Day 11 french regional christmas specialities: papillotes from lyon

THE ORIGIN OF PAPILLOTES IS WRAPPED IN A CUTE STORY Every day from December 1-12, The Connexion will be sharing a French regional Christmas speciality. TODAY WE LOOK AT PAPILLOTES FROM LYON.

WHAT ARE PAPILLOTES? _Papillotes_ are - in their simplest form - ground nuts enveloped in chocolate, and wrapped in paper. But the origin of _papillotes_ is mired in legend, rumour, and

many unknowns. The original tale is believed to have taken place in the Terreaux district in Lyon (Rhône-Alpes) around the late 18th century. Papillot, a local confectioner, wants to

investigate why chocolates and sweets keep mysteriously disappearing from his shop. He learns that the thief is his newly-hired trainee, who has fallen in love with a woman and gifted her

chocolates wrapped with love messages and texts. There are two versions of the tale from that point. The first version has it that Mr Papillot fired the trainee, but kept the idea and named

it after himself, hence the sweet’s name becoming ‘_papillote_’. The second has the trainee marry his sweetheart, who turned out to be Mr Papillot’s niece, and remain working at the shop.

Historian Bruno Benoit has said in the ‘Dictionnaire historique de Lyon’ (Stephane Baches / Les Cuisinières, 1999) that the word already existed in the region as early as 1617. Papillote

then referred to bits of paper that were wrapped around strands of hair to curl them. And cooking something _en papillote_ means wrapping it in paper to bake it. The sweet ‘_papillote_’

became a nationwide sensation after two families from the Lyon region opened the _Révillon_ chocolate factory in 1898. The company sells 400 million _papillotes_ each year, with a peak in

sales during the two weeks prior to Christmas. It has become so popular over the last few years that some French families of Southern France have included _papillotes_ as part of their

Treize desserts selection (SEE DAY 5). HOW DO YOU BAKE IT? _Papillotes_ require such specific tools and cooking processes that it is almost impossible to do them yourself at home A _France

3_ programme visited the Voisin chocolate confectionery shop in Lyon, to take a look at the steps that go into producing a proper papillote. [embedded content] The nuts are harvested during

the autumn and kept for months at 8C. They are then opened an hour before being roasted, and put into a large pot full of sugar. They are then cooked for 45 minutes at 180C. They are then

left to rest for an hour before being ground up. The result is drenched in chocolate, and then wrapped in paper. But unlike the gifts from Mr. Papillot’s trainee, the paper that wraps each

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