The emblematic Clapas pastry chef, Edgar Scholler, is 100 years old

Edgar Scholler goes back in time with this photo where he poses with Reine, his wife. Midi Libre – co-owner

Although he previously worked in the Landes, in the Aude and then in Lézignan-la-Cèbe, it was by taking over the Blanche Neige bakery that Edgar Scholler anchored himself forever on the clapas. But he only stayed a short time at this address on rue de l’Aiguillerie, then located opposite Notre-Dame-des-Tables. scholler family

A showcase of the aesthetic canons of the time. The shape of the chocolates suggests that we are, here, a few days before the Easter holidays. Until last year, Edgar Scholler still produced several dozen chocolates himself, which he distributed during the end-of-year holidays. Having opened by purchasing a 40 m2 premises at the foot of Chambord, a brand new building on Avenue de Lodève, he subsequently acquired three garages which he transformed to set up his laboratory. A store still in operation today. scholler family

Dynamique, doté d’un sens pratique et dotée d’un goût affirmé pour la décoration et la mise en situation, Reine Scholler constituait un indissociable binôme avec son époux de pâtissier. Elle prend la pose derrière la vitrine du magasin historique de l’avenue de Lodève. famille scholler

The most Montpellier of the Alsatians, established here for decades, helped to promote the name of the city with his sweet creations. A look back at a life that is at the very least singular.

A pure Alsatian (that's pretty good), Edgar Scholler (without D) has, for a long time now, become a Montpellier in his own right. "A southerner, I'm really from here!".Preferring the Mediterranean skies to their foggy Upper Rhine cousins.

But because the trees do not pick up their leaves as this Magyar axiom says, Edgar Scholler, of joyful nature, could just as easily have been born a child of the Hungarian puzta. He who, at the dawn of his hundredth birthday, says he regrets nothing about a life as rich as it is caloric "and never looks behind, always ahead".

“We need a baker!” I said: “Me!”

However, nothing was written for this teenager forced to leave “in the minute, by cart, with the whole family”, his region one dark day in 1939. To end up in the Landes, &quot ;in Villeneuve-de-Marsan. We were herded into the arenas. The attendant shouted: “We need a baker!” I said: “Me!”. They took me to a baker’s house. I lived there even though I wasn’t a baker. I was leaving school, I didn't know how to do anything…", he says, a mischievous glint in his eye.

Then followed years in North Africa, under the flags (those of a Colonial artillery regiment), the landing in Provence and the arrival across the Rhine . To then better get back on track in spite of himself and end up with two years of service in Indochina, "in Saigon to protect the sisters of a convent then in Haiphong".

Return to the South-West. Where the baker who, a few years earlier had taken him under her wing, offers to give him her business on the condition that he gets married! And it's finally with Reine, one of his (numerous, he admits) war godmothers whom he marries. And with which after two years, he moved to Lézignan-la-Cèbe where his father-in-law had a bakery.
Happy movement again with this new departure towards the Hérault prefecture. When one day, “a businessman called me and said: I have the business and the money.” The Schollers thus took over Blanche Neige, a modest bakery on rue de l’Aiguillerie.

"We didn't stay there long." Because from now on, it is the last free business in Chambord, a brand new building on avenue de Lodève, "at number 121" (the address still exists ), towards which Edgar Scholler is eyeing. A strategic location, "next to a high school and the gendarmerie".

"Some times you had to put yourself together
in the middle to separate impatient customers"

It is there, in these forty square meters (subsequently expanded via the acquisition of three garages transformed into a laboratory) that Edgar and Reine Scholler will write some of the tastiest pages of pastry and the local chocolate factory. This at the rate of weeks of work and all-out training. "From there, I was a hit. We were invaded by customers. Sometimes, you had to stand in the middle to separate the more impatient ones,” he recalls. Success ? "I can’t explain it", he breathes, modestly. "But he was well surrounded by several of the best workers in France, did many internships to get into fine pastry making", objects Mireille, one of his two daughters.

In the firmament, the “Scholler Brigade” will have around ten employees. But also on the unwavering support mixed with the sagacity of Reine, "born on Twelfth Day". It was she who was at the origin of the brand’s first frozen desserts. Clever to compensate for the cramped conditions of a shop that has become one of the city’s gourmet hotspots.

"One hundred kilos of chocolate in
the garage at holiday time"

But even after stopping his career, “too late”, affectionately annoying those around him, Edgar Scholler continued to delight his guests at the slightest opportunity. Still doing, a year ago, "one hundred kilos of chocolate in the garage at holiday time".

A pleasure now combined with the past for this bulimic of good. The fault of indocile knee prostheses. Other proof: "One day, he came to lunch at my house and brought two Saint-Honoré. He said to me: This morning I was a little bored so I did ten. He had given them to the neighbors,” says his daughter, again with equal admiration. And if he now admits to being “pissed off”? a little, Edgar Scholler has lost none of the passion that animated him over the decades.

Making this soon to be centenary (it will be celebrated this February 13, Editor's note), a living book of the history of the region with a living memory. Conceding, perhaps taking its shape, from these Champagne bubbles which he delights in daily.
 

I subscribe to read more