Pain Gascon

Before we came away I was in touch with Anne Lataillade who has a famous blog, Papilles et Pupilles, about Bordeaux. She gave me the names of some Bordeaux bakers to check out.

You know I am an old cynic and not much over-awed by professional bakers whatever their reputation. Sometimes though I walk into a bakery and my knees go weak, my mouth goes dry and I have trouble talking. No, not Greggs, Bangor High Street – Au pétrin Moissagais, Cours de la Martinique, Bordeaux – http://www.au-petrin-moissagais.info/

It’s a bit like going into church. A dark room about 50 feet long with an ancient wood-burning oven for an altar at the far end. A little display in the window, a woman serving at a plain table a quarter of the way down and along the wall in between an enormous wooden trough full with the most amazing loaves you’ve ever seen. Along with that boulangerie smell, it’s the sheer physicality of the breads that hit you:

They’ve obviously been shaped by twisting which is new to me.

Have to give that a go sometime.

Massive crust – the first slice is almost crust all the way through. Yellowish touch to the crumb. Semolina? Maize meal?

Have to say the flavour is a little bland.