Dough no, I missed the rhythm of the day again
I battle with French opening hours and – an act of great shame –am forced to buy my baguette from a restaurant. Plus a recipe for garbure, the perfect soup if you've just brought sheep down a mountain
When we told our friends and families we were moving to France, many expressed envy at our future filled with easy-access baguettes. I’m sure there will be no small amount of schadenfreude on their parts (the French for schadenfreude is also schadenfreude, well done the Germans), as I share with you the hard-won knowledge that nothing could be further from the truth.
Unlike London where, apparently, you’re never more than six feet from a rat, there lives in the British imagination an idea that in France, you’re never more than a couple of metres from a baguette, that the streets are paved with bread and good butter, with a strong possibility of cheese. If only. It was easier to buy a baguette in London, albeit not a good baguette, than it is here.
But it’s all my own fault.
When we planned this adventure, we smugly imagined ourselves taking best advantage of the one-hour time difference between France and England. I could have a more leisurely start to the day, go out for coffee, walk the dogs, and be at my desk just as London was getting back from wild swimming and Pilates. This is me in the movie of my life. What I forgot is that, as Crowded House never sang, everywhere you go, you always take yourself with you.
What happens in my real life is that I wake up and spend a fat hour gazing out of the window, drinking coffee and watching the sun coming up over the Étang, planning everything I’m not going to do today. I excuse this indolence by telling myself that when I lived on the A10, I didn’t see an horizon for almost 20 years so I’m just making up for lost idleness.
I suppose in part, some of this laziness can be explained by my finding it hard to shake off my ‘holiday head’, even after two years. I still don’t quite believe, deep down, that I live here now. How can anything be urgent while there are boat trips to organise, clams to introduce to garlic and parsley, and bright bundles of mimosa to arrange in vases?
In our first year, my alarm clock was the clunk-clunk-clunk of heavy boots across metal scaffolding at 7.30am each day as the men arrived to work on the new roof and the façade, but now that’s done, it’s all down to me. Oh dear.
I could have a more leisurely start to the day, go out for coffee, walk the dogs, and be at my desk just as London was getting back from wild swimming and Pilates.
My new-found, un-London, laid-back attitude to life means that I’m often racing to the bakery at the very last minute, that is the crack of noon, praying there’s still some bread left before the bells of Saint Jean Baptiste clang out their twelfth chime. I feel I can now look Cinderella in the face with a new understanding of her pumpkin-coach-based anxiety. I’m telling you this, but it must go no further: despite there being four bakeries in our village of 8000 carb-loving souls, on more than one occasion, due to a chronic failure of housekeeping, I have begged a restaurant to sell me a baguette à empôrter, to take away. They look upon me kindly, the strange, hungry simpleton standing in front of them, just asking them to take pity on her bread-based incompetence.
I have now discovered the existence of baguette vending machines (Le Bread Xpress, merci beaucoup) a short drive away, to spare myself the looks of pity and incomprehension in the eyes of those from whom I might want to order a steak frites in the not too distant future.
My heroes used to be poets, great actors, scientists. Now it is those people walking smartly across the square in front of my house at 8am, baguettes tucked under their arms, like extras in a Truffaut film. There they go, hair brushed, neatly dressed, relaxed, cheerful, thrumming with art de vivre, their lives quietly under control. I often feel a little late for things, just a step behind. ‘Jesus Christ,’ my husband says, ‘Did we miss the rhythm of the day again?’
After decades of living in London, where I was used to being able to buy anything at any time of the day or night, this is a cultural change almost as profound as trying to go about my business in a second language. How do you plan your days around what look like the most heroically casual opening hours of nine am to noon-ish, then two or three-ish to sevenish?
I’m constantly waiting for some crucial shop to reopen at two or three or four pm, or forgetting that the supermarket is closed on Sunday, then remembering that one of the Lidls might possibly be open on Sunday morning, merci à Dieu. I’m constantly looking up what times things open, like a twitcher looking up a rare breed of bird. My pulse quickens if I see a neon NON STOP in the window of a pharmacy or tabac, while at the same time, I feel sorry for those staff who don’t get to have a nice long lunch.
And while we’re here talking about the rhythm of the day, can we discuss bins for a minute? This is not something I ever thought I would write, as TAB (talks about bins) was always my appalling shorthand for a dullard. See also, parking.
But in my new life, the detailed and excruciatingly correct letters from the council are my new confiture. The shift in the seasons is marked by the arrival of letters from the council announcing summer and winter collection days (“le rythme de collecte de votre bac gris <<ordures ménagères>>), and of course, as I have written before, the big excitement of the post-Christmas season is the location of special collection points for our coquilles d’huitres. This is very helpful, as in Hackney I never did know what to do with my surfeit of oyster shells.
I’m quite resistant to change, but in the middle of our lives, in the middle of a pandemic, we threw everything up in the air and moved to a new country, almost on a whim. Superficially, it’s easy to buy into the idea that a Mediterranean life is all sunshine and less structure than our previous city life. In fact, life here comes with a gentler structure which I’m still getting used to. I’m getting there. I may just embrace buying two loaves at once and stashing one in the freezer for those times when I miss the rhythm of the day. I have no regrets, as I embrace the deep deep peace of the double bread, after the hurly-burly of the Hackney wild sourdough.
Garbure
This is a country soup typical of the South West which has as many variations as regions, and almost as many variations within regions as there are families. The most important thing is that it is so full of meat and vegetables, you can stand your spoon up in it.
This is a winter version, so I used dried white beans. Purists use Tarbais beans, but these can be difficult to find and quite expensive. I used mogette beans from the Vendée, but do use any dried white bean/haricot blanc you like. If you’re short on time, used tinned beans if you want. In the Pyrenées, sometimes whole roasted chestnuts are added. In summer, substitute peas and broad beans for dried white beans. I give quite precise quantities for the vegetables here, but you can vary it depending on your tastes and what you have. The most important thing is not to dice them finely, but chop them into quite big pieces as they are going to cook for a long time.
This makes a large amount. Garbure isn’t something you make for two. It does keep very well in the fridge for a couple of days, and it freezes brilliantly. It is also, unsurprisingly, one of those dishes which improves the day after you have made it.
Serves 6-10, as a main course, depending on appetite
500g salted pork belly or ham hock
250 dried white beans OR 1-2 400g tins cooked white beans, drained and briefly rinsed
1 small onion, about 130g, studded with 6 cloves
The green part of 1 leek, about 100g, well cleaned
1 medium carrot, about 100g
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