Let them eat cake

Marie-Antoinette

Photo courtesy of Daily Mail[2]

We have all heard the story of how, when Marie-Antoinette was told that the people had no bread to eat, she replied, "Let them eat cake." Many of us also know that there is no strong evidence that this actually happened and also that the expression is older than the much maligned queen. It has been attributed to Louis XIV's queen, who lived a century earlier, although again the evidence is thin. The first clear published evidence of it is in a work by Jean-Jacques Rousseau written when Marie-Antoinette was a child. The French version of the saying is Qu'ils mangent de la brioche, and brioche is not really cake, but, like cake, it is perceived as a more luxurious food than ordinary bread.^[1]

What is brioche?

Brioche is actually a kind of bread which has been enriched with butter and eggs, and so it is considerably more expensive than the ordinary bread which the majority of the people would have eaten.

Brioche Photo by Rainer Zenz

It is made in many different sizes and shapes and in France is often baked in a fluted, flared tin, which produces a recognizable shape. The second photograph shows this familiar shape.

Classic brioche à tête Photo: Maison Pillon, Toulouse

A great deal of further information about the history of the foodstuff and the etymology of its name is given in the English Wikipedia article, which is, to my mind, rather more thorough than the corresponding article on French Wikipedia.

Possible basis for the story

Some time ago I came across a possible explanation of the origin of the well known story, although I can provide no reference, which means I cannot publish it on Wikipedia. However, I wish to record it in order to keep this particular story alive.

Apparently, back in the 1920s a very elderly Frenchman gave a rather different version of the tale, which he had been told by one of his ancestors, I think his grandfather. The older man had been a member of the staff at Versailles in the period just before the French Revolution. One day poor people from Paris arrived outside the gates of the palace in order to demonstrate peacefully. They wished the King to understand the plight of many of the people of Paris, who were starving because of a shortage of grain. When the Queen enquired what was going on, it was explained to her that the people were demonstrating because they had no bread to eat. Whereupon she jokingly uttered the familiar expression Qu'ils mangent de la brioche, and then ordered food and drink to be sent from the royal kitchens to feed and refresh the demonstrators. If this version of the story is true, it is consistent with the fact that she supported charitable causes.

Notes
1. More information about the history of the expression is contained in this Wikipedia article.

2. The portrait is not attributed, but I believe it was painted in 1783 by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. It is available online both ways round and I do not know which is correct, or whether there are two or more versions.

Let them eat chocky-chip brioche!

Briochettes pur beurre aux pépites de chocolat Photo: Thiriet

Tailpiece

While researching the bakery industry, I discovered something I did not know, that the origin of the currant bun is believed to have been pinpointed. According to this Wikipedia article:

Towards the end of the seventeenth century the Reverend Samuel Wigley founded the Currant Bun Company in Southampton, Hampshire UK. He imported currants from the island of Zakynthos where he had served as a missionary in his youth. Despite having failed to convert the population to Puritanism he did bring back the prize of the currant which he combined with traditional Hampshire bakery expertise to create the currant bun.

The same article also gives us the origin of the variant known as the Chelsea bun:

In 1824 Duncan Higgins adapted the recipe and used the now freely available Zakynthos currants to create the classic Chelsea bun in his bakery on Fulham Road, adjacent to the fashionable Chelsea district of London.

Posted May to October 2017