Although baking bread began in Rome and Egypt, France is known for their amazing pastries and artisan baking. France is well known all around the world for the delicious croissant that they created many years ago, it is also known for developing the rich choux and puff pastries. In the 17th and 18th century French bakers started coming up with new recipes for their treats and bread. During this time (17th-18th century) the brioches which are a sweet type of bread was invented, napoleons, cream puffs, and the eclairs which are very popular throughout France were also some of the many pastries created at this time.
As bread making and pastry making was very popular throughout France it did not stop even during the French Revolution. ”At the time of the French Revolution in the late 1700’s, the average Frenchman was reported to have eaten around 1-2lbs of bread a day” (http://www.abigailsbakery.com/bread-recipes/bread-history-french.htm) this sentence shows us that even though there were wars going on throughout France they still cared and wanted their bread and pastries with all the craziness going on around. During this time in France, most of the baking was done at home. After the wars were over, and the country was growing more and more so were little bakeries. Paris became on the first open air cafes in Europe which delivered their pastries and bread throughout Paris.
Many small bakeries were opening up all over the country. Most of these bakeries used large brick ovens that were heated with wood or coal. They used what was called a “peel” which was like a large wooden spoon, to put the dough into the ovens and to remove it from the ovens. Even today brick ovens are still used to cook some of the most delicious bread. The bread made in France have their own style/art. Today France is known for mastering artisan baking. Getting sick of having to wake up at 4 am to start making bread and shaping it into thick flat loaves, French bakers came up with the idea of forming their bread loaves into long and thin shapes which we now know as baguettes. They sometimes made their bread loaves as long as 6 feet, which ended up looking a lot like crowbars. (https://foodimentary.com/2012/03/21/a-history-of-the-baguette/)
The croissant is a very different story than the baguette. It is told that Marie Antoinette (who is my 9th great grandma) was the person who supposedly created the croissant. Although she never fully created it she only had some impact on how it was made. Marie Antoinette first lived in Austria before coming to France at the age of 15. She started to miss the delicious kipfel pastry from her home. She started craving it so badly that she requested that her royal bakers try to re-make it, but as they failed in creating it perfectly, they ended up creating what we know today as a croissant. Because of Marie Antoinette’s desire for kipfel’s and her royal bakers creating a croissant, she was given the glory for creating croissants.
Another very popular pastry that was created in France was the éclair. The French name éclair means lightning, which is a good name for this pastry because they are light and fluffy and full of cream. As we are not a 100% sure who created the French éclair we are most positive that Marie-Antoine Carême, a famous pastry chef for French royalty was the one who created it in the late 1700’s-early 1800’s. As he loved experimenting with different recipes and baking ideas he soon created the eclair while being one of the most famous pastry chefs that worked for the French royals. As being one of the most delicious pastry’s from France it made its way to the United States of America and has become a well-known desert that is well loved not only by the French but by the Americans as well. France has proven itself as well as the world through the years that they have some of the best bread, pastry’s, and bakeries in the world.
https://www.craftsy.com/blog/2014/03/french-eclairs/
http://www.puckles.com.au/pages/a-history-of-eclairs
http://epicureandculture.com/croissant/
http://manchesterhistorian.com/2013/paris-patisserie-past/
https://foodimentary.com/2012/03/21/a-history-of-the-baguette/
No comments:
Post a Comment