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At 3 a.m., I pulled down the single-lane main street and parked in front of the bakery. Sarlat, a small town in the south of France, was still dark, shutters closed, the odd street lamp flickering in the predawn gray. I couldn't help but imagine the town fathers slumbering in their beds. All, that is, but the village baker. The Boulangerie-Patisserie storefront may have been dark, but behind the shuttered facade of the building, something was definitely happening. A wisp of smoke curled out of the chimney. The distinctive odor of burning pine hung heavy in the air. Master baker Amedee Humeau was already hard at work. A knock at the back door went unanswered. I walked in to find him in his mitron (the traditional white baker's hat). As he greeted me, he took a quick peek at his rising loaves before turning on the coffeepot. The arrival of a young American intent on learning the mysteries of French bread was quite out of the ordinary, and in Sarlat, out of the ordinary is an excuse to sit down and celebrate. At 3 a.m., a warm pain au chocolat and a bowl of coffee was just the ticket.

The wood-fired oven, still hot from the previous day's baking, needed a quick burst of heat to come up to temperature. The gueulard (a cast-iron cone) fed flames directly into the baking chamber, and Adee, as he invited me to call him while we sipped our coffee, skillfully directed the heat from the firebox, first to one side of the oven and then to the other, so it was evenly dispersed. By the time we reached the coffee grounds at the bottom of our bowls, I was wrapped in a white apron, well caffeinated (which doubles for hydrated in France), and ready for the day to come. Or so I thought.

The next four hours were filled with a flurry of activity. Adee set me first to one task and then to another in quick succession. The sourdough loaves had been rising for 12 hours and were ready to be baked from the residual heat of this firing. Each successive ovenload required another faggot of wood (an armload of inch-thick branches) and a half hour for the heat to evenly distribute. There were no dials, no steam injectors, no fancy equipment or machinery. Ad?e tested the temperature with a closed fist, which he insisted was far more accurate than any thermometer.

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