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History of Croissant
Many people have heard that the croissant was
created in 1686 in Budapest, Hungary by a
courageous and watchful baker, at a time when the
city was being attacked by the Turks. Working late
one night, he heard odd rumbling noises and
alerted the city's military leaders. They found
that the Turks were trying to get into the city by
tunneling under the city's walls. The tunnel was
destroyed and the baker was a hero, but a humble
hero — all he wanted in reward was the sole right
to bake a special pastry commemorating the fight.
The pastry was shaped like a crescent, the symbol
of Islam, and presumably meant that the Hungarians
had eaten the Turks for lunch.
The problem with this story is that it's all made
up. It first showed up in the first version of the
great French food reference Larousse Gastronmique
(Canada, UK), in 1938. Later on, the story
switched locations to Vienna, during the Turkish
siege there in 1863, but that was also a
fabrication.
The sad thing is, the truth in this case is not
nearly as interesting as the myth. No one knows
when or where the first croissant was baked, but
it was definitely in France and certainly not
before 1850. The word was first used in a
dictionary in 1863. The first croissant recipe was
published in 1891, but it wasn't the same kind of
croissant we are familiar with today. The first
recipe that would produce what we consider to be a
croissant wasn't published until 1905, and, again,
it was in France.
Croissant is French for crescent or crescent-
shaped. Croissants are composed of a light
buttery rich yeast dough that can have either a
sweet (jam, marzipan, chocolate) or savory
(cheese, ham, chicken, mushrooms) filling.
Traditionally enjoyed in France for breakfast with
coffee and milk.
Legend has it that one night during the war of
1686 between Austria and Turkey, bakers in
Budapest Hungary heard Turkish soldiers tunneling
under the city and sounded the alarm. This led to
the Turkish defeat of the war and the bakers'
reward was the honor of making a commemorative
pastry in a crescent shape (the shape that is on
the Turkish flag). Later the French were credited
with reinventing the croissant dough to its
current form using a puff pastry-like dough.
However, in the Oxford Companion to Food by Alan
Davidson, he states that the recipe for the
present day croissant doesn't appear in a French
recipe book until early in the 20th century and
there is no reference to it origins being from the
croissant made after the war of 1686.
Whatever its true origins, the present day
croissant is still credited to France and enjoyed
in many parts of the world. Croissants that are
made with butter are called "croissant au beurre"
and any croissant containing other types of fat
(usually margarine) must be called "croissants".
Croissants
The origin of the croissant is one of the great
food legends of all time. The Larousse
Gastronomique offers this explanation regarding
the origin of the croissant:
"Croissant...This delicious pastry originated in
Budapest in 1686, when the Turks were besieging
the city. To reach the centre of the town, they
dug underground passages. Bakers, working during
the night, heard the noise made by the Turks and
gave the alarm. The assailants were repulsed and
the bakers who had saved the city were granted the
privilege of making a special pastry which had to
take the form of a crescent in memory of the
emblem on the Ottoman flag."
---Larousse Gastronomique, Jenifer Harvey Lang,
editor [Crown:New York] 1988 (p. 338)
It's an interesting story. Is it true? Alan
Davidson, noted food historian, expresses his
doubts:
"Culinary mythology--origin of the croissant
According to one of a group of similar legends,
which vary only in detail, a baker of the 17th
century, working through the night at a time when
his city (either Vienna in 1683 or Budapest in
1686) was under siege by the Turks, heard faint
underground rumbling sounds which, on
investigation, proved to be caused by a Turkish
attempt to invade the city by tunnelling under the
walls. The tunnel was blown up. The baker asked no
reward other than the exclusive right to bake
crescent-shaped pastries commemorating the
incident, the crescent being the sympol of Islam.
He was duly rewarded in this way, and the
croissant was born. The story seems to owe its
origin, or at least its wide diffusion, to Alfred
Gottschalk, who wrote about the croissant for the
first edition of the Larousse Gastronomique [1938]
and there gave the legend in the Turkish attack on
Budapest in 1686 version; but on the history of
food, opted for the 'siege of Vienna in 1683'
version."
---Oxford Comapion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford
Companion to Food:Oxford] 1999 (p. 232)
While the history of pastry dates back to ancient
times, the history of the croissant [as we know it
today], seems to be a relatively new invention.
Part of the problem may be how one
defines "croissant." Food history sources confirm
that crescent-shaped pastries were baked in Vienna
during the 17th century and that they migrated to
France soon thereafter. They recount, but do not
confirm/deny the story of the brave bakers who
supposedly created the first croissants. This is
what Mr. Davidson has to say:
"...croissant in its present form does not have a
long history...The earliest French reference to
the croissant seems to be in Payen's book "Des
substances alimentaires," published in 1853. He
cites, among the "Pains dit de fantasie ou de
luxe," not only English 'muffins' but 'les
croissants'. The term appears again, ten years
later, in the great Littre dictionary [1863] where
it is defined as 'a little crescent-shaped bread
or cake'. Thirteen years later, Husson in "Les
Consommations de Paris" [1875]
includes 'croissants for coffee' in a list
of 'ordinary' (as opposed to 'fine') pastry goods.
Yet no trace of a recipe for croissants can be
found earlier than that given by Favre in his
Dictionnaire universel de cuisine [c. 1905], and
his recipe bears no resemblance to the modern puff
pastry concoction; it is rather an oriental pastry
made of pounded almonds and sugar. Only in 1906,
in Colombie's Nouvelle Encyclopedie culinaire, did
a true croissant, and its development into a
national symbol of France, is a 20th-century
history."
---Oxford Companion to Food (p. 228)
Pain au chocolat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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croissant pastry with pain au chocolat on top
Pain au Chocolat (pronunciation (help·info)) is a
French pastry, consisting of a cuboid-shaped puff
pastry containing two strips of chocolate down the
centre. They are often heated before consumption,
making the chocolate melt throughout.
Although the phrase translates literally as 'bread
with chocolate', it is fundamentally a croissant
variation and is commonly sold alongside
croissants in French bakeries and supermarkets.
Like croissants, they are also typically eaten for
breakfast, despite the chocolate content.
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