Carnet de Voyage: Buttered Bread

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Friday morning in our village of Vermenton is market day. Whatever the weather, the stall holders set up to ply their wares; there are always at least three fruit and vegetable stalls, the local honey producer, goats cheese, a fishmonger in his refrigerated van, the cheesemonger, an oysters and mussels stand, a plant and flower seller and the ubiquitous hippy stall selling incense, colourful trousers, scarves and jewellery.  

I used to walk the children to school through the market and exchange “Bonjours” whilst they were setting up. Our favourite market purchase would be roast chicken and potatoes for lunch on the walk back from school, and if we were lucky, we would get the last chicken and extra free potatoes as three hungry children would gaze up disarmingly at the poultry producer. That smell of golden chickens on the rôtisserie, dripping with fat, is hard to beat. I always admired the elegant lady who set up rows and rows of knitwear and outdated ladies clothing and was constantly chatting vociferously with her stallholder colleagues. I think since we arrived in our village in 1993, all these stalls have been religiously present. In the summer, we also now have an Italian delicatessen van, an Asian food truck selling samosas, spring rolls and ramens, a Caribbean stand with delicious accras, freshly fried and handed out for anyone to taste and great background music vibes,  organic fruit and vegetable stalls, a charcuterie stand boasting sausages and ham from happy pigs in the Morvan forest, mattresses piled up on the pavement (I’ve never seen anyone buy a mattress in the market) and the occasional sole trader with odd things such as miracle cleaning products that promise to change your life. 

However, the best thing about our market is its tradition for “Pain Beurré”. The pain beurré season in Vermenton starts in spring and goes on through the summer until the rentrée in September.  A pain beurré is hosted by one of the village associations – it could be the football club, or the town twinning association, the “Anciens Combattants” or the “Amis de Vermenton” or the twirling club to name a few. Each association is only allowed to hold one pain beurré per season and there is a meeting held at the mairie to fix the calendar. You can imagine there are often heated discussions as to who gets the summer dates and who has to put up with the often-freezing cold April dates. The idea is of course to raise money for the association in question and this is done by selling portions of pain beurré. What is it, you ask?  It’s a baguette, taken out of the oven halfway through cooking, cut in half lengthways, heavily buttered and seasoned with salt, black pepper and cheese and then returned to the oven. It has to be eaten warm and crunchy, with the option of a glass of wine (évidemment!).  

When we first arrived in Vermenton there were three bakeries (sadly today there is only one) and there was fierce competition as to who produced the best pain beurré. It was bad enough deciding which baker to buy your ordinary baguette or your croissant from. If you lived in the lower part of the village you would not dream of crossing the threshold of the bakery the other side of the main road and I witnessed many a conversation between locals discussing the merits of their baguette over their neighbour’s. Being foreigners we were gaily unaware of this tribal boulangerie affiliation and would patron all three of them – unheard of in some quarters apparently! Naturally the associations had their own favourite bakery and the recipes differed slightly. Connoisseurs would identify the baker in a flash.  

On the chosen day the association sets up under the Salle des Fêtes entrance, next to the market square. Tablecloths are draped, tasting glasses lined up and corks pulled. At about 10h30 the designated bakery is visited to collect the bags of warm pain beurré. It’s a quick march back to the market where by now people are gathering in anticipation. Within an hour the pain beurré has all been eaten, but, there are still bottles of wine open and so the conviviality flourishes. 1 euro for an extra “petit verre” and a chat with the President of the Association Culturelle is priceless time spent. The portions are dished out in tin foil in exchange for a reasonable price, agreed and voted for by all the associations and the coins stashed in the cash tin under the treasurer’s watchful eye. 

Apparently, the origins of the Vermenton pain beurré go back to 1922 when the baker Louis Maillard took the first “tartine gratinée” out of his oven. One only had a pain beurré on invitation and people would celebrate their “Saints” namesake days with friends at the café and nibble on pain beurré. At some point in the 80’s the local Syndicat d’Initiative set up one day selling pain beurré and a glass for a minimal fee and from then on, it’s become a tradition shared and loved by all of the Vermentonnais/ses who appreciate which side their bread is buttered on.

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