Bonjour tout le monde! This is Richael Best, studying abroad in Aix-en-Provence. The past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about my internship at a local boulangerie as I increase the time I have spent there and gradually gain more responsibility.
Since I’m part of the French Honors Program here at IAU, I had priority for receiving an internship, and I was extremely lucky to find one at a boulangerie in a town just outside of Aix. I have always wanted to work at a bakery, and the thought of a French boulangerie was an absolute dream. After the initial organization and paperwork and “interview,” which turned out to be a disorganized talk with the owner who had no idea I was coming, much to my surprise, I started working three-hour shifts twice a week. It’s not a huge amount, but it’s as much as I can manage with my bizarre class schedule and the transportation time involved since I have to take the bus outside of town.
It’s fascinating to get out of Aix for a little while each week. The owners of the Boulangerie des Platanes asked me on my first day if I had had a lot of trouble understanding the provençal accent after learning unaccented French in college. I immediately responded that I hadn’t really encountered any problems of comprehension, only to discover minutes later that I hadn’t really heard a provençal accent yet. Aix itself as a town is fairly wealthy and proper with a lot of residents who used to live in Paris and thus retain the northern, neutral accent. But the man and woman who own the boulangerie are truly provençal, and their accent is quite strong. I had to ask them to repeat themselves quite frequently in the beginning, and I am only now starting to understand their many variations on the pronunciation I have learned. Even such basic things as the word pain (bread) are pronounced “paing,” with a curved, elongated “aing” sound finishing a word that is normally short, abrupt, and nasal. Many other words change similarly with the southern accent, and even after adjusting some to this new way of speaking, I sometimes still find myself staring dumbly at Jean-Pierre after he makes a comment. I hate knowing I should understand and being incapable of it, but we usually figure things out eventually with much questioning and laughter.
Madame (I still don’t know her first name) is kind and understanding when I make mistakes and appreciates my hard work. I started by doing small tasks in the back like making croutons and placing dough on baking sheets, before graduating to packaging and decorating the chocolate they made for Easter. I got really good at using a hot glue gun to stick cute little bows onto the cellophane bouquets. I also learned as much as I could about the different types of bread they sell and asked about every pastry Jean-Pierre was making in his corner and every type of dough in the mixer. After two days, Madame taught me how to use the cash register, which is a touch screen of everything the boulangerie sells divided into categories (pains, pains spéciaux, viennoiseries, salés, pâtisseries sèches, pâtisseries séries, boissons, etc.). It’s not quite as complicated as it looks, but not completely intuitive either, so we worked together for the first few days when I actually started selling bread, one of us taking orders and giving the customers bread, and the other recording what everyone bought, collecting payments, and making change at the cash register. It’s much harder making change in French, partly because I have to count in French numbers, partly because the coins are different denominations than in the US, and partly because I have to do subtraction so quickly. My basic math has already improved because the electronic system, advanced as it is, does not calculate how much change the customer needs.
I’m becoming accustomed to the rapid pace of lunchtime at the boulangerie, and, like most French vendeuses (literally, sellers), really appreciate exact change. One day a woman gave me a 50-euro note for an 80-centime baguette while talking on her cell phone, and I suddenly understood the grudging huff you receive when you don’t attempt to use change.
Little by little I’m becoming a part of life at the boulangerie. Even though I’m not there too often, I always get big smiles from everyone working and have to make my way around the racks of freshly baked croissants to give each and every person the bise (double cheek kiss) and ask how they are. Jean-Pierre usually has a new English phrase to try out on me and perfect his pronunciation (His favorite: “Where is Brian?” Apparently it’s a phrase most people learn in France when taking English classes and has become a cliché because absolutely everyone has had to repeat it multiple times to learn the different rooms of the house. Example response: Brian is in the kitchen.), and there is a guy who comes and hangs out with us on Thursday mornings while we work. I don’t know why he’s there or what he does most days, but he gets us coffee from the machine in the front and encourages even more smoke breaks than they normally take. There’s a young woman who works in the back as well, and she’s always ready to explain things to me.
Last week something happened to a couple of the pains au chocolat while they were baking, and Madame couldn’t put all of them out front to sell. I think they must have become attached while baking or weren’t cooked quite enough or something. They looked fine to me. When I saw her eating one (I never see them eat anything, only coffee and cigarettes) I took it as an opportunity to inquire about their process of making croissants and exclaim about how good they must be just out of the oven as a way of making conversation. She turned around without a word and took another of the rejects I hadn’t noticed before off a high rack and handed it to me. Suddenly I felt like I was finally a part of the operation, in a way. I’ve never eaten anything while working in the boulangerie, nor have they offered me anything other than the occasional coffee. This is fairly normal, I think, for a food production environment, when consumption is reserved for lunchtime, but all anyone at school asks me when they find out I work at a boulangerie is, “Do you get to eat all kinds of delicious pastries?” and the answer is always no. I don’t expect these taste tests to become the norm, but it was nice to be included.
Though my French has greatly improved over the past two and a half months, and I have no problem conversing with people especially when talking about myself, I still feel like my small talk skills are wanting, and I can’t ask nearly as many questions about people on the spot as I would in English. I feel like the boulangerie community thinks I’m fairly shy and reserved, which I may be in French since I can’t communicate easily whatever is in my head. Spending time together working helps, even if some of the time is silent, and we gradually become more comfortable around each other by our consistent presence and common interest. The odd encouraging smile or joke helps, too.
I haven’t learned how to make the perfect French baguette, but I have become the new “jolie vendeuse,” as one of the customers put it the other day, as I fumble with the torchons (a long and narrow bread that uses the same dough as a baguette but is shaped and twisted more by hand), take a long time packaging the tartes aux fraises (strawberry tarts), and use the wrong word when asking if someone would like their pain aux six céréales (loaf of bread made with six different grains and covered in seeds) sliced. The regular customers always ask who I am and where I’m from and speak slowly and clearly. I have a little more trouble with the mumblers and people with complicated orders who are in a hurry. But I do my best. After my first day being on my own taking orders, Madame said as I was leaving, “tu as bien travaillé aujourd’hui” (literally: you have worked well today), and the fact that she trusted me to serve the majority of customers without even her supervision last week while she chatted with the men in the back demonstrated her increasing trust and confidence.
It’s wonderful to be surrounded by beautiful baked goods and supervisors who really speak no English at all as I jump into the work of the French boulangerie, including its stresses, miscommunications, and little triumphs. I only hope I can pick up a recipe or two to try myself when I have a kitchen I can use again. If not, I might have to spend my whole summer trying to recreate that freshly baked pain au chocolat, apparently imperfect, but perfectly delicious.
