Second Generation Cookbook & Why Bread Guilds, Just Why?

Cher Lectours, Dear Readers,

It was a busy summer. (Updates!)

And just like that, it’s Fall.

What’s new at C’est si Bon!

A few days ago a gift box arrived from one of our dearest CSB interns, Jeremy Salamon. Look at this cute take out box! Inside was an apron, a little spice jar of Noble Sweet Paprika. A hat. And….

His first cookbook with a little note that said “see page 224!”

Second Generation, Hungarian and Jewish Classics ReImagined for the Modern Table

It seems like yesterday when Jeremy first wandered into Fickle Creek Farm for C’est si Bon!’s first ever Carolina on My Plate program. And for 6 years thereafter, Jeremy interned for goodly weeks every summer helping with our Kid-Chef and our ever growing Carolina On My Plate Program, where we still teach and share life’s most vital ingredient in our Taste the Adventure Program.

Read Heirloom of the Month

To connect these two topics, Second Generation and Bread Guilds, even as a teen, Jeremy loved writing and making bread. And we loved watching the film that had beaucoup Parisian-ness, Julie and Julia. One of the breads that Jeremy’s restaurant, Agi’s Counter, has made famous is a fried potato bread from his homeland, Hungary, called Lángos. I hope you’ll pick up his thoughtful and delightful cookbook, and for heaven’s sake, make his Caraway Pullmann Bread on page 48.

Check out his book tour, making the rounds from East to West!

And now, let’s continue with Why Bread Guilds, Just Why?

It was 2007 when I visited Paris with my friend and colleague, Aileen, but it was just last week when an interview with Maggie Smith took me back to the what’s and wherefore’s about how and why the Bread Guild caused this huge conflict in Tales of the Mistress.

The Bread Guild I discovered in France, Compagnon du Devoir has a headquarters in Paris. The very word Com-pagnon means “with bread” so that was enough to get my little dough ball of an imagination rolling. But I had to get beyond my excitement to clearly portray the Guild as antagonist for Psomi in my story. Ideally I wanted the reader to connect to this dilemma, right?

A little more background….enter the world of France, er, Gaul, in the 1500’s. I chose that time because it was the age of enlightenment. For some. Because if you wanted to be a baker you apprenticed with the Guild and hoped to God that you could move up in the ranks and learn their way. You worked, were protected, and the Guild owned the fields, and what grew there, and ultimately they owned you too. It stands to reason that if you controlled bread, and wheat, you were powerful beyond words. The Guild controlled the type of bread made. How many loaves were made. When they were made. How much they weighed.

And so what about our protagonist, Epi, who was disguised as a boy by her mother, and who has been working for the Guild, ever since. She’s become quite skilled. But …she can’t be who she is, a young girl, and until further into the story, she doesn’t really discover who she is. At that time no women were allowed to be in any Guild, period. So that led me to wonder (and to write) about why would a women pretend to be a man so she could be in the Guild? Why was she hiding? What was she hiding? It was a complicated question and one that needed a novel and most assuredly a trip to Poilane in Paris on Rue de Cherche Midi for one of their giant miche marked with a P to answer the question just what was this bread story about?

But before I left for Paris with Aileen in 2007, I reached out to Maitre Boulanger, Lionel Vatinet, who ran the esteemed empire of French bread and pastry called La Farm Bakery in Cary NC. Lionel generously shared his experiences with Compagnon du Devoir. And offerred to connect us with a behind the bake-shop visit to famed boulanger and fellow Compagnon, Eric Kayser’s on Rue Monge in Paris to our eager Teen-Chefs.

Back to Paris in 2007. Aileen and I spent our days on a bread pilgrimage of sorts visiting Poilane and Eric Kayser. We also visited Basile Kamir’s boulangerie Moulin de la Vierge, (see above photo) which literally means Mill of the Virgin and whose wood-fired oven, LaFort, is one that Daniel Leader, artisanal baker and author of Bread Alone and Living Bread, made famous. You can still visit Moulin de la Vierge at 105 rue Vercingétorix in Paris.

One of our Teen-Chefs at Eric Kayser's Boulangerie in 2007

But to really understand what it took to be a Compagnon, we had further to go. So we boarded the RER A train from St Germain en Llaye to Chatelet les Halles, then Hotel de Ville and walked to 1 Place St Gervais.

But it was a total bust! I didn’t learn anything then because the Compagnon du Devoir was…. closed. I could only look in their window and imagine. When I visited their website, I learned that until 2005 all the Compagnons were men.

Compagnon du Devoir near Les Halles, Paris

Listen to women bakers speak out.

To become a Master Baker – a Maitre Boulanger – it takes a total of about seven years. The apprentices, Compagnon, participate in what is known as the Tour de France.

That’s a long journey, right? Almost as long as becoming a doctor or a lawyer. I also discovered that there is a lot of symbolism and the journey is full of rites of passage. It’s a bit hush hush and secret. Compagnons lived in a “house” and that was usually where the women came in, at least until fairly recently. But in the Compagnon House, there is one woman called a Maitresse (Mistress) and she would oversee the running of the “House” of the Compagnons. This gave me the idea of the Seed House (Graine is French for seed) in the little village of Nerac in Southwest France as the Guild House,

The Seed House, Le Graine, was where one of the Maitresses (Mistresses) Madame Bouquin, reigned. Madame Bouquin will have a chance to tell more of her story in the 2nd novel in the Psomi Mistresses Series about how she came to Nerac from Jerusalem.

But back to Paris and the Compagnon du Devoir - it is still thriving today due to the careful nourishment of their intense program. Is there a Compagnon du Devoir in the US? An apprenticeship program? Oui!

Apprentice with the Bread Baker’s Guild of America.

Here’s one with Orchard Hill Breadworks in NH. Their oven was built by Alan Scott, who I quote in my book, The Bread of Dreams.

"Make Bread with Your Eyes Open,

Eat Bread with Your Heart Open,

And Your Eyes Closed."

The Bread Builders by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott (1999)

France feels it is vital to preserve these skilled artisans. For even in France there is a danger of breads being mass produced by factories. Yes, it is hard to imagine that even the quintessential icon of French bread, the baguette, is in danger.

Listen to this sucess story of Mamiche in France.

So that’s some, but not all, the background on the side by side story of love and its conflicts raised in Tales of the Mistress.

Next time, I’ll explore a little of the why’s behind the agrarian cult, Psomi, and their devotion to making flat breads instead of the big loaves, like miche, made by the Guild.

In the meantime, I hope this has inspired you to tell me what you love about bread.

Fall is a perfect time to roll up your sleeves and make Madame Bouquin’s Apple Taboon, a flat bread fried in duck fat. You’ll find it in The Bread of Dreams Cookbook., the companion cookbook to Tales of the Mistress, A Novel.