Baking Bread in France: Boulangerie Les Copains Part III

It's hard not to idealize a place where one neighbor presses apple cider while the other makes cheese for your evening tartines.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.
My favorite moment at the Boulangerie happened one eveningafter the night shift. We had spent five hours baking and 10 wooden cratesstood before us, brimming with hot loaves of bread. That night there had beensix of us in the bakery, four more than usual, so the work finished quickly andoccasionally one of us would have to stand around idly, with nothing to do,watching as the others made themselves useful.
Whenever it was my time to be idle I stood by the oven,which is warm and comforting when the oven doors are closed, but fiery andscary once the doors open and loaves come flying out, weighed down by theirscorching-hot baking trays. The old-timer bakers love to hear new bakers squealat the heat of the oven. "Oh! It's hot!" we usually say. Then they say, "Well,yeah, it's an oven, it's hot." Then they laugh. I never really got the joke,but I guess my sense of humor deteriorates when I'm afraid of having my handburned off.
So as I stood by the oven, watching our last loaves comeout, two of the bakers announced it was time to prepare les tartines. "Les tartines!" I thought to myself, inmy best French accent. I had no idea what a tartine was. My understanding ofthe word came from my father's stories about his summers in France, when hewould wake up to a hardened baguette that would be made delicious by toasting it, smearing it in jam, anddipping it into a bowl of hot chocolate.
But we weren't going to make those tartines. Instead, I gotto pick a loaf of bread and watched as it was sliced into tranches thick enoughto hold a pile of toppings. Next came the tomato sauce, in drips and splatters,then sliced zucchini and scallions with a smattering of garlic. After that, thesardines-- whole filets gingerly stacked atop the bread. And finally, thecheese. All local, all made from goat's milk, and all temptingly soft. As soonas the cheese came out I knew it was time to be proactive and I moved away fromthe warmth of the oven and cut generous slabs of cheese to top our tartines.This is a tartine:
Open-faced sandwiches are a specialty enjoyed by the bakersof Boulangerie Les Copains, but it was not unusual to find us enjoying otherproducts sold by the co-op. Like, for example, the petites brioches de fantaisie. That translates to "fantastical little brioches." The fantasypart comes from the apples, poppy seeds, raisins, and walnuts piled up inside.That, and a dash of cinnamon.
I once ate a petite briochefresh out of the oven with a glass of fresh country milk. Deepa, my friend whowas with me on our baking adventure, has a thing for fresh country milk, andinsisted we try out the combination. As you can see, the doughy little nobs are asking to be pulled apart, stretchy and airy with just enough crust to hold it all together. So as we tore into the petites morsels, accompanied by a biggulp of milk, Deepa and I went into a headspin of deliciousness, from which wewere aroused only by the threat of a certain sneaking cat.
On rainy afternoons we would often bake little pizzas andapple tartelettes for the market.Rainy afternoons are common in Normandy, so we found ourselves baking pizzasand tartelettes fairly frequently. Myfavorite part came last: shaking a bit of herbes de Provence on the pizza, while Deepa spooned coarse brownsugar across the scored apples.
Those were our days in Normandy. Days of farms, fresh food,and a bit of hard work. If it sounds idealized, then that's because it is. Butit's hard not to idealize a place where one neighbor presses apple cider whilethe other makes cheese for your evening tartines.We learned many things at the Boulangerie, most of all about a different way ofliving. And for that, we are grateful.

Practicalities:
Boulangerie Les Copains (and their book, Boulange with Antoine Cazin)

For more of Sarah's writing, visit her website.

Popular in the Community

Close

HuffPost Shopping’s Best Finds

MORE IN LIFE