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Centre-Val de Loire
Crushed almonds, sugar, egg whites and orange blossom: massepain d'Issoudun, a delicacy from Berry that Balzac brought into "La Rabouilleuse".
Confectionery from Centre-Val de Loire.
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Massepain d'Issoudun is a confectionery from Berry made of crushed almonds, sugar and egg whites, flavoured with orange blossom water and iced with sugar. It is said to have been created in the 18th century by the town's Ursulines or Visitandines, and was selling "like hot cakes" at the time.
When the nuns were dispersed by the Revolution, they opened a pastry shop in the town. By the mid-19th century, recounts Anecdotrip, everyone was mad about it, from the Russian court to the Vatican, by way of Napoléon III.
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Honoré de Balzac speaks of this sweet treat in "La Rabouilleuse" (1842), a novel set in Issoudun. The writer knew the town well: he spent time there, hiding at the homes of friends while his creditors pursued him.
According to Anecdotrip, he tasted the massepains there, loved them and, to promote his book, came up with the idea of having them sold in Paris by a pastry chef while posing as him. The text of the advertisement, which the website reproduces, announces the opening of a shop at 38 bis rue Vivienne, "for the commercial exploitation of this product whose reputation, in Berry, has nearly a century of existence". It quotes the novelist, for whom massepain was "one of the greatest creations of French confectionery": M. de Rivière, ambassador to Constantinople, would request large quantities of it each year for the seraglio of Sultan Mahmoud. This pastry, which "until this day, had only been made for the table of the wealthy", was to be sold to Parisians "from 60 francs down to 5 francs", and 50-centime slices would be sold in the shop. Among its sources, the article cites the "Dictionnaire de la gourmandise" (Robert Laffont, 2012) and "Images et pèlerinages littéraires" (1962).
In its text on the gastronomy of Indre, the Tables & Auberges directory lists massepain d'Issoudun among the department's traditional pastries, alongside the échaudé de la Brenne, the beugnon, the sanciau and the croquet de Charost.
In a 2019 article, Anecdotrip writes that massepain is "still made according to the rules of the art" and sold at the restaurant La Cognette, an inn that Balzac already used to frequent.
The Issoudun tourist office likens the making of massepain to that of the calisson d'Aix, recalls that Balzac praised its virtues in "La Rabouilleuse", and publishes the recipe of Jean-Jacques Daumy, head chef at La Cognette, detailed below.
Appearance
A square or rectangular massepain, iced with sugar, with an attractive, more or less golden colour on the inside.
Taste
A massepain of crushed almonds and sugar, flavoured with orange blossom water.
Texture
Soft.
one teaspoon of orange blossom; the paste should be thick.
the paste is poured into a tin lined with baking paper, to a thickness of 3 to 4 cm.
35 minutes at 140 °C.
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Chef Daumy's recipe includes, to decorate the plate, oranges, physalis, passion fruit, kumquats, vanilla pods, crème anglaise and vanilla ice cream.
In Paris, the advertisement attributed to Balzac proposed, for its part, tasting slices of it in the shop.
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