How to break bread, and, yes, it does feel sacramental...
Notice the crispy stem and the yummy, doughy goblet bowl. One side is moulded, the other is rough. Dont worry, the explanation for all this can be found below, if you have the patience to read on.
After some dull work fruitlessly scrubbing the Caribe's inflatable dinghy to remove the sun-baked gunge of a whole summer, I downed tools with Gérard, an ex-teacher, and went for a stroll in old Antibes. We both had hidden gems to show each other.
Whilst we were looking at the cathedral bell-tower, with its re-used Roman masonry replete with bits of sculpture and epigraphy, the concierge of the Chapelle du Saint Esprit came out and invited us to look round the chapel, as the town council were in session. We crept in as quietly as we could, and looked down from the public gallery, formerly the organ loft I suppose, as the mayor reeled off statistics and regulations without once having recourse to notes. Pretty impressive.
Then it was Gérard's turn, and he took me to an improbably small house in the Place du Safranier, and regaled me with stories about Bernard, now in his eighties, who has kept all his drawings from school and puts on little exhibitions of youthful memorabilia outside his house. I recognised his style: he is the chap who does the posters for all the strange events which take place in the square - cubic pétanque, chestnut roasting, Portuguese dancing, Piedmontese singing, twelve metre long christmas logs (one coming up this weekend).
On the move again, we passed in front of Veziano's bakery, with its solitary olive tree standing guard. I told Gérard about the traditional craft bread, the delicious fougasse, the pissaladière. He just had to go in. Maitre Veziano was on his own, and in a talkative mood. In between dealing with bemused customers, he launched into his surprisingly sophisticated philosophy of bread, including the deontology of the baker and the duties of the bread-eater. He was about to get on to what I took to be the ontological proof of the existence of yeast when his wife entered the shop. He took immediate advantage to lead us ceremoniously down to the actual bakery.
Both Gérard and myself had worked in bakeries when young, and the smell of rising dough and raw flour, coupled with the presence of a watchful cat, took us straight back, in a truly Proustian intermittence du coeur. Strange that it should be the raw smells, rather than the cooked, but I suppose that the baking bread aroma is really associated with buying and eating, rather than our erstwhile hard graft lugging flour, measuring, kneading and putting the dough to prove.
While down there, the baker showed us his experiments. He is a sort of Heston Blumenthal of bread, with some wild ideas for a bready future. His miniature breads were exquisite masterpieces, as fine as the best patisseries. No wonder that the Monégasque mariage princier made use of his services.
But for me, the high point was his chalice bread. Ah, you say, that's what the pictures are about. The laboured structuralist reasoning behind the chalice form didn't particularly turn me on (too many oppositional matrices rammed down my throat as a student), but the contrast between a generously doughy goblet part and a crispy, almost breadstick stem was absolutely delicious, as was the expertly risen sourdough, which gave a nice tart finish to the crust. To be broken, not cut, the baker inveighed. But absolutely to be tried, say I, by anybody who has the good luck to pass through old Antibes. A glass of wine and a hunk of chalice bread - now there's a good mystery, even for the profane.
