Paris-Brest | The Rambling Epicure

Venetian Hours: French Venice

Published by Jonell Galloway + Thursday, February 25, 2016 Permalink 1

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Venetian Hours: Franco-Venice and French Cuisine

French Food in Venice

The Venetians might have ruled much of the refined sugar trade in Europe, but by the eighteenth century, they were importing French pastry techniques. “Count Cavour, the first prime minister of a united Italy,” sent his personal chef to be trained in France, while the Italian royal family was eating macaroni à la Parisienne.

Today, the French influence is best seen at the Tonolo pasticceria in the San Polo neighborhood, which won a gold medal in Paris for its sweet focaccia in 1909 and has some of the best coffee in Venice. To say this is a Venetian establishment would be grossly understating it. And it wasn’t the Paris-Brest that hooked me on Tonolo so many years ago: it was the quality of absolutely everything they make, from their coffee to their Venetian pastries to their cream-filled pastries. It was the extreme care taken with the presentation and visual aspects — something many Venetian pastry chefs lack, despite the good taste. After living in France for so long, I immediately felt right at home in Tonolo, so familiar, reminding of my youth when I discovered mille-feuilles and éclairs and tried new pastries every day.

DESTINATION DESSERT: From America to France

Published by Jonell Galloway + Wednesday, June 15, 2011 Permalink 0

by Jamie Schler

MON PETIT CHOU: A Love Affair with the Perfect Treat

Chou: cabbage

Chou: cream puff, a type of pastry

Chou: cute

Chouchou: teacher’s pet

Mon petit chou: my little sweetheart, darling

It’s funny how one single food ties my old, American childhood to my new adult life in France. This one food, the perfect choux, was a favorite, one my father would make, light and airy, crispy and golden on the outside, so ethereal on the inside. He would shape them into perfect, saucer-sized rounds, bake them until they were puffed up into pillows and lovingly fill each one with thick, creamy pudding, chocolate, vanilla or pistachio. The almost flavorless choux puff was the perfect casing for the flavorful filling, tempering the sweetness and adding texture to the smooth creaminess of the pudding, and quickly became my most loved sweet treat of all that my father baked for us. My dear old dad passed away a mere two months before I married my French sweetheart (mon petit chou) and as I prepared to join my soon-to-be husband, I pulled the carefully clipped recipe off the refrigerator in my parents’ house, my childhood home, where it had been taped for decades, words and image now faded with time and handling, and tucked it lovingly and ever so carefully amongst my few worldly possessions in my suitcase and carried it with me across the ocean to France.