as I love their wine [which explains a lot about my expanding waistline].  On top of that, the French love festivals - they celebrate everything here - they have festivals to celebrate their love of festivals!  To the point, there must be a few thousand individual boulangeries and patisseries scattered throughout Paris.  There's an annual baguette bake-off where hundreds of artisinal bakers from all over France come to compete for the "Best Baguette in France" title.  So on an evening walk through the Notre Dame Cathedral courtyard, we came upon the "Fête du Pain" festival.

It was closed but due to open at 9AM the following morning.  As we walked around the courtyard, we could see all sorts of interesting, albeit, closed stalls, exhibits, and one very large tented hall.  Interesting enough to cause us to wake up early the next day and walk down for a real visit......and we weren't disappointed.

As noted, the stalls and exhibits were about all things bread AND what you may want to put on or in bread....think saucisson, beurre, and fromage.  And just in case you need to wash down this bread there were a few coffee and tea salons as well as the ubiquitous "magasin du vin."

But the really interesting thing was the huge hall.  Although we couldn't see everything inside the hall last night, what we saw was very interesting.  Outside the hall were huge electric distribution panels because inside the hall were dozens of massive commercial ovens.  During our nighttime walk, it didn't look like much.  But in the daytime, with the hall open, we were presented with an incredible sight.

Dozens of bakers were mixing flour, kneading dough, rolling all sorts of rolls, breads, buns, cookies and cakes.  And they were doiing it on a commercial scale.  In this one section, there were 4 or 5 bakers making baguettes.  Two dozen baguettes on a single tray were being made.  One baker would roll out the baguette and place it onto this canvas roll that wrapped around, what looked to me to be a bread gurney!  Except that the bread gurney didn't rise up and down like a gurney for people.  As he made each baguette roll, another bakery would take a simple razor blade that was attached to a straw, and put a slit down each baguette roll of dough.  When all 20 loaves were slit, the gurney was moved in front of the oven.

Now this huge oven contained over 20 bread trays, 10 trays on each side, all baking away.  The gurney was raised to the level of an empty tray slot, the oven opened, and the entire top of the gurney rammed into the oven.  Then the crank was turned and the gurney came out of the oven, sans the bread tray.....20 new loaves of bread a-baking.

Then the empty gurney was placed in front of a fully baked bread tray and rammed into the oven.  A repeat of the cranking and out came 20 fully baked baguettes.  And then these bakers would pick up 4 or 5 loaves at a time, right out of the oven, and bare-handedly carry these steaming hot loaves into a bread basket.  I guess one requirement for being a baker is not to be able to feel pain...or at least heat.

Of course, eating the fruits of their labor is the point but when bread is not enough, buy a sandwich.....