Grisettes from Montpellier, a story about pilgrims and young girls

What's this?

Here’s a little round sweet, made with a thin coat of crystallized sugar… with a nice taste of liquorice, honey and anise!

The liquorice is a speciality from the city of Montpellier (Southern France) since the 18th century, and the honey comes from Narbonne...

The little history

This is France's oldest sweet, created at the beginning of the 12th century!

At that time, pilgrims on the road to Compostela passed by Montpellier and its camin roumieu, ″pilgrims’ road″.

Money changers, settled in the district of Notre-Dame-des-Tables, gave them grisettes.

But where does this name come from? Grisette? From griset, a grey cotton cloth: workers from Montpellier wore it…

Then, in the 19th century, grisettes referred to a penniless young girl who had to work to earn her life: shirt-makers, above all.

Hey, and on the grisettes round packaging, we can see the Peyrou’s water tower, emblem of Montpellier!