LElbow grease is not enough for the baker to make a beautiful Bordeaux-style brioche galette. A firm, sharp elbow is also necessary to make a hole in the ball of dough in the middle, before stretching it out little by little. For having applied this technique to perfection, Daouda Drame won, at the end of 2020, the departmental competition for apprentices organized by the professional chamber of Deux-Sèvres. In the running for a regional “master”, he has just finished in third place, with a cake shaped and welded by hand. Two trophies in two years: not bad for a 17-year-old African baker who knew nothing about the culinary specificities of Epiphany before arriving in France.
From Mali to Villefollet
On a work-study program with baker-pastry chef Yannis Jauzelon in Chizé (Deux-Sèvres), the Niort CFA student is from Sambakanou, a town in western Mali. He is only 14 years old when, encouraged by his uncle who will finance his journey, he undertakes the great migratory journey towards Europe. Mauritania and Morocco are crossed by bus; Spain is joined aboard a Zodiac, from “the first crossing”. He then goes to Bayonne, then Toulouse, where the Haute-Garonne departmental council, recognizing his status as an unaccompanied minor, places him at the Maison de Maillé, a place of life and reception located in Villefollet (Deux-Sèvres), a village of 200 inhabitants. Five other migrants of the same age – three Pakistanis, a Tunisian, an Afghan – live year-round in this rural structure, created by a former social worker. All are engaged in vocational training to become electricians, carpenters or salespeople.
“His dexterity is excellent. You can see right away that he knows how to “do” with his hands »
The bakery came to Daouda Drame’s curiosity by chance, during a 3-year internshipand. “I knew nothing about it, but really nothing”, he confides in a still perfectible French – Bambara is his mother tongue. His boss had to simplify his vocabulary, at the beginning, to make him understand his instructions. For the rest, except for a “little” blunder (forgetting to switch on a cold fermentation room, which delayed the first batch in the morning), Yannis Jauzelon is full of praise for the application of his arpète : “His dexterity is excellent. You can see right away that he knows “To do” with his hands”, he said, also greeting his “autonomy in front of the kneader and the oven. »
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