I have recently returned from the set of
a Pagnol film.
At least, that’s what it felt like,
although the accent was Dauphinois and everything was in colour, not in black and
white.
I spent the day in Revel, a village
perched in the Belledonne mountain range overlooking Grenoble. The morning sky
was a brilliant, gentian blue and the grassy slopes were warm beneath the sun.
First stop was the two-hundred year old
bakery to meet the boulanger, Philippe and La Femme du Boulanger, Geneviève. I
watched as the baker weighed out flour, yeast and salt on a pair of scales that
looked at least as old as the bakery itself, then tipped it into an ancient
mixer the size of a hot tub.
When ready, the dough was put into a
cold store to rise...all day. Fortunately, Philippe had prepared some kneaded dough
for me to form. Easy peasy, I thought, but of course, it wasn’t. I was
supposed to be rolling it into a long, thin sausage but by the time I’d
finished, it looked more like a giant pork chop.
Philippe came to my rescue and showed me
how to make a tresse, which he then
popped into the wood-fired oven.
When he brought it out later, piping hot
and golden, I couldn’t help but wish I wasn’t intolerant to gluten. But – hey –
that’s life. Sometimes we have to do without the things we love...
Mild masochistic tendencies led me to
visit l'huilerie - the walnut press - next, where that delicious walnut oil, which I can no
longer tolerate, is extracted. It opened in 1928 and supplied the locals with
oil for the next thirty years. It closed due to a decrease in demand but was
reopened in 2003 by a voluntary association, l’A.P.P.A.R.. The machinery is strangely
beautiful: solid, gleaming cast iron that has stood there for over eighty
years, dormant in summer but cranking into action from December through to
April.
Then a character straight out of Jean de
Florette walked in, blue eyes twinkling beneath his beret, to offer us a drink from
the spring on his land. Ah! L’eau des collines...
Finally, I visited an elderly couple who
lived on a smallholding. The old man showed me his peacocks and his enormous
rabbits then told me to take an egg from the henhouse. I did, marvelling at the
unusual rubbery shell.
“That’s the dummy egg,” said the old
man, bemused and slightly alarmed. Well, I was one of those queer folk, les gens d’en bas – it was
only to be expected.
I arrived home, weary and contented: the
experience had set me yearning for a simpler, slower existence. Yet I do realize
that life in the mountains is no Pagnol film. It is a harsh way to earn a
living, especially in winter.
Because, to quote Pagnol: Telle
est la vie des hommes...
