Did You know that there are about 30'000 backeries in France? French people take their bread seriously as the other products from backery. I can confirm that image of average french person who carries 3 baguettes in a paper bag is not just a stereotype. It is impossible to have a meal whithout a slice of a baguette, with what you collect all the left over souce of your plate. That is such a delish!
From University IUT we were taken on a car by our professor of gastronomy. She took us to our next visit, as You can guess - bakery. As we entered the shop, my lungs were filled with the sweet smell of pastry. The air had a little bits of flower dust floating. The staff and the main backer greeted us. There were a lot of different baked goods already prepared on the table and I was full of hope that we will get the chance to taste it. Luckily we had but before that we recieved document which includes the main information about economy of backeries in Fance, types of flours and how the bread is made. The document is very useful although it is in french language so my challenge that I set for myself is to translate it. We will see..
So back to the goddies that were placed on the table. Before tasting all this beauty, we were shown by the main backer the difference of the flours, we could touch it, smell it and taste it. Afterwards we were shown how the different flour makes a different bread and how the different yeast affects the breads' form and taste. Also we had a little show prepared by the chef backer and one of his ambitious students. They showed how to roll the pain au chocolat and croissant. The way their tips of fingers gently touched the dough and quickly changed it form was overwhelming, it just inspired to go home and bake myself.
The sweetest part was the degustation. The variety of pastry was just endless and the taste of different sweets filled my stomack for all day. At the end we were given the bags to take all the leftover pastries and also some extra cookies as for a kill of the sugarness that already possesed our digestive system.
It was the end of excursion but not the last visit definately as I will have an internship in Honorin backery which is located in the Valence centre so I was not saying goodbye.
Follow their facebook site to see what they have to offer:
@honorinboulangerie