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Somehow, along the way, the ''"baba"'' has lost its original feminine gender and its association with women, becoming a masculine noun in both French (''"le baba"'') and, later, Italian (''"il babà"''), which may explain how the Ali Baba connection may have seemed plausible to non-Slavs.
In 1730, Stohrer decided to start his own business, so he opened – next to the northern coach terminus in Paris, at Mont Orgueilleux (now Montorgueil Street) – the oldest Parisian pastry shop still in operation. Did he sell ''babas / kouglofs'' there? Most probably. Were they imbibed with rum? Probably not, at least not from the start. 18th-century sources are quite unanimous in describing the ''baba'' as coloured with saffron and studded with raisins, without any mention of rum. At the beginning of the 19th century, the great gourmet Grimod de La Reynière would already attribute the baba to Stanislas, but it still wasn't the rum baba.