The World Is One Giant Bakery (I Checked)

In all of my French memories, there’s a bakery.

My then-28-year-old mum went back to university when I was 3, and my then-26-year-old dad was tasked with taking me to school. Yes, school, not daycare—French kids are swallowed up by the Éducation nationale while Canadian kids are still being breastfed, only to be spit out of the system at 18.

My dad was half-asleep for the entire twenty-five-minute walk to school. There was a bakery about halfway and once in a while, he would rummage around in his pocket and ask, “Do you want a pain au chocolat?”

I was also half-asleep—even then I was not a morning person—but I’d invariably nod.

I don’t remember what the pains au chocolat tasted like or if 3-year-old me enjoyed them but I do remember thinking, “If I start eating and keep very quiet, maybe he will forget where we are heading in the first place.”

Meet my dad. He did forget where we were going a couple of times and brought me home. Canadian kids have snow days, I had accidental pain au chocolat days.

There was also a bakery on the way to my middle school. Scratch that, back then there were at least three in my “hood”, the tiny triangle between home, school and mamie’s apartment, because the French need their fix so badly.

I was always running late for school, and I most definitely didn’t have the time to buy anything before the loud bell rang a block up the steep street. But hey, that’s what goûter was invented for. At 4:30 p.m., I’d walk to mamie’s place and she would always encourage me to grab something at the bakery downstairs. I ate countless lemon tarts and raspberry tarts with her, playing dress-up at 9, having her do my hair with a curling iron at 12, apathetically watching sitcoms on TV at 13, and eventually introducing her to the complicated life of a teen in the late 1990s.

School was getting serious by then, we started at 8 a.m. most days. I’m hardly the odd one out in France—early starts aren’t exactly a national pastime. None of this “Zumba at 6 a.m.” or “spinning at 6:30 a.m.” Canadian nonsense. The city is deep asleep until 10 a.m. and the few people out are going somewhere fast—to work, to school, back home after a night partying.

At 7:30, the streets were dark, quiet, a bit creepy. But one of them smelled delicious and at the end of it, one store had its lights on—the bakery. It wasn’t open yet. The baker was wrapping up for the day, sometimes having a smoke on the sidewalk, covered in flour and with dark circles under his eyes. Time for him to go to bed. The shopkeeper, often his wife, would eventually open at 8 a.m. and start handing out croissants in the morning, sandwiches at noon and baguettes in the evening.

We left too early to stop at the bakery, but fresh croissants and pains au chocolat were delivered to school and sold for 1 franc each at the 10 a.m. recess.

Then I left France, promptly missed bakeries and started looking for them wherever I was in the world. Looking back, it wasn’t just the familiar taste of butter and the texture of flaky dough I missed but home—maybe not France per se but a comforting environment, a language I spoke fluently and a handful of people who love me.

I followed the breadcrumbs and I pushed doors open, not always guided by smell and not always at conventional French bakery hours—did you know that there are 24/7 bakeries in Argentina and Brazil, crazy! I even found miànbāodiàn (面包店) in China, where I developed an addiction to pineapple buns, coconut buns and egg tarts. Yes, egg tarts, which I found under the name “pastel de Belém” in Brazil, much like my beloved croissants became medialunas in South America.

It turns out that people around the world do love baked carbs. You might have missed it but we actually live in a giant boulangerie, bakery, panadería, padaria, whatever you call it in your hood.

Go ahead, quiz me. I can send you to a decent bakery in any major city in the Americas, parts of Asia and possibly Australia. Fine print: the bakery cart in some parts of Central America doesn’t have an address but listen for anyone shouting “pan de banana, pan de chocolate!”

I passed on my love for bakeries. Mark had his first croissant before he was old enough to say “merci”, much like 99% of French kids. And like 99% of French parents, I found crumbs in his stroller months after coming back to Canada.

This is what bakeries do. They’re a lighthouse in the dark, a warm place to step into at odd hours. Also, croissants. Or whatever yours sell, I’m sure it’s lovely. Please, do give me the address.