As I enter the boulangerie
of Jean-François Gimenes he is in the process of rolling out a pâte feuiletté, a puff pastry, folding
it seven times. The next day he will cut it into long loaves, and put it into
his wood-fired oven on a long paddle to bake.
He has been here since 2:00 in the morning. He fired up his
oven just after 3:00. His day will end at 12:30 p.m. when he sweeps up the last
bit of flour.
“That’s the way it is, I have to get everything done,” he
says, shrugging his shoulders.
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| Meganne and Jean-François Gimenes in front of the wood-burning oven |
Jean-François Gimenes was born in Pernes-les-Fontaines back
when it was still a small town.
After years of working in a variety of fields, he woke up
one morning and had the crazy idea to do something completely different. He
packed up his knapsack, toured all of France, and returned to the south with a
passion for baking bread, but à l’ancienne,
in the old style of baking in a wood-fired oven, a time-honoured tradition,
specifically with levain, or
sourdough.
After some years in Carpentras, the bakery in his home town came
for sale, he snapped it up, and has been baking up a storm for the last ten
years.
It is the oldest shop in Pernes still in existence, he
says proudly. He used to stop by this very bakery as a boy to buy bread baked
in the very same ancient oven.
And it remains the heart of the community, a meeting place. Pernes
is now a city, but maintains the spirit of a village.
“That’s what I love about it, this spirit. And in the
context of this bakery it’s got a friendly atmosphere and it’s close to
everyone, it’s in the centre of Pernes, that’s something I really love.”
The entrance to his tiny shop is modest, nondescript, nearly
unchanged since its founding in 1890.
As I open the door the next day, a chilly Saturday morning,
his daughter Meganne at the till, I am welcomed by a burst of warm air and a
crowd of convivial people chatting. Many of them are friends, who wait in line patiently
for their bread, most of the loaves set to the side, as locals know to reserve
their loaf in advance. Otherwise, the shelves are normally bare by noon.
Meanwhile, Jean-François deftly manoeuvres his long paddle
in the vast, hot oven, pulling out crusty loaves, rearranging others, trying
not to poke customers filing into the shop.
That magnificent ancient oven is the centrepiece of the
bakery. For him the wood oven evokes everything that his ancestors used to do.
“I’m doing the same thing. I’m reproducing what the past
generations did.
“It’s the love of the craft. I have no desire to work with
an electric oven or with yeast, not at all. It’s the choice I made and I love
it. It’s hard work, but I like that.
Jean- François loads the wood into the lower portion of the
oven. The wood heats the stone slab above where the loaves will be placed.
After two hours, it’s ready.
The wood stove is what gives his bread its unique texture, which
I adore: the crust much thicker and chewier than industrial bread made with
yeast. I’m also interested to learn that the shape of a bread affects its
taste. For example a baguette and a miche
(a round ball) could be made with the same dough, but the baguette will
cook quicker, at higher heat, the larger loaves will cook slower, over the
dying embers. The flavour with be completely different.
“That changes the taste and it’s something that you can only
achieve with a wood-fired oven,” he says.
I tear off a piece of that feuiletté loaf which he was rolling out the day before and the
crust shatters into a magnificent shower of flaky, light layers.
It’s just one of at least a dozen types of bread and
specialty bread Jean-François bakes each day. He is best known for his
humourously-named Pernoise, a slim
loaf which he bakes every day, and the heftier Pernois, which he only bakes on Saturdays.
But the work has begun much earlier. As he uses only sourdough,
the mixture starts fermenting two days in advance and is then baked on the
third.
Creativity is essential to his craft. He loves experimenting
with different types of flour, mixing and matching until it’s just right. For
example, petite épautre de Sault, an
ancient grain of the region (similar to spelt) will form the basis of an enormous
square loaf that customers will buy by the slice, which could be a six- or
12-cm slice, or more! He also uses rye, whole wheat, buckwheat and various
other organic flours.
“I’ve always loved to create different varieties, to work
with new types of flour. After that, well, it’s humour. It’ something I love,
to experiment.”
And evidently, lots of ideas emerge if you work all alone in
the middle of the night!
He accepts the solitary nature of his work. “I like working
all alone, it’s a choice. I do my research, I am the only one responsible for
the quality, and I pull my very own bread out of the oven.
Jean-François once contemplated packing up and moving to
Canada. But his roots are here and he’s committed to the community.
And the citizens of Pernes-les-Fontaines
– and visitors - are all the happier to be able to order their loaf of Pernoise on a weekday and Pernois on a Saturday.
Boulangerie Gimenes Jean-François
51 Rue de la République
84210 Pernes-les-Fontaines
04 90 60 00 74
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