Results tagged croissant from David Lebovitz

How Much Butter Can Be in a Croissant?

croissant

Living in France for a number of years, my French has gotten pretty good. As long as I’m talking about food, that is.

Last night I was having dinner at Le Vin au Vert (70, rue de Dunkerque) wine bar with a few friends. One talks really quickly and with the noisy bobo patrons at the surrounding tables, chattering on les smartphones and getting up and down all night to race out into the sub-zero cold for a cigarette (at one point, there were more people outside than inside), it was hard to hear anything. So I really had to pay attention, and my attention wanes in direct proportion to how many bottles of wine have been emptied.

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The Best Croissant in Paris

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Truth is, I don’t eat croissants very often for the simple reason that I don’t like to get dressed until I’ve had my morning coffee & toast. So having one is a relatively big deal for me, since croissants are only good early in the day: I refuse to eat one after 11am if I can help it. Like anything made with copious amounts of butter, they don’t get better the longer they’ve been out of a hot oven.

Although stories abound, no one quite knows who invented le croissant. It’s believe to be in an invention of the Austrians, who created a crescent-shaped pastry to oppose the Ottomans, who had invaded their country. They symbol of Turkey is a crescent, and granted, who doesn’t like to eat Turkey?

Except maybe vegetarians. So maybe croissants were invented by and/or for vegetarians?

Aha…a new theory emerges…this is how rumors get started on the internet, folks, and perhaps people will be quoting me decades later: “David Lebovitz says croissants were invented for Austrian vegetarians!”

But today, I think few would argue that the croissant is most closely associated with France and in fact, one rarely comes across a bakery in Paris that doesn’t offer their own version. If you need further proof of their proprietary alliance with French gastronomy, ask yourself when was the last time you heard the words das croissant?

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Go Ahead, Have a Croissant

The recent issue of Elle à Table reports that eating a croissant may be a healthier and a more diet-friendly alternative the breakfast tartine, a split baguette spread with butter and jam.

Perfect Butter Croissants

A croissant ordinaire or croissant au beurre (made with pure butter) has 200 calories, and 25 grams of carbohydrates.

A tartine composed of one-fifth of a baguette (about 2 ounces of bread) spread with 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 tablespoons of jam has 270 calories and 42 grams of carbohydrates.

Funny, they didn’t mention my preferred pain au chocolat, buttery croissant dough folded around one or two (if you’re lucky) bâtons of dark chocolate, as being diet-friendly.

I wonder why?