The only roll of food-grade twine No. 18, in the regulation blue shade, vanished behind the community hall at 6:42 a.m., just after the knotters’ dress rehearsal. Without this approved twine, it’s impossible to tie up the 7.30 m giant pâté and hope for a listing in the very finicky Gourmet Ties Guide.
In the hamlet of 312 souls, there’s an uproar: the Bound Pâté Festival, scheduled for Saturday, has required since 1989 a continuous binding, 1.8 kg of tension, and a barley-blue color. The roll, carefully stored in a wooden crate labeled “Twine – Do not sing over it,” vanished into thin air while they were practicing the safety knot at the foot of the linden tree. Without the blue No. 18 with a cotton core, the rulebook warns, the piece is downgraded to a mere “assembled terrine,” a category deemed “non-heroic.”
Around the square, they measure, they recount, they speculate. The baker, unofficial keeper of the puff-gauge, multiplies trials with a green sample found in a jam-cupboard drawer. Bad idea: the slice gapes. “If they see us with green, we’ll get turned down faster than a crustless pâté, and I’m not re-melting my yeast for that,” he growls, setting his compass on the still-warm test crust. For his part, Dédé “Double-Knot” Prévost, level-3 certified knotter, lays down the law: “We don’t joke about the shade: it’s Pantone Pâté blue No. 18, otherwise we’re tying down sorrow.”
A search party takes shape: two teams follow the ditch along the Champ des Bauges, armed with headlamps and a tape measure, while Mrs. Lemoine, a former haberdasher, arrives with her old knot dial to recalibrate the loops. They try plan B: braiding two white twines with a harvest garland dyed with blueberry. Result: lovely gradient, but it bleeds onto the crust. At 11:13, a twist: a blue roll reappears in the clothespin basket in the hall’s laundry room—false hope, it’s No. 16 “sausage,” too slippery. The tasters’ committee postpones the pre-slicing until dusk, leaving time to attempt an alternating half-hitch with controlled friction. Glory, here, hangs by a thread.
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