He baked bread and focaccia all summer and the first customers who showed up late at night were his peers, hungry after the disco. Eighteen-year-old Giovanni Boeri was looking for a summer job and tried his hand at perhaps the most challenging one for a boy. He spent the nights in the oven of the Ferriere bakery (Piacenza), an activity which multiplies its efforts in the summer period to try to please thousands of people.
“I wanted to learn a trade”
“I was looking for a job after school – explains Giovanni, a resident of Pontenure (Piacenza) and originally from Ferrier – but I wanted to learn a trade. At home I like to experiment in the kitchen: hence the choice to work in the bakery. It was a great experience”.
Did the decision weigh on you? “I gave up walking, the summer in Ferriere for me was above all about dedicating time to hiking in the mountains”. How did it go in the oven? “I made some mistakes, some stupid things, but they are solvable. At night we start with focaccias, then comes the time for bread. In the morning we move on to desserts, cakes, especially potato ones. The difficulty is sleeping during the day to be fit at night, at the beginning I struggled a lot. And in these last days of August I was alone at home because my parents finished their holidays.”
Wake up at 3
We disturb the activity at the bakery in the late morning of Wednesday, the least intense day for Ferriere, the one in which the activities rest in the afternoon. In this case Giovanni started at 3 am and, to be ready, went to bed at 9 pm. However, he intends to add another 2-3 hours of sleep in the afternoon.
Is this a summer job you would recommend? “Yes, I learned many things, the owner Danilo Cavanna and his collaborator Florin were very helpful, they taught me well, I felt part of the family. I recommend it because the world of work, after this experience, might seem simpler”.
“By choice I make less bread than in the past, ‘when it ends, it ends’… Years ago we started at 8pm the day before to satisfy all requests. Now, speeding up the processes a bit, on the weekends of August the employees start at 10pm and finish at 8am, while I continue until the end”, says Cavanna.
“It’s complex to work at night, it’s tiring to get used to. It’s no small thing to be able to sleep peacefully,” he continues.
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