Back to the Middle Ages with the échaudés from Brenne
And also
The tops
What’s this?
The échaudé is a triangular dry biscuit, golden and puffy, made of a scald mixture then cook in an oven.
Echaudé means ″scald″! A real biscuit for starvation time or Lent, primitively made of flour and water only: people ate them since the Hundred Years War!
Today, they are made with flour, butter, eggs and sugar.
But where do we find them? During the Echaudés’ fair in Mézières-en-Brenne, every year in March...
The little history
Echaudés are the oldest biscuit in France! It was first mentioned in a charter of the cathedral of Paris, in 1202.
Saint Louis, who prohibited work for pastry-cook and bakers on Sunday, allowed to make échaudés this day, for the poor…
In Central France, the first mention of échaudés dates back to 1240, in Saint-Chéron abbey.
Those biscuits were very handy in case of starvation: they only needed water and flour! And people could preserve them a long time.
But people ate them especially during Lent.
The book Région Centre : produits du terroir et recettes traditionnelles par l'inventaire du patrimoine culinaire de France (ed. Albin Michel) says they ate échaudés with ″grey wine″ for the Pentecost…