The year that is ending will have seen terrible things, without any possible comparison between them, from the massacres in Gaza to the opening of Assad’s jails, including the invasion (of a small part) of Russia by the Ukrainian troops, the death of Nasrallah, the dissolution of Emmanuel Macron, the resurrection of Trump, the end of C8, the fall of Abbé Pierre and the trial of Mr. Pelicot and his fifty rapists. All this has exhausted us, demoralized us, we need vitamin, comfort, gentleness, a certain form of tolerance towards ourselves… That’s good, there are houses for that, they are well established, we enter it a little ashamed, in secret, but very quickly, the stubbornness of the perfumes, the variety of shapes, the dazzling colors, we feel like a child in the cave with all these candies whispering, rustling with this even supplication: Suck me.
This is the title of the beautiful book by Frédérick e. Grasser Hermé, published by JBE Books. A fabulous history of French sweets. More than 300 pages of sweets that remind me of having sucked roudoudous in its real tuberculated bucard shell after school. The more economical plastic shell will soon sound the death knell for this best sucked. Well done for them, and for the teeth of subsequent schoolchildren. The roudoudou is the opposite, almost the enemy of the marshmallow: the hard against the soft, the interminable against the ephemeral, the Marquis de Sade against Alain Souchon. The unattainable coitus against premature ejaculate. Each candy has its territory, its day and its times, its social and cultural identity, left-wing candy, right-wing candy, and never far from the extremes not received at the Elysée.
The photographs are by Vincent Lappartient, with scenes by Anastasia Finders and Marion Sonier Lastre who between them achieve an appetizing and ironic performance, I am thinking of the best sugared almond in the world, that of Léon Braquier (1854-1936), to which the authors pay a delicious tribute: the large ivory tear is recognized in the middle of three thousand carat jewelry, as if escaped from a burglar’s bag which would have dumped her loot on two servings of home-delivered Margarita pizza. What am I saying? Check it out, it’s double page 120-121. They also attached Nancy’s bergamot to gold cufflinks. The yellows compete in brilliance, and in the head, the mouth waters.
Anise and the Battle of Alésia
The texts of Frédérick e. Grasser Hermé, this name whose pronunciation is not simplified by its summary: FeGH, tells us a lot of things if not almost everything that is interesting to know about Carambar, its father, M Fauchille, had taken salt instead of sugar during its preparation, he would have realized it in time, tasted it anyway, and it was just the hint of acidity that would make him famous.
You must always appreciate your mistakes. The juice from the three hectares of Piedra Sagrada 2016 was destined, similarly, to the gutter (harvested too early, or too late, I don’t remember), the vats were forgotten. Tasted out of conscience three years later, the juice had overcome its defects, and found its place among its big crowned brothers. Not to mention the stupidities of Cambrai and the stupidities of Valenciennes.
For the anise from the Abbey of Flavigny, the author goes back 52 years BC, when, at the battle of Alésia, Julius Caesar offered Flavinius one of the three strategic hills of the famous battle. Twelve centuries later, Charlemagne ordered that anise be cultivated there. The monks then founded the Flavigny Abbey and sugar to make a candy with a surprise inside: anise grain. All this beautiful industrial edifice collapsed during the revolution. And it was the Troubat family who, a century later, revived the trade which made the question of whether we bite it or suck it down to anise existential. And this is how civilization resists barbarism.
Christophe Donner, writer
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