Bo fully understand how a French boulangerie called Farine (Flour) came to be in Marblehead, you have to locate the couple who founded it: Kathy and Laurent Dedieu.
Laurent Dedieu grew up in a village in Ariège, France, of fewer than 200 inhabitants, between Toulouse and Castellneau. Ariège is one of 101 departments in France, really smack at the bottom of the country, in the southwest region of Occitanie. He graduated from INSA Toulouse, the National Institute for Applied Sciences, in 1997, with a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering. In 2000, he joined Doctors Without Borders in Burundi.
Kathy Dedieu grew up in Everett and spent her summers in Marblehead. She’s trained as an electrical engineer, which explains how she and Laurent Dedieu met. During the war between Sudan and South Sudan in 2003, they worked on the same mission in Doctors Without Borders.
On a speedy geopolitical note, the couple stepped foot that year in an ongoing civil war between the northern and southern regions of Sudan.
“South Sudan actually didn’t exist then, and I was there to help drill boreholes so that we could have medical clinics,” Kathy Dedieu explained.
“But the most important thing was meeting Laurent. We’ve been together ever since,” she continued.
So, why open a boulangerie in Marblehead?
Well, fast forward to 2022, after 10 years of working for Doctors Without Borders in New York City, Laurent Dedieu undertook a professional reconversion to become a boulanger — a baker, in French — and trained in Paris at the Centre d’Excellence des Professions Culinaires.
“It came from Laurent’s heart,” Kathy Dedieu said immediately.
“I don’t know if it comes from my Frenchness,” Laurent Dedieu added, with a jolt of southern French accent in his English. “But my heart always beats harder when I enter a boulangerie in France.”
After 20 years in a huge supranational institution, the couple wanted to start “notre propre affaire” — their own business. Something small.
“Quelque chose de pas gros, des métiers de bouche,” Laurent Dedieu said, switching to his native French. (“Something
not too big, something in
food-related trades,” in English.)
You could say, “Eh, it’s just bread.” But Laurent Dedieu makes everything the traditional French way — so what could be marketed in a fancy way is sold with respect to its local authenticity.
Laurent Dedieu said they still have a lot to do to fight preconceived ideas about bread, especially that it’s not very healthy.
“We have to explain that our process is different; it brings a lot of nutritional value that industrial bread doesn’t have,” he said.
“The way I think of it, as an American having been 10 years in Paris, you know, a croissant is something you just grab and eat on the way, or kids get it after school,” Kathy Dedieu said, praising the essential simplicity of the croissant.
“It’s not supposed to be this prized thing,” she added, breaking the cult of personality surrounding yeast-based dough rolled into an edible crescent.
Kathy Dedieu hasn’t been home in a long time.
“With humanitarian work, you feel like you’re going backward most of the time,” she said. “It was important for Laurent to do something with his hands.”
“You have an immediate reward,” Laurent Dedieu said. “Every single day, you start at the bottom of the hill, and you have to push the rock up.”
Sisyphus, but without the torture, he said with a laugh. You see results every day; you have to start and restart.
After years of moving around, and 10 years in Paris, the couple is ready to build community in Marblehead, near Kathy Dedieu’s hometown. They feel very welcomed in town and supported in their endeavor. And their products are so high in demand that they are often sold out.
“Unbelievable,” Kathy Dedieu said. “There’s a line before we open. Everyone is rooting for us. We were unprepared for the response that we’ve had.”
Some customers who get there too late have to leave empty handed.
“At first, everybody was like, ‘Aren’t you going to bake some more?’ And we had to say, ‘No, the process takes 24-48 hours,” Kathy Dedieu explained. “Now people know, and everybody is starting to have their favorites.”
So, what are the crowd’s favorites? The croissant and the chocolatine, they answered. Chocolatine? Not pain au chocolat? No, because in the southwest, Kathy Dedieu explained, they say chocolatine. It’s a debate that would fuel a civil war in France — but here, the quality is the same.
“If they don’t like it, they will not come,” Laurent Dedieu said. “They keep coming again and again.”
Clients sometimes wait 5 minutes for baguettes to cool down to be sure to bring one home.
“It’s not a naive clientele, it’s a very picky clientele,” Kathy Dedieu agreed. “As someone who grew up on the North Shore, I cannot believe the emotion that Laurent has brought to this Yankee town.”
Kathy and Laurent Dedieu’s long-term plan is to have their small business day-to-day in Marblehead and spend time across the ocean every year for a couple months to see both of their families.
“It’s hard when you each come from different places and you’re close with your families and friends,” Kathy Dedieu said. “We did 10 years U.S.-based, 10 years in France, and, well, we’re one year back in the U.S.… sharing the time.”
