The Least Intimidating bakery in the village has closed for good so now Iâve got to go to the Intimidating Bakery, itâs awful. If you donât have a PhD in being French I donât recommend going to that bakery, hereâs the humiliating account of the 3 times Iâve visited it so far:
the first time I went in there I pointed at one of those extra-skinny baguettes and said âa flute, pleaseâ feeling pretty sure of myself, and the baker said â⊠thatâs a ficelleâ (you idiot) (was implied) âa flute is twice as large as a baguette.â
Thatâs insane, first of all, a flute is a skinny instrument. Call your fat baguette a bassoon, ladyâI made some timid remark about how it would make more sense for a flute to be a skinny bread and the baker said, âIn Paris it is. I thought you were from the South?â
I guess Iâm from the part of the South thatâs so close to Italy the breadâs waist size matters less than whether itâs got olives in it, but I left the bakery having an existential crisis over whether living in Paris had made me forget my roots
the Least Intimidating Bakery just had normal baguettes vs. seedy baguettes vs. horny baguettes (easy mode, some have seeds, some have horns), while the new bakery has breads that are only different on a molecular levelâthereâs a good old loaf and then another, identical loaf called a bastard? google told me a bastard is âhalfway between a baguette and a breadâ but denouncing them like âthose are not regulation-sized bastardsâ would get me banned from the bakery for life
on my 2nd visit (while I stood in line discreetly googling baguette terminology) there was an English tourist who asked for a baguette while pointing at what was either a rustique or a sesame and I felt a bit worried for them, but the baker just clarified âthis one?â to waive any responsibility if they found out later it wasnât a classic baguette, then handed them the bread without educating them in a judgmental tone and I felt envious
I know itâs because she thinks the English are beyond saving but still it made me want to come back with a fake moustache and an English accent so I wouldnât be expected to play bakery on expert mode just because Iâm French. I asked for a pastry this time and the baker asked âno bread with that?â which felt cruel, like she wanted me to sprinkle myself with ashes and admit out loud that my level of bread proficiency isnât as advanced as I once believed it was
The third time I went, I had lost all self-confidence and I hesitantly pointed at a bread and said âIâd like this, uhâwhat is it called?â and the baker looked at me in disbelief and said âThatâs a baguette.â
for the record, if that stupid bread had been flanked by a skinny bread (ficelle) and a fat one (flute) then yeah of course I would have known to call it a baguette, but in the absence of reference points I now felt lost and scared of being called a Parisian again
itâs hard to express the depth of my suffering so Iâll just let the facts speak for themselves: this morning a French person (me) stood in a French bakery in France surrounded by French people and pointed at a baguette and said âwhat is this calledâ
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