Croissants
I read somewhere that croissants were originally offerings to
the moon goddess. The word is French for "crescent" (although the French
apparently learnt the recipe from the Austrians). This sounds a little bit
unlikely to me, but probably not as unlikely as the following theory:
Centuries ago, Budapest (or possibly Vienna) was being besieged by the
Turks. A group of bakers heard the sound of the Turks tunnelling under the
walls, and alerted the army. As a reward, they were allowed to bake pastries in
the shape of the Islamic crescent symbol (see the Lunar Calendar page
for info on the Islamic lunar calendar).
I got this story from
the link below, which didn't quote its sources. It seems more likely to me that
the city was actually captured, and the bakers started producing crescent shaped
pastries for the Turks when they weren't too busy praying towards Mecca and
memorising the Koran. It's what I would have done.*
Does
anyone know any more about the origins of croissants? Please email me
*I'm
joking. Reviving centuries-old ethnic conflicts in Eastern Europe is not a good
idea.[back]
Links
to other sites on the web
Croissants
The
story of their origin and links to pages of recipes.
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