Croissant (French)

Every country is famous for some type of signature food. France is famous for some foods that are not usually eaten in other places.

French croissants are buttery, with a flaky crust. A croissantnamed for its distinctive crescent shape. It is also sometimes called a crescent or crescent roll.

Croissants are made of a leavened variant of puff pastry. Butter is folded into every layer of a French croissant. The process can be ver y time consuming but makes for delicious layered dough. The yeast dough is layered with butter, rolled and folded several times in succession, then rolled into a sheet, a technique called laminating.Although French croissants are famous for being layered with butter, it is very common for a French croissant in France to be made with margarine.

History of the Croissant

The history of the croissant is a much disputed mystery. Scholars offer several different versions of how the croissant came into existence. Crescent-shaped breads have been made since the Middle Ages, and crescent-shaped cakes possibly since classical times, but the modern croissant dates to 19th-century Paris. The earliest story dates to 1683, during the Ottoman Turks siege of Vienna. Legend has it that a baker working late at night heard the Turks tunneling under the walls of the city and alerted the military. The military collapsed the tunnel in on the Turks and eliminated the threat, saving the city. The baker baked a crescent shaped pastry in the shape of the Turks Islamic emblem, the crescent moon, so that when his fellow Austrians bit into the croissant, they would be symbolically devouring the Turks. This exact same legend is told years later, but instead of being set in Vienna, it is set in Budapest, Hungary. All the details are the same except for the nationality of the baker and his city. Another legend tells that Marie Antoinette popularized the croissant in France by requesting the royal bakers replicate her favorite treat from her homeland, Austria. King Louis the XVI of France had brought her to France as a young princess at age 15 and she must have been missing a pastry called the "kipfel", an Austrian staple. The legend goes that the royal bakers copied the croissant from her description of the kipfel, and the new pastry was so popular in France that it became a French culinary institution. The last and most likely true story concerns an Austrian artillery officer who opened up a bakery in France and popularized many Austrian f oods, including the kripfel. This story takes place about fifty years later than the Marie Antoinette legend, so it would seem that if anything, Austrian kipfel pastry was being brought to France and refurbished as the croissant by the early 1800s.

Origins of the food selected

The Kipferl - ancestor of the croissant - has been documented in Austria going back at least as far as the 13th century, in various shapes. The Kipferl can be made plain or with nut or other fillings (some consider the rugela ch a form of Kipferl). The original BoulangerieViennoise in 1909 (when it was owned by PhilibertJacquet). The bakery proper is at left and its tea salon at right. The "birth" of the croissant itself - that is, its adaptation from the plainer form of Kipferl, before its subsequent evolution (to a puff pastry) - can be dated with some precision to at latest 1839 (some say 1838), when an Austrian artillery officer, August Zang, founded a Viennese Bakery ("BoulangerieViennoise") at 92, rue de Richelieu in Paris. This bakery, which served Viennese specialities including the Kipferl and the Vienna loaf, quickly became popular and inspired French imitators (and the concept, if not the term, viennoiserie, a 20th century term for supposedly Vienna -style pastries). The French version of the Kipferl was named for its crescent (croissant) shape. Alan Davidson, editor of the Oxford Companion to Food, found no printed recipe for the present-day croissant in any French recipe book before the early 20th century; the earliest French reference to a croissant he found was among the "fantasy or luxury breads" in Payen's Des substances alimentaires, 1853. However, early recipes for the croissant (without butter, and so not puff pastry -based) can be found in the nineteenth century and at least one reference to croissants as an established French bread appeared as early as 1850.

How it become a staple food to the country

France is famous for its French croissants. While French bread is also popular, it is French croissants that are one of the most popular breakfast items today in many countries.

A popular way to eat a croissant in France is by dipping into ones morning coffee, or spreading preserves on it. Sunday brunches and morning tea times in France often include French croissants as part of the meal .

French cafes and bakeries are famous for their treats. Almost any bakery or cafe will serve French croissants, no matter what other types of food they have. In other countries, the best French croissants can usually be found in French bakeries. In America, a popular way to use French croissants is by splitting them open and layering one with ham and cheese or other cold cuts. The breakfast food can then be used at lunch time as well. Since French croissants are already very buttery, it is rare to spread more butter on them. However, they go good with a number of foods and drinks and can replace dinner rolls at a meal.

How it become a global food

French croissants are eaten for breakfast lunch or dinner by people all over the world. A French croissant can be turned into a dessert or a meal, depending on what the individual is in the mood for.

Historically, the croissant was not famous in the UK. Although available in specialty places,it was only in the late 1980s that supermarkets started stocking them and then in the late 1990s with the growth of cafe culture did the croissant spread. They were introduced to Ethiopia by 1902, during the reign of Menelik II.

Croissants are also seen in former French colonies such as Morocco and Vietnam where in the latter they are called bnh s ng b.This innovation, along with the croissant's versatility and distinctive shape, has made it the best-known type of French pastry in much of the world.