Good King Stanislas and the Forty Thieves: Difference between revisions
| (3 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{data|24 April 2019}} | {{data|24 April 2019}} | ||
[[File:babà da infornare.jpg|thumb | [[File:babà da infornare.jpg|thumb|Neapolitan ''babà al rum'' still in their moulds. This photo and the next come from the blog ''[https://profumodilievito.blogspot.com/search?q=baba Profumo di lievito]'' (''The Scent of Yeast'').]] | ||
Easter season is here, which is a good occasion to write something about the ''baba'', a tall, rich yeast cake traditionally served in Poland for Easter breakfast. But before we move on to the Polish ''baba'', let’s take a look at the ''babà al rum'', which the Neapolitans consider their unique regional speciality. | Easter season is here, which is a good occasion to write something about the ''baba'', a tall, rich yeast cake traditionally served in Poland for Easter breakfast. But before we move on to the Polish ''baba'', let’s take a look at the ''babà al rum'', which the Neapolitans consider their unique regional speciality. | ||
| Line 108: | Line 108: | ||
Although Stanislas and the Wettins of Saxony were fierce political rivals, they were united in their love of good food, sweets, wine and women. In Poland, the reign of Augustus III finally brought a period of long-sought peace, now known as the “Saxon Carnival”, when the Polish nobility lived out the proverb: | Although Stanislas and the Wettins of Saxony were fierce political rivals, they were united in their love of good food, sweets, wine and women. In Poland, the reign of Augustus III finally brought a period of long-sought peace, now known as the “Saxon Carnival”, when the Polish nobility lived out the proverb: | ||
[[File:Baba au rhum chez roi Stanislas.jpg|thumb | [[File:Baba au rhum chez roi Stanislas.jpg|thumb|A ''baba au rhum'' being devoured at the court of King Stanislas at Lunéville. Still from Arnaud Sélignac’s 2007 biopic ''Divine Émilie''.]] | ||
{{Cytat | {{Cytat | ||
| <poem>Under a Saxon king, | | <poem>Under a Saxon king, | ||
| Line 206: | Line 206: | ||
| rok = 2015 | | rok = 2015 | ||
| strony = 657 | | strony = 657 | ||
}}</ref> whom Princess Marie took with her to Versailles when she became Queen of France. For the young Stohrer this meant the best bullet point on his resumé he could have ever dreamed of, but it also gave him the opportunity to popularize the pastry from his home region at the French royal court. The only problem was the cake’s German name, which the French found unpronounceable and unspellable; if the French absolutely have to write that word down, they come up with at least as many different ways to spell it (''cougloff, goglopf, gouglouff, guglhupf, kougelhopf, kouglhupf, kouglof,'' etc.) as they have ways to spell Leszczyński’s surname. So instead of calling the cake by its German name, Stohrer presented it to the French as ''baba'', the name he had learned from his Polish employer.<ref>M. Krondl, ''op. cit.'', s. 171</ref> The new word started to crop up in French texts half a century later, including in a letter from Denis Diderot, a co-author of the ''Encyclopédie'', to his lover, in which he described the banquets held by the Baron d’Holbach in his Grand-Val castle in southern France (quite far away from Alsace, Lorraine and Versailles): | }}<br>According to Prof. Loïc Bienassis, Nicolas Stohrer never existed and was a 19th-century marketing creation (note added on 14 June 2026).</ref> whom Princess Marie took with her to Versailles when she became Queen of France. For the young Stohrer this meant the best bullet point on his resumé he could have ever dreamed of, but it also gave him the opportunity to popularize the pastry from his home region at the French royal court. The only problem was the cake’s German name, which the French found unpronounceable and unspellable; if the French absolutely have to write that word down, they come up with at least as many different ways to spell it (''cougloff, goglopf, gouglouff, guglhupf, kougelhopf, kouglhupf, kouglof,'' etc.) as they have ways to spell Leszczyński’s surname. So instead of calling the cake by its German name, Stohrer presented it to the French as ''baba'', the name he had learned from his Polish employer.<ref>M. Krondl, ''op. cit.'', s. 171</ref> The new word started to crop up in French texts half a century later, including in a letter from Denis Diderot, a co-author of the ''Encyclopédie'', to his lover, in which he described the banquets held by the Baron d’Holbach in his Grand-Val castle in southern France (quite far away from Alsace, Lorraine and Versailles): | ||
{{clear}} | {{clear}} | ||
| Line 231: | Line 231: | ||
In 1730, Stohrer decided to start his own business, so he opened – next to the northern coach terminus in Paris, at Mont Orgueilleux (now 51, Montorgueil Street) – [https://stohrer.fr/en 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. | In 1730, Stohrer decided to start his own business, so he opened – next to the northern coach terminus in Paris, at Mont Orgueilleux (now 51, Montorgueil Street) – [https://stohrer.fr/en 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. | ||
[[File:Baba zwyczajna.jpg|thumb | [[File:Baba zwyczajna.jpg|thumb|A regular Polish ''baba''<br />From [https://polona.pl/item/dra-oetkera-przepisy-dla-skrzetnych-gospodyn,MTY0MjkxNDA/20/#item a collection of pastry recipës] published in the 1930s by a Dr. Oetker factory in Oliva, Free City of Danzig (now part of Gdańsk, Poland)]] | ||
{{ Cytat | {{ Cytat | ||
| The baba is a Polish dish invented by Stanislas Leczinski [sic], King of Poland and Grand [sic] Duke of Lorraine and Bar, a great gourmet towards the end of his days, who was no stranger at all to culinary practice. Saffron and Corinthian raisins are the principal seasonings of the baba, but few cooks know how to make it well. | | The baba is a Polish dish invented by Stanislas Leczinski [sic], King of Poland and Grand [sic] Duke of Lorraine and Bar, a great gourmet towards the end of his days, who was no stranger at all to culinary practice. Saffron and Corinthian raisins are the principal seasonings of the baba, but few cooks know how to make it well. | ||
| Line 262: | Line 262: | ||
}} | }} | ||
[[File:{{#setmainimage:Baba czekoladowa.jpg}}|thumb | [[File:{{#setmainimage:Baba czekoladowa.jpg}}|thumb|A Polish chocolate ''baba''<br />The Dr. Oetker factory in Oliva is still operational, with the characteristic cloying scent of powdered milk wafting off its premises. I live 400 metres away from it, so I would know.]] | ||
Soaking individual helpings of dry cake in wine, coffee or chocolate is surely an old practice, but it’s not the same as soaking an entire bundt cake prior to serving. Whose idea was it then? We don’t know. We do know, however, that in 1845 Auguste Julien, a co-owner of a pastry shop at Place de la Bourse in Paris, expanded his offer by introducing small babas with candied orange zest instead of raisins and imbibed with rum (or kirsch)-based syrup. And because, as we already know, the French prefer those dishes that they can associate with celebrities, he named this new kind of baba ''“savarin”''<ref>M. Krondl, ''op. cit.'', p. 172</ref> – after the famous gourmet Jean-Anthelme Brillat, who changed his name to Savarin (or was it his father?), so that he could inherit his aunt’s property.<ref>{{Cyt | Soaking individual helpings of dry cake in wine, coffee or chocolate is surely an old practice, but it’s not the same as soaking an entire bundt cake prior to serving. Whose idea was it then? We don’t know. We do know, however, that in 1845 Auguste Julien, a co-owner of a pastry shop at Place de la Bourse in Paris, expanded his offer by introducing small babas with candied orange zest instead of raisins and imbibed with rum (or kirsch)-based syrup. And because, as we already know, the French prefer those dishes that they can associate with celebrities, he named this new kind of baba ''“savarin”''<ref>M. Krondl, ''op. cit.'', p. 172</ref> – after the famous gourmet Jean-Anthelme Brillat, who changed his name to Savarin (or was it his father?), so that he could inherit his aunt’s property.<ref>{{Cyt | ||
| inni = ed. Joël Robuchon | | inni = ed. Joël Robuchon | ||