[Sca-cooks] Pralines

[Decker, Terry D.]

Neither source is completely reliable.  Tannahill's Food in History is a
survey of the history of food around the world, generally attempting to stay
in chronologic order.  Toussant-Samat's History of Food takes the approach
of examining the history of categories of food in separate chapters.  Both
are trying to reduce large amounts of information to easily read form and in
the process lose some of the historical connections.  Toussant-Samat also
has the problem of being occasionally Franco-centric in the interpetation of
history.  I am loath to take either author's pronouncements about pralines
as authoritative without determining the sources or the quality of the
research.

The name "praline" appears to be very much tied to the 17th Century
(considering that the person for whom they are named, the Comte du
Plessis-Praslin, is a 17th Century figure.  The actual confection may have
earlier antecedants, but that can only be determined by comparing 17th
Century recipes for pralines with earlier recipes for similar confections.

Bear



>
> To anyone reading this thread, was this the more reliable source
> between History of Food and Food in History?  I have both at home, but
> lose track of the relative strength of the information provided; I
> belief Toussant-Samat is the better, though.  I'm planning on browsing
> both this week re: Pralines.
>
> pacem et bonum,
> niccolo difrancesco