The sugary delights of Nancy

In Nancy, the legacy of the 18th-century is sweet!

Nancy Passions Sucrée is a new marketing initiative dreamed up by the tourist agency of Nancy ("Destination Nancy") in co-operation with an assortment of municipal and departmental authorities.  The brand appeared in mid 2019, on the storefronts of pastry chefs, bakers, confectioners and other artisans in the city. The idea is to promote quality handcrafted products made using traditional recipes and, as far as possible, local produce. Their list now boast more than twenty specialities from a dozen different establishments.

Some of these sugary delights have a particular link with the 18th century - "les belles heures de la pâtisserie",  Pride of place goes to  the Rum-baba, which is popularly said to have been created at the instigation of King Stanislas himself. Maison Gwizdak in the rue Raugraff  (below) has long offered a traditional recipe.

According to the story, Stanislas found the local brioche too dry, so his pastry chef, Nicolas Stohrer came up with the idea of dousing it, first with Tokay or Malaga wine, later with rum.  In fact the "baba" is a traditional Polish cake, though Stanislas, who was notorious for his sweet tooth,  doubtless popularised it -  according to the historian of his reign, Pierre Boyé, a dozen variants were regularly served at his table.

In 2002, a historically-themed restaurant "A la Table du Bon Roi Stanislas" opened in rue Gustave Simon offering a tempting range of reimagined dishes from Lorraine, Poland and 18th-century French cuisine in general.  The Nancy Passions Sucrées label has been awarded to their baba made with the original Tokaji (above), and also to a candied bergamot based on a recipe from Le Cannaméliste Français.  To tempt your tastebuds still more, the restaurant website has lots of information about all sorts of other local delicacies and their origin. 

References

Destination Nancy: Office de tourisme - Nancy Passions Sucrée [In English]
https://www.nancy-tourisme.fr/en/discover-nancy/nancy-passions-sucrees

Maison Gwizdak, Nancy 

https://gwizdak.fr/nos-specialites-sucrees/

A la Table du Bon Roi Stanislas, Nancy 

The restaurant website has all sorts of information about historical dishes

http://tablestan.free.fr/

The myth of  Stanislaw and the Rum-baba comprehensively debunked by a specialist on Polish food history:

Karol Palion, "Good King Stanislas and the Forty Thieves", Forking around with history, post of 24.04.2019.  

http://forkingaroundwithhistory.pl/index.php/Good_King_Stanislas_and_the_Forty_Thieves

[When I was a student, we were served Rum-babas of unspeakable size and resilience; rumour had it that the College chef had trained in the German Navy!]