They are called bugnes, ganses, marvels, farts-de-nonne or even auricles.
These little golden bombs are the timeless madeleines of Mardi Gras.
This is because it was necessary to use up the butter and oil, these fatty foods, before the fasting period that begins on Ash Wednesday the next day.
Golden and sprinkled with sugar, crispy and more or less light, donuts are to Carnival what pancakes are to Candlemas.
A capital tradition.
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Also read: The astonishing history of “carnival”
Fulbert-Dumonteil, writer and gastronomic chronicler of the Belle Époque, spoke of it with great poetry:
“In the fat that crackles, it is the nun's pet that floats like a golden globe;
it’s the happy donut that swells and perfumes the hearth, it’s the waffle that blossoms under the clanging irons…”
Do you know all the secrets?
Donuts
The word
“donut”
has an astonishing origin.
He started by pointing out a bump on the head!
The old word
“bigne”
means
“swelling”
,
“largeness”
… And then, by metonymy, the blow causing this bump.
This last meaning became widespread in the 20th century, particularly in Parisian slang.
We find this use in Louis-Ferdinand Céline, for example, in
Mort à Crédit
:
“First, there were the pairs of donuts.”
Several expressions keep track of this meaning which has become a little outdated:
“Smack the donut”
means
“to slap”
,
“to pass the donuts to someone”
means
“to beat, to reprimand”
for example.
The donut appears as a bump... of fried dough, it seems that it gradually became called that by derivation.
The donuts first enveloped a thousand various foodstuffs.
Jean de Joinville, advisor and biographer of King Louis IX, entering Egypt, spoke of
“cheese donuts, baked in the sun”
.
At this time we find fritters made from beef marrow, cheese, fritters made from artichoke bottoms, elderberry, fruit, or even pistachio.
But the most classic donut is the apple fritter.
Be careful not to swallow it too hot!
The apple remains hot for a long time... Donuts, as Georges Dubosc reports, were held in great honor, in Rouen for example.
The monks of Saint Ouen had to offer two large dishes filled with crispy donuts to the millers of the town of Grand Moulin.
Then the fee was doubled: four dishes of apple fritters!
Lyon bugnes and wonders
Tell me what you're frying and I'll tell you where you're from!
Donuts come in several shapes depending on the region.
Lyon bugnes were mentioned at the beginning of the 16th century by Rabelais in Pantagruel, citing the specialties of Lyon cuisine.
Bugnes take their place next to stuffed carp, crackers, macaroons and fruit jellies.
They are flatter than classic donuts, and have their origins in the Duchy of Savoie, then Dauphiné, Lyon, the Aosta Valley, the Rhône Valley...
An example of “bugnes”.
M.studio / stock.adobe.com
Read also Only a French lover will succeed in this dictation strewn with traps
Very close by, we find the
“wonders”
, light as the bugnes.
This particular meaning is attested from the 18th century, particularly in the South-West of France.
They are found in Gascony, in Haute-Savoie.
Nice loops, earflaps and nun farts
In Provence, we will talk more about
“earpieces”
.
But be careful not to use this name in Nice!
We will eat
“ganses”
, in Occitan
“li gansa nissardi”
.
They are knot or diamond shaped, like the turnips, and they are fried in a bath of olive oil.
The braid is originally the name given to a curved portion of rope, that is to say without crossing with another loop.
And in the east of France,
“pets-de-nun”
.
Fulbert-Dumonteil places his birth at the abbey of Marmoutier, a little upstream from Tours.
Everyone is busy around the stove, he explains, during the preparation of a Saint Martin's Day meal, when a
“strange, sonorous, rhythmic, prolonged noise resounds, similar to the moaning of an organ which
goes out .
"
It's because a novice at the abbey has just staggered clumsily, dropping a spoonful of choux pastry into a pot of hot fat.
Our pet-de-nun!
It's a small donut, without a hollow in the middle, the lightest of all.