Timeline
A Paris baker's day: put the hours in order
From 2 am to 8 pm in a Paris bakery: a timeline of a baker's day in simple French. Read it, then shuffle the moments and rebuild the day.
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In short
A French boulanger starts in the middle of the night: dough at 2 am, the first baguettes out at 5, the shop opens at 7. The boulangère or a seller often runs the counter while the baker sleeps in the afternoon.
Yellow the idea to rememberBlue French to learn
- 2 h 00Le boulanger arrive au fournil et pétrit la pâte.The baker arrives at the bakehouse and kneads the dough.
- 4 h 30Il façonne les baguettes à la main.He shapes the baguettes by hand.
- 5 h 15Les premières fournées sortent du four.The first batches come out of the oven.
- 7 h 00La boutique ouvre ; les premiers clients arrivent.The shop opens; the first customers arrive.
- 12 h 00Coup de feu du midi : sandwichs et baguettes.The lunchtime rush: sandwiches and baguettes.
- 13 h 30Le boulanger rentre dormir.The baker goes home to sleep.
- 16 h 30Deuxième cuisson pour les baguettes du soir.Second bake for the evening baguettes.
- 20 h 00Fermeture : on range et on nettoie.Closing: tidying and cleaning.
Bakery words from the timeline
| French | English |
|---|---|
| le fournil | bakehouse |
| pétrir | to knead |
| façonner | to shape |
| une fournée | a batch |
| le coup de feu | the rush |
| la cuisson | baking |
The vocabulary of time is simple: à deux heures du matin (at 2 am), en fin de matinée (late morning), l'après-midi, le soir. Bakers talk about les horaires décalés: unusual working hours that are the opposite of everyone else's.
French bakers must legally make the dough on site to call themselves boulanger. Many bakeries close one day a week, and the law staggers these days in some towns so that there's always bread somewhere.