A Brief History of French Pastry

I find the history behind why we eat the foods we eat and how they originated absolutely fascinating. How were some of the most delicious and appreciated foods on our plate created and how did they evolve through time? In this post, I am going to go through the evolution of something delicate and delicious: French pastry. Macarons and croissants are almost like culinary wizardry when we think about the complex process of baking these items. But they weren’t always like that. So what is the story behind it all?

French pastry has a longer history than I would have guessed. In the year 1270, a man by the name of Régnaut-Barbo crafted the first oublies which can be considered a precursor to modern confections. Oublies translates to English as ‘wafer’ or ‘thin crisp’. While thin wafers sounds underwhelming compared to modern French pastry, these oublies must have been good because they stuck around in European culture and eventually evolved to be known as a new term: ‘confections’.

Whipped cream and éclairs

France is known for flaky pastries and creamy desserts. Whipped cream was first introduced to France somewhere between the 1500s-1600s. Desserts like éclair, which is a type of choux pastry filled with cream would begin to appear much later, probably in the 1800s. It is possible that the famous French Chef Antonin Carême…