Trouvé: Gamelles d’Ouvrier
We’ve found these three gamelles (containers used to carry food) at various vide greniers in nearby villages. They are usually sold by older French ladies that can tell you a little of what they used to put into these boxes for their husbands to take to work. There are many names for these french lunch boxes, but they were mainly used for workers on construction sites or farmers in the late 50s and 60s.
Gamelle de chantier (construction site)
I like to imagine men carrying these lovely objects to work. The same craft and effort are no longer implemented to make the everyday object a piece of craft. We’ve seen kitchen pots, utensils and all kinds of advertising signs made with the same enabled technique. I think they’re so full of character.
There are 2 compartments to each gamelle; one is much smaller than the other. The smaller compartment was often used for soup and the larger compartment for the main meal (some kind of rabbit stew?). What goodies do you think were in these lunch boxes?
One thing that has certainly changed is the portion sizes. This gamelle is the smallest of the three. It’s certain that the worker would have had a baguette to accompany whatever was in these boxes. But it just goes to show how bread was such a large part of the worker’s diet. Well, if they ate anywhere near as much as me that is…
