Even before the sun rises above the Bay of Bengal in the coastal town, sourdough is mixed, shaped and baked in the wood-fired oven to get those hard-brown crusty bread and elongated baguette.
From a small nondescript shop in the busy street of MG Road to the suave, stylish bakery in Auroville, baking French-style breads have not just been a legacy from the French colonisers but a fast growing obsession.
In different shapes and sizes, these breads have a tale of their own. For over 100 years, Sun Biscuit Factory has stood on the spot opposite the Goubert Market entrance on Mahatma Gandhi Street, lining up the knead wheat dough on small trays on the wood-fired oven and baking hot ‘French-style baguettes’ in their backyard.
French legacy
“We did not go to any catering college to learn how to bake breads. My grandfather Lakshmanan Pillai started this shop during the French regime. He learnt to bake from them and passed on through generations. Many French people bought bread from us and we even supplied to many bakeries,” says Sivakumar, a baker.
On a Saturday morning, unshaven and in his rugged shirt and white veshti , he walks across the narrow passage between glass shelves with round breads, which are little bigger than the bun and small biscuits of different shapes kept in separate glass bottles, to pack hot loafs to the customers.
“Over the years, new bakeries have mushroomed and the demand for these breads has come down,” he says, adding that “only those who know about this bakery come here to buy. It is not known to the younger generation and even tourists.”
Despite its waning popularity and inability to keep pace with the changing times and demands, the Sun Biscuit Factory retains its charm with its devoted customers.
The taste of ‘French’ bread has enticed not just the old Puducherrians but those when
A few kilometres away from Puducherry, Daniel Trulson sits on a wooden chair at the ‘Bread and Chocolate’ café facing the road on Kuyilapalayam in Auroville. A native of Chicago, he partnered with his friend Jane Mason and Fabien Bontems to start a café that serves fresh organic food, speaks about his love and spiritual connect towards baking sourdough breads.
He explains his meditative experience of baking, “I wake up early every morning to mix and shape dough. Baking bread is a balancing act – balancing all the elements from adapting to the weather, quality of dough, temperature of oven. It touches with the senses giving a spiritual connect to the work.”
When he tasted what he calls the ‘perfect’ bread in Tarbes region in France that is ‘dark-baked’ in wood-fired oven, he decided he would bake this bread. “I was 19 years old when I travelled to Europe. I still have the picture of the bread I ate,” he said as he scrolled down the pictures on his phone.
His visit to Auroville, which was the first stop while travelling in India 13 years ago, drew him to this place where he made his home. Experimenting for two years with baking bread in the clay oven that he built, Mr. Trulson found the perfect organic grain from a company based in Delhi and Jaipur, that sources organic wheat from Rajasthan.
Whether in Auroville or in the old part of Puducherry, the learning and legacy of bread making continues in its many ways in the former French colony.
