Free Confessions of a French Baker by Peter Mayle

Introduction

    “I N CAVAILLON , there are seventeen bakers listed in the
Pages Jaunes
, but we had been told that one A establishment was ahead of all the rest in terms of choice and excellence, a veritable a«
depain.
At Chez Auzet, so they said, the baking and eating of breads and pastries had been elevated to the status of a minor religion.”
    That was written in 1988, scribbled in one of the notebooks that were eventually turned into
A Year in Provence.
And ever since my first visit, the
boulangerie
Auzet has been one of my favorite places in Cavaillon.
    It is not a mere shop, and certainly not somewhere for the hurried, in-and-out purchase. That would be to miss half the pleasure of going there, a pleasure that starts even before entering the premises. You pause for a moment on the threshold. You close your eyes, and, taking a long, deep breath (through the nose, of course),you inhale the
parfum de la maison.
Fresh, warm, buttery, doughy—it is one of the oldest, most appetizing and evocative smells in the world, primitive and infinitely comforting.
    Gerard Auzet, who has taken over the business from Roger, his father, has become a friend. Whenever I go into the
boulangerie
, he greets me with a firm, floury handshake and a cup of coffee. Usually, we talk about bread. But one morning, he had more on his mind than the day's new batch of
croissants, boules
, and
fougasses.
He had a small but interesting problem.
    Foreigners, many foreigners, had been coming to the bakery after reading about it, and it seemed they wanted more than bread. They also wanted knowledge: ingredients, recipes, tips—anything that might help them to bake their own bread
a la facon d'Atqet
when they returned home to San Francisco, Tokyo, Munich, London, or Amsterdam.
    Gerard, being a generous and obliging man, started to give demonstrations for his overseas customers. Once a week, he would take a group of them into the baking room at the back of the shop and give them a two-hour class in bread making: how to shape the dough into
baguettes, boules
, and
batards
, how to decorate thedough with patterns of stripes and indentations, how to finish off the ends with satisfying blunt curves—and, finally, how to bake.
    The demonstrations became more and more popular. But something was missing. Auzet's disciples, the students, kept asking for a reminder of their lesson to take home with them, a written reference, a kind of guide to basic baking.
    “Voila leprobleme,”
Gerard said to me. “Of course, they have my recipes. But I'd like to give them more than just a few sheets of paper. Perhaps some history, one or two anecdotes, a few hints—you know, a proper souvenir. A little book.”
    “I think that's a delightful idea,” I said.
    “Yes,” said Gerard. “And you can write it for me.”
    And so I have, though the expertise is his.
    —P.M., January 2005

The Birth of a Loaf
    C AVAILLON , the melon capital of France (and of the world, according to the local melon fraternity), is a market town of some 23,000 inhabitants, about a thirty-minute drive from Avignon. By day, it's a lively, crowded place. Cars prowl the streets in search of a parking spot, housewives sniff and prod the glistening piles of fruit and vegetables laid out on sidewalk stands shaded by striped awnings, cafe regulars study newspapers over their morning beers as dogs sidle between the tables hoping to find a fallen
croissant.
The sounds of laughter, vigorous argument, and
les top hits
of Radio Vaucluse burst out through open doors and windows.
    That was how I knew Cavaillon, and how I always thought of it, until I was invited to take a look behind the scenes of the Auzet bakery by the
patron
himself. Itwas to be a working visit. I wanted to see bakers in action. I wanted to witness mounds of dough being transformed into loaves. I wanted to run my fingers through the flour, squeeze a warm
boule
or two, and generally soak up the atmosphere.
    That was no problem, Gerard Auzet