I started work on Monday here... just about all in French! E.N.I.T.I.A.A. is a school that has all departments related to food science in a small area with a fair amount of buildings. I think there are about 200 students, so it's not very big, but the facilities are amazing! Their pilot plant has just about every kind of machinery that I can think of and the labs are huuuge! Each domain (chemistry, microbiology, processing, etc) has its own building.
So my contact for coming here, Dominique, picked me up at my apartment at 9 am on Monday and took me to the school. I was overwhelmed and doing my best to keep up with the conversation en francais. I got a bit of a tour and then went to meet my boss, Joelle. She is really nice and smiley and was very welcoming. She showed me the area where they all sit and drink coffee in the mornings and then explained a bit more to me about what I would be doing this summer.
My main job will be to analyze volatile compounds (aka the ones you smell and taste) in french bread via the High Pressure Liquid Chromatography machine (aka HPLC). Apparently there is an amino acid, lysine, that is limited in cereal grains and decreases as a result of browning reactions. This makes the bread have a worse nutritional content in short. Also from time to time I will make bread so that I can sample it. They focus on how to make better breads that will end up in grocery stores. Most of the day Monday I read about bread and about these reactions in order to create a good backround. For lunch I ate in one of their 2 cafeterias, fish with rice and broccoli. It was cafeteria food.
Dominique took me back home at about 6 and showed me how to work my oven. It is gas and you actually have to get a match to light it- I would have never figured it out! I then went to the supermarche to get some food. It was getting to be their closing time, so I didn't spend much time, but I loved it of course! Their pprepared foods were things like hollandaise sauce and sandwiches made with baguettes, lots of smoked fish. I got some vegetables, sausage, etc. Then I encountered their wall of smelly cheese! Amazing! Just and entire wall of cheese where we would have our processed cheeses, but theirs were all artisan made and had quote a stench. Mmm! I just chose 2 at random and then grabbed some wine. My 21st birthday meal: a baguette with brie, sausage, tomatoes, lettuce, and hollandaise sauce and then some red wine. C'etait parfait! It's amazing how 2 euro French wine is so much better than $20 American wine.
The next day at work I got to learn how to make bread! I felt like a spy coming in to steal the precious secrets of the French bread. I recognized most of the equipment in the bakery lab from the time I spent in the bakery lab at Danisco last summer. It was the oven...that was the difference. There were three levels and you could control the temperature at the top and bottom of each level. The oven also had a steaming option that you turn on to create a good crust. The smells were intoxicating! That afternoon there was a group from Pennsylvania that came for a tour and so I tagged along. The students, for an oral exam in their English classes were supposed to give all of us tutorials for how to work the machines in their pilot plant. It was very interesting!
I also got to meet some people. One guy asked if I wanted to go get a coffee in their student lounge and I said I had to get back to work. Dominique overheard and said "You always have time for coffee!" I love working in France.
Yesterday was the first day that I went to work by my self via the tramway and then on foot. The tramway went perfectly, but on foot I got a bit lost. Oops! I don't think I paid enough attention when I went on the route via a car. I eventually found my way after stopping to ask people and then had a day of reading about bread en francais. I was so tired after that!.
Today is a holiday in France and so I have a 4 day weekend. This morning I went to downtown and walked around a lot. I got to see a chateau and a cathedral that they are famous for and then I just walked along the canal and watched all the people on their boats. Tres jolie!
Now I am going to go and spend my weekend in Alsace, bordering Germany!
Bon weekend!
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