The BIG DAY...Mondial du Pain

Today was a pretty standard Saturday. The cleaning ended a bit earlier than usual because Mr Pozzoli came around at 10am with the Chinese team from the “mondial du pain” competition. They had a video interview, with a Chinese-French translator of course and they just checked out the bakery and talked about some stuff like the countries’ different flours and mixing times and friction values of mixers etc.

The mondial du pain is a baking completion held every 2 years and at the moment has teams from about 14 countries ranging from Algeria, Germany, Canada, Taiwan, and Japan, France, Italy and America. Teams consist of a candidate of a minimum age of 25 years and 5 years baking experience, a commis under the age of 21 and a coach. They have to produce a variety of viennoiserie, breads as well as an artistic piece. They have 1 hour the day before and 8 hours on the day of production. Seriously insane level of knowledge and experience there.

Mondial Du Pain 2013 St Etienne France

After work and sleeping for a bit, I met up with Alexandre and we drove with his family to St Etienne. I was in the back between their 3 month and 19month old sons...that’s not easy. I had to entertain the 3 month old...and I was pretty good at it. But I told Alexandre and Pauline that no way was I going to babysit for them J

Once in St. Etienne we went to the expo where the competition was happening to see all the countries’ presentations and then we went to the venue for the gala dinner with all the teams and people involved in the organisation. I got pulled into the kitchen to help plate the entree which was fine as the kitchen is always the most comfortable place for me at those kinds of events. It wasn’t easy though as we were given some punch which was flippen strong...cane, white rum and juice... myself and Loic Pozzoli who is the oldest Pozzoli brother, in charge of the bakery in Vaise and the sales and marketing department.

While we were plating, we got to snack on the canapés which were circulating. The samoosas weren’t that great as I felt they needed some seasoning and maybe a touch of spice. The courgette ones were nice, the lil' pies of rabbit and liver were good too. Unfortunately I didn’t get to try the escargot and pasties which sucks as I still haven’t tried that. The “cake aux pieds porc” was really good with a nice porky flavour...def want to try to modify that for a South African twist. But there were also some canapés which were made at the Vaise bakery as they also do catering “traiteur”.

Starter was a foie gras terrine with rocket, a mango and pineapple chutney jelly, pistachio crumble and pine nuts and a bread crisp. It was really tasty and nicely seasoned and I actually ate half which is a lot considering I don’t eat much foie gras.

Main was beef fillet, potato rosti, mini button and morelle mushrooms, roast vine tomato and a cream based sauce.

They had lots of dancing in between and I even joined in. We ended up going all the way around the stage with that one where people make a tunnel and you run through. They did the Macarena and Gangnam style and Congo as well. French people REALLY love their classics even people my age...I’m talking Barry White, Gypsy Kings and Earth Wind and Fire...oh shit. I don’t think I can ever escape that music that my parents and family always seem to play. They also know a lot of Spanish songs too.

Everyone got together and waved and sang “we are the world” but I think I was part of maybe 5% who actually knew more than 2 lines of the chorus...was quite funny to hear everyone mumbling after the “we are the children” line.

They then had a cool display where all the MOFs and people on the organising board for the mondial du pain got on stage and presented a cool artistic piece with the symbol for mondial du pain, an oven and peel and breads (all baked of course) while singing “we are the champions”. Again, I think most only knew about 2 lines of the chorus.

While that was happening we were served dessert (it was about 00:30 at this time) which was a chocolate base, with chocolate croquant, chocolat mousse and vanilla cream. And after that a coffee which was the standard plunger coffee which everyone drinks here. I really miss having a proper espresso or latte.

We only left after 2am and then it was another hour drive back to Lyon. A very cool evening but I was just bummed that I didn’t get to see the production as that would’ve been 1^st prize for me.