Hot chocolate in France

The earliest evidence of domesticated cocoa was found in vessels and pots of the Mayo-Chinchipe people in the upper Amazon region of Ecuador.

In 1615, the Spanish princess, Anna of Austria popularized chocolate in France when she married King Louis XIII. She introduced chocolate drinks to her husband and the French court. Anna even brought her own maid Molina to France, a beautiful girl who prepared the queen’s cocoa drink.

However, it was Louis XV a century later who was thought to have been most fond of the drink. The king sometimes even made his hot chocolate himself in the kitchens of his Private Apartments.

Louis XV’s mistresses, including Mme Du Barry, were equally fond of this exotic beverage which was particularly appreciated for its aphrodisiac virtues. During the same period, the first chocolate-making machines were invented, and several specialist workshops were set up in Paris.

Chocolate became a badge of status and a fashionable drink of the aristocracy in Paris, and from there it spread to the upper echelons of European society. Known for its fortifying, aphrodisiac and energizing virtues, hot chocolate consumption increased over the course of the centuries until it became popularized during the Industrial Revolution.

Its flavor was not liked by everyone and one pope in fact declared that it could be drunk during fast, because it taste was so bad.
Hot chocolate in France

History of bistro

According to one story, the small restaurants known as ‘bistro’ acquired their name during the Russian occupation of Paris. The word became popular after 1815. In the bars and cafes, soldiers would demand quick service and shout a Russian a word that sounded like bistro.

The term “bistro” became popular in America during the mid-20th century. Bistro is short for bistrouille, French name for a drink made of coffee and brandy. Bistrouille in turn derives from the French bis, meaning twice, and touiller, meaning to mix, the coffee first being mixed with milk and then with the brandy.

Bistro was a place for working men and struggling artists in the late 19th century to gather. From these humble beginnings, all the various types of food and beverage facilities have developed, for quick, slick fast food eateries to elegant restaurant offering carefully prepare gourmet food in beautiful surroundings.

Today a bistro can be anything from the dining establishments to an annex of a famous restaurant that wants to attract a wider range for diner.
History of bistro

Arabica coffee in history

Dutch were the only Europeans who managed to grow the coffee bush. Dutch imported the first coffee plant into Holland from Mocha in 1616. Coffee trees were cultivated in Ceylon in 1658 and in Java in 1696.

The Coffea Arabica seedlings were sent by the Dutch governor of Malabar to the Dutch governor of Batavia in 1696. The first seedlings failed due to flooding in Batavia so a second shipment of seedlings was sent in 1699.

The plant grew in Java and in 1711 the first plants were sent from Java to a hothouse in Amsterdam by the Dutch East India Company. In 1713, the Dutch sent a coffee bush as a royal gift to King Louis XIV. After a day of feasting his eyes on the exotic gift, the king put the tree in the hand of Professor Antoine de Jussieu and ordered that every effort be made to cajole this royal gift grow well.

 The first description of a coffee plant was in 1592 by Prospero Alpini. The first scientific reference to coffee was made by Antoine de Jussieu to the Royal Academy of Sciences of France in 1713 under the designation Jasminum arabicanum laurifolia.

But it was Carl von Linne, a Swedish botanist, who established botanical classification in 1753. Linnaeus classified the coffee plant into a new genus, the Coffea, with just one known species: Coffea Arabica.
Arabica coffee in history

2000 years of Cognac

Cognac dates back over 2,000 years ago, and was probably named after a pre-Roman chieftain called Comnos or Conos. At that time it was the Romans first brought vines to France. Romans also discovered the secret of sealing wines in amphorae to mature and preserve them. By the time they left 500 years later they had laid the foundation for almost all the greatest vineyards in the modern world.

For centuries later France continued to produce wine, considered a gift from gods. As trading expanded, the delicate wines couldn’t cope with rough and long journeys by the sea.

In order to transport the wine in better conditions, traders began to distill wine. Arnaud de Villeneuve (Catalonia, Spain) is reported to have distilled wine as early as 1250. It may also have been produced as early as 1100 in Dalerno. The Dutch called this new spirit brandewijnm, literally burnt wine. And that’s where the term brandy comes from.

Some commercial distilled –wine beverages apparently began to be produced in Armagnac in the mid-1400s. Cognac region’s brandewijn was distinct from that produced by other regions and so came to be called by its new name - Cognac.

Brandy production in Cognac started in the early 1600s. The brandies produced in Cognac have a long-standing and universal reputation for their elegance and refinement and are often symbols of status and prestige.
2000 years of Cognac

Evian bottled water

Evian is recognized as France’s bestselling still water. Its source, the Cachet Spring near the town of Evian-les-Bain in the Alps, was found by the French nobleman Marquis de Lessert.

The therapeutic benefits of the spring water were first recognized in1789 for easing kidney stones of the Lessert, during the French Revolution.

By 1815, baths and a hotel were established. By 1824, the first spas had been opened in the site to accommodate Victorian health tourists.

The water was bottled in 1826 when the Duke of Savoie gave their permission; it was intended as a medicinal drink. Indeed, until 1960, it was sold only in chemists.

With the construction of a railway to Evian in 1890, distribution of the water began. Evian was exported to the United States as early as 1905.

In 1965, a state of art bottling plant was opened near Evian, and by 1988 annual sales of the water had reached 1 billion litters annually.

The European food company Danone, acquired Evian in 1970. It was Danone that established a significant place for Evian in the United States market when American bottled water industry took off in the 1970s.

The water is noted for its purity and low mineral content. It is cold for a premium price because it is marketed as being ‘bottled exclusively at its protected natural spring source (Cachat Spring), which lies at the very foot of the French Alps, far from any urban or industrial development.’
Evian bottled water

Champagne in Romans time

Champagne has been the wine of celebration and consolation for centuries. Champagne was not always famous for its sparkling wine. Rather, it started out in the time of the Roman Empire as a producer of still white wanes most of which were consumed by roman legions.

Champagne is the name of an old province in France some 90 miles north east of Paris.

The Romans fostered development and around 1000 BC began classifying grape varieties, charting ripening characteristics, identifying diseases and increasing yields through irrigation and fertilization.

Grapes were probably first being cultivated in northeastern province of France (at that time Roman Gaul) about 50 years after the birth of Christ. The Romans were great admirers of the fruit of the vine and brought cuttings to France’s Rhone Valley.

These Roman grapes ultimately mutated into some of France’s classic noble varieties: Syrah, Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay.

The Roman developed wooden barrels to store the wines in place of the skins and jars previously used.

And as glass blowing became more common, the Romans may have been the first ones to put wine into glass container.

Yet everything stalled in AD 79 when Domitian, a protectionist Roman Emperor, decreed that the vineyard of Gaul be uprooted because wheat was more important.

Probus, a gardener’s son, lifted the ban 200 years later, and the hedonistic Romans soon became to love the wines from Champagne.

After the decline of the Roman Empire, communications with other regions deteriorated, commerce was interrupted, vineyards were destroyed, and winemaking disappeared.
Champagne in Romans time

History of Cognac

Cognac is distilled from the grape derived from the grape of the ugni vines planted in a wide radius around the town of Cognac on the Charente, in southwestern France.

Medieval Cognac was a prosperous, fortified river port for the salt and wine trade.

By the 17th and 18th century, many people with family ties in England and Holland had fled to the area, keeping wine trade with northern Europe alive as the salt trade petered out.

The soil of Charente produces poor-quality wines. In the 17th century it was accidently discovered that when distilled they produced excellence brandy.

The term cognac is widely used, but properly refers only to distillation from a fairly small district around the towns Cognac on the Charente River.

Once called ‘liqueur of gods’, cognac comes from double distillation, and receives a lot of attention.

Cognacs have a widely varied style. Some are light and ethereal; some are dark and heavy, tasting of caramel. Each Cognac producer guards the secrets that make possible his distinctive blend.

The major cognac houses, like Hennessey, Martell, Courvoisier, Remy Martin or Hine, have become household names.
History of Cognac