Vive la revolution

"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche."

With that oft misquoted suggestion Marie Antoinette ushered in the French Revolution, the 216th anniversary of which the people of France will celebrate tomorrow, Bastille Day. Because of its culinary repercussions, I submit that the French Revolution is an event we should celebrate too.

In her book "Haute Cuisine," a chronicle of how the French created the culinary profession, Amy B. Trubek observes, "Wonderful fine dining establishments can be found in all the nations of Europe and North America, but everywhere the menus are dominated by the French." Furthermore, she notes, their style of cooking and the professionals who work in them are primarily French.

That's because the French literally invented the restaurant, an institution launched, more or less, during the French Revolution. As the Oxford Companion to Food explains, "The abolition of guilds and their privileges in the wake of the French Revolution, together with an influx of deputies into the capital and a surplus of unemployed chefs no longer in charge of aristocratic kitchens, laid the scene for an enormous expansion of the restaurant industry. . . ."

To be sure, there were restaurants before the Revolution. In fact, eating places are as old as civilization itself. As long as people have had to travel away from home there have been places where they can buy food and also lodging. But these establishments were fundamentally different than what we know today as a restaurant -- a uniquely French, and surprisingly late, development.

Prior to the emergence of restaurants as we know them around the time of the French Revolution, when you ate at a public dining room you simultaneously ate with others at a large table from a menu that simply announced what was being served.

But in 18th century France, the new restaurants offered something more: choice. People could eat when they wanted, what they wanted, and how much they wanted. As Adam Gopnik writing in The New Yorker puts it, "For the first time, you could go out to eat and have it your way." Everything we now associate with restaurants evolved from this point, making them places where you go not merely to be fed, but to have a good time.

There were some restaurants like this in Paris even before the fall of the Bastille, but the impact of the French Revolution was to increase their number dramatically and to, in the words of William Blanchard Jerrold, democratize the kitchen.

That is, as Jean-Robert Pitte notes, haute cuisine emerged from the milieu of the court and the art of cooking shifted from the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie. As a result, Trubek notes, thanks to culinary innovations triggered by the French Revolution, anyone, regardless of social class, now has the opportunity to eat like a king.

Brioches aux Gouttes de Chocolat

Doubtless these unique chocolate chip brioches, developed by Parisian pâtissier Gérard Mulot, were not what Marie Antoinette had in mind when she uttered her famous phrase as peasants stormed the Bastille, but she surely would have loved them. The recipe is adapted from Linda Dannenberg's marvelous book, "Paris Boulangerie-Pâtisserie."

Ingredients:

5 tablespoons cream, divided

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 package active dry yeast

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1 stick melted butter, cooled

1 cup thick pastry cream

2/3 cup chocolate chips

1 egg yolk

Directions:

Warm four tablespoons cream to 105 degrees and stir in sugar and yeast. Let proof five minutes. In a food processor mix yeast mixture, flour, salt, eggs, and butter for 10 seconds. Knead dough by hand on lightly floured surface until slightly sticky yet smooth and manageable. Transfer dough to greased bowl, turning to coat all sides, and let rise, covered, until doubled, about 1 1/2 half hours. Punch down dough and roll out on lightly floured surface to a 10-by-15-inch rectangle. Spread with pastry cream. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Fold short ends of rectangle toward the middle until they meet in the center. Cut dough in half along center seam. Cut each half into six strips. Place on parchment-lined baking sheets and let rise until puffy, about 1 1/2 hours. Combine yolk and remaining one tablespoon cream and brush on top of pastries. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake five to 10 minutes longer until golden brown.

Listen to A Harte Appetite at 8:49 a.m. Fridays on KRCU, 90.9 FM. Write A Harte Appetite, c/o the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or e-mail tharte@semissourian.com.