Let them eat bread

I have a biking buddy named Roland. He knows the roads of the Gironde better than the back of his hand. From riding with Roland I've learned for example to recognize the abandoned underground galleries (where this area produced 20 tons of mushrooms sent to Paris every three weeks) and to find the name of towns if I miss the roadsign on the way into a town. I was complaining one day to Roland that I couldn't work out a town's name once I was in the central square. It wasn't marked on the townhall or the church you find there. Without hesitating, he said check the memorial to the war dead (le monument aux morts)--every village has one. Sure enough, it will say something like 'To the Glorious Heroes of Sadirac (or wherever) Who Died for France in 1914-1918'.

There's no point in calling Roland between 10:30 and 11:15 in the morning. He's out running his daily errands (il fait ses courses). His most important errard is to get a fresh baguette.

Roland is retired and lives alone if you overlook his tyrannical cat. You can tell he's not from around here by his accent, though he's lived in the Bordeaux area since the second world war when his mother moved here to get away from the Germans in their native Alsace-Lorraine. Roland's an inveterate cyclist--in fact he's been a member of the FFCT (French Federation of Cyclotourism) for over fifty years. He used to ride all over the Gironde with his wife till she died--she took up cycling with him when she discovered how well he knew the boulangères (bread ladies) of the Gironde! Though going on 80, he can ride me into the ground.

Like most French, Roland loves a fresh baguette. (We often stop when we're out cycling together so he pick up a baguette for lunch and flirt with the boulangère). When the French go out shopping in the week (not everyone can go every day like Roland), it's most commonly to buy bread at the local bakery. Where Americans go out in the week to get milk, the French go out to get bread.

Every neighborhood in the bigger cities like Bordeaux has several bakeries. We've moved a couple of times since I came to France. My wife will systemically visit the nearby bakeries till she finds one she likes. And that's where we buy our bread. The French are content to eat the same bread day after day. Roland and his baguette, Danièle and her 'pain polka'. Most Americans would get bored eating the same bread, not the French.