A passionately historical perspective

And a simple recipe for Sèches

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are. - Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

What can we learn from food and why am I so fascinated by food history? I told you a little in another post about how I became immersed in French culture and, more specifically, in the food culture of France and the story of my beginnings in gastronomy. I stopped working in culinary tourism when we moved to Milan, Italy, where I trained as a milliner in Italy’s oldest existing high-end millinery studio. I did. Really. I continued this work after returning to Paris, eventually creating my own label after moving to Nantes.

I started writing about food in 2008, after quitting definitively my profession as milliner. I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands and began cooking and baking every day, lunch and dinner, snacks and desserts. I was lucky enough to live in a city with an excellent daily market filled with local and artisan producers, great specialty shops, and large and vibrant Moroccan, Senegalese, Vietnamese communities with the availability of their food and ingredients, and the time to explore and cook. Of course, I didn’t just cook and bake. I read about food and I talked about food. Pretty much all the time. Passionately.

After a year or two of nonstop cooking and baking, my family sat me down and said “we’re tired of hearing you talk about food all the time. ALL the time. You’re going to start a food blog…you need an outlet for your obsession and a community of the like-minded food-obsessed to talk about food with.” And they created the platform for Life’s a Feast and I started writing. 

(In another post, I’ll tell you about Gourmande Syndrome.)

And within 2 years after I started blogging I had also become a regular contributor for the newly created Huffington Post Food page and I quickly began freelancing, honing my niche as an expert in French cuisine. I’ve already told you that I spent (and still spend) an inordinate amount of time researching regional and local French foods and exploring the origins of specific dishes, breads and pastries, but I also love looking for mentions of foods and dishes in French literature, and scouring through my collection of old French cookbooks in the hopes of discovering new recipes and more about those I know. And with a spouse whose hobby and passion is history, since the beginning we’ve try to place dishes in their historical and social context.

I find this utterly fascinating. Food is a both a reflection and a measure of a culture and a society, and following the evolution of a dish through history tells so much about the evolution of a society and its people. How veal blanquette was first prepared to use up leftover and burnt pieces of veal - or the cheap cuts - eventually being turned into a sophisticated dish by the new classe bourgeoise in the 19th century, purchasing, for the first time, fresh cuts of meat specifically to prepare the dish and adding cream and eggs, costly ingredients. Or how the humble madeleine or financier, peasant and religious cakes, became all the rage among the upper crust. How spices and game were once relegated to the royal and noble classes by law, the pan bagnat was a sandwich eaten by fishermen in the south, and le gâteau nantais was developed from products brought over through the slave trade. How onion soup transitioned from poor man’s soup to restorative to a bistro classic. How Talleyrand used food as a political and diplomatic tool and his chef Antonin Carême revolutionized mealtime. And why Henri IV wanted to put a chicken in every pot.

Food as history lesson. 

In cooking, as in all the arts, simplicity is the sign of perfection. - Curnonsky

Sèches are cookies or biscuits from the Haut-Doubs in the Franche-Comté region of France, a mountainous area along the Swiss border and one known for its cheeses: comté, Mont d’Or, cancoillotte, raclette, and morbier. The origins of this pastry are unclear and I find no trace of them mentioned in any of my cookbooks, but I do know that sèches were traditionally made to use the cream that rose to the surface of the raw milk in production. Today, that cream is easily replaced with regular heavy cream. As their name - sèches which translates to dry - indicates, they are a dry cookie, even sometimes made thinner and crispier than mine. Sèches are something like a rustic cousin of the British scone, and like scones, are simple to make, best eaten warm from the oven (though pretty good eaten later, too), and make the perfect winter snack with just a hot drink or a glass of milk.

Sèches

Scant 1 cup (120 grams) sifted flour (*see note)

¼ cup (50 grams) granulated sugar

2 ¾ tablespoons (40 grams) unsalted butter, cool

Pinch salt

1 large egg yolk

3/8 cup (100 ml) heavy cream

Cinnamon-sugar for dusting (1 teaspoon ground cinnamon for 2 tablespoons granulated sugar)

*note: either place the measuring cup on a sheet of aluminum foil and sift into the measuring cup until mounded over the top rim of the cup then, using a flat blade or scraper, level the top OR sift the flour into a bowl or onto a large plate then lightly spoon into the measuring cup until mounded over the top rim of the cup then, using a flat blade or scraper, level the top. Use the aluminum foil to pour the excess cleanly back into the flour bag.

Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C) Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place the flour and sugar in a mixing bowl and stir or whisk to combine. Add the cool butter cut into cubes and, using fingertips and thumbs, rub the butter into the flour until completely rubbed in and the mixture resembles sand. Add the salt and the egg yolk and, using a fork, stir vigorously until well combined. Stir in the heavy cream until the dry ingredients are moistened and the dough pulls together.

Scrape the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead briefly until the dough is smooth and homogenous.

Roll the dough out until a thickness of about ¼ inch (approximately 7 mm). Place the circle of dough on the parchment paper-lined baking sheet and dust generously with cinnamon-sugar. Cut into triangles. The dough can be chilled before baking.

Bake in the preheated oven for 5 – 10 minutes or until puffed and set.

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