[Sca-cooks] period cream puffs?

[Terry Decker]

The version of the Catherine de Medici tale with Popelini as Catherine's 
cook seems to come from the 1988 "Larousse Gastronomique."  My 2001 edition 
does not appear to contain the tale.

The version of the tale naming the cook as Panterelli seems to originate 
with Claude Juilliet, "Classic Patisserie:  An A to Z Handbook," 1998.

Neither source appears to be particularly accurate and neither cook shows up 
in any credible source I've found.

According to Toussaint-Samat, the Avice that is referred to in the Juillet 
version is Talleyrand's cook.

The Food Timeline entry for choux pastry, 
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpies.html#creampuffs , quotes the 1988 
Larousse entry which identifies the tale as "legend."  The entry is worth 
reading for the bibliographic references it contains.

Bear