Bonjour Bread Festival

Bread. In Paris. Mais oui! Especially the baguette. Yummy, crunchy-exterior, and soft air-filled morsels of yeasty goodness made by artisans using only four ingredients–flour, yeast, salt, and water. Now, imagine a whole pile of artisans together, under one giant tent filled with ovens, surrounded by flour, linens, rising dough and free samples of bread (and cheese).

Each year in Paris, beginning the Monday before May 16th and lasting for a full week, they celebrate Fête du Pain. May 16th is the day of Saint-Honoré, the patron saint of bakers. I just happened upon the celebration while I was there last year. My nose found the massive tent near Notre Dame before my eyes did. Drifting from it was the rich smell of fresh baked bread like my mother baked until I was sixteen. That same delicious scent would greet me coming up the walk from school, so my nose knows what it’s doing when it comes to eeking out fresh baked bread.

The festival, however is more than just a collection of officially designated artisans. It’s in part, a competition. So in addition to baguettes you see them forming the most remarkable feats with dough. Faces. Brie baked inside. Flowers formed with it. And you can witness the whole process. Oh la la. It’s so decadent.

There were so many great pictures from the festival last year, I’ve put in the gallery below – just click to enlarge. There’s also this little YouTube video so you can feel like you are there. Sans smells, of course.