Should we say chocolatine or pain au chocolat?
The debate on the name of this viennoiserie resurfaces regularly in France.
In Italy, in the Viennese pastry section, you don't eat either one or the other, but rather pretty plump croissants, sold in all the cafes in the country.
Called
cornetto
in the South,
brioche
in the North,
pasta
, in Emilia-Romagna, or, well,
croissant
(with a rolled
r
) by posh people, this sweetness is a breakfast staple.
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Because the
colazione al bar
is a rite to which we subscribe every day with pleasure, whether we are in Sicily, Piedmont or Rome.
On weekdays, it is enjoyed standing up, at the counter.
But the Frenchman on vacation might feel a bit rushed when he bites into his
cornetto
, unleashing an avalanche of cream, jam, chocolate and even honey on all sides.
But what is this mania that Italians have of stuffing croissants, even covering them with icing, icing sugar or small sweet and crunchy pearls?
A recent French specialty
The legend of the birth of the crescent is tenacious.
It would find its origin in the siege of Vienna by the Ottomans in 1683. The invaders, who had planned to attack in the middle of the night, were prevented from doing so by the bakers, already awake, who gave the alert and put the army to flight.
To celebrate the occasion, they invented the
kipferl
, a kind of crescent-shaped bun, symbol of the enemy.
Arrived in France, the specialty became a Viennese pastry would have metamorphosed into a crunchy croissant, all of puff pastry with butter.
And the Italian cornetto?
Nothing other than the gourmet and stuffed version of the
kipferl
, landed in La Botte via Venice, which maintained important commercial relations with Austria.
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The story is beautiful, but it remains largely a legend.
Because we find traces of
kipferl
from the 13th century in Eastern Europe and the croissant, which has become a French viennoiserie par excellence, has not always had the same recipe.
Its enthronement in its current form around 1950, after bakers replaced brioche with puff pastry, is quite recent.
Which should help you accept the whims of our neighbours, who have no qualms about varying the variations of "our" specialty, more or less sweet, buttered and, above all, stuffed.
And if the idea really puts you off, ask for a
cornetto
(or a brioche, etc. depending on the region)
vuoto
, empty.
SEE ALSO
- The Italian espresso candidate for UNESCO World Heritage