Arty brioche

"Rather a piece of bread with a happy heart than wealth with grief." - Egyptian proverb

So it's the Met's first day of the week - Sunday - and facing my new week of happenings - actually a few this week - is a detail - the brioche, the flower and the peaches - from this painting - La Brioche - as painted by Edouard Manet in 1870 and now hanging on the walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Well it's food, so I ought to be able to write something about it.

First of all however I decided to look into the art side of things, having read in the Met's blurb that Manet had been inspired by a painting by Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin's painting Still Life with Brioche of 1763 and purchased by the Louvre in 1869 - to whose galleries Manet was a frequent visitor.

The links to Paris are incidental - my Diary's title is Impressionism and Paris - the Louvre connection and also the fact that Manet lived most of his life there. Not really about Impressionism and Paris is it?

With respect to these two paintings, it seems that they are both about rich texture, according to a few brief articles I found, and then there's that flower stuck in the top. I tried to find out whether that was a tradition, but found nothing, so perhaps am assuming that Chardin decided for his own creative reasons to stick a flower (apple blossom) in the top and so Manet followed suit but with a rose.

Manet, of course is lumped together with the Impressionists, and some of his work does indeed have that quality, but he is really a kind of bridge between Realism and Impressionism. Before this painting he had been painting a series of fairly formal still lifes but his brioche painting:

"is singular among Manet's still lifes for its formality, and mark[s] the last time he would paint such an elaborate tabletop composition" Wikipedia

He has two more brioche paintings however - an earlier one: Still Life with Oysters, Lemon and Brioche (1862) and Nature Morte, Brioche, Fleurs, Poires (1876) - which takes a much lighter and more Impressionistic approach. Although the earliest of the three - the one with the oysters, also has some similarities to other Impressionists - Cézanne in particular - well that's what I think. And surely it is as elaborate - although in a totally different way - to our 'starter' painting?

None of the other Impressionists seem to have really done brioche, which is sort of interesting in itself because they did indeed do a lot of still lifes - on days when it was raining one suspects. But I did find a few more from here and there.

Nature Morte à la Brioche Victoria Dubourg Fantin-Latour ca 1890; Nature morte à la Brioche - Pablo Picasso (1909); Still Life with Fruit and Brioche - Albert André (1945); Nature Morte à la Brioche -Jacques Pétit (1984) and Still Life with Brioche - Margaret Olley for which I have no date.

A variety of styles and quality it has to be said, but all with that distinctive brioche à tête - the one with the round ball topping a fluted muffin shaped base. With Picasso's having the most 'modern' feel of them all. Reflections on them all? Well I guess artists in all genres of art sometimes turn to everyday things - indeed - the details, textures, shapes, colours that form our world if we only care to look. Is there one abiding quality in all of the above? Serenity, a treat, calm - even for Picasso - with here and there a sense of occasion ...?

Brioche, however, is special isn't it? I doubt that any of us have ever made it, even if we have attempted, or still make, sourdough.

Or is it? I have seen several foodie articles that suggest that it is taking over from sourdough as the fashionable bread. You can buy it in your supermarket after all - although not in this fancy shape.

There are an increasing number of recipes that ask you to use brioche - more for sweet things like bread and butter puddings and French toast, than for the savoury, but then brioche is a lighter, fluffier, sweetish bread - which comes in a variety of shapes. that's because there are eggs, lots of butter, milk and a touch of sugar in the mix. Only a touch because:

“proper brioche has a long fermentation time, and a lot of good French butter whipped into the dough after it’s kneaded. It shouldn’t have lots of sugar; the sweetness should come from the butter and that long, slow fermentation, which gives it a more complex taste.” James Morton/The Guardian

or, as writer Jodi Picoult says:

“This is my favorite part about brioche. The dough doesn’t quite know what to do with all that butter, and begins to come apart. But with enough time, it manages to bring itself back to center, to a satin consistency.”

Until you get something incredibly classy - and somehow ancient looking like this

Laminated brioche bread crown -boybawarchi/Instagram (No recipe - just a picture)

It is an ancient bread - with recipes dating back to the Middle Ages, but, of course, it wasn't peasant food because of all that butter and sugar. Well definitely the sugar, but if the peasant had a cow then they had butter. Maybe it was the flour that was prohibitive, because I don't think you make brioche with coarse whole-grain flour. No - it was the food of the rich - which is why that quote about 'let them eat brioche' (yes it was brioche not cake) was so ignorantly thoughtless - and actually not even authentic. There is no evidence that Marie Antoinette said it and it wasn't even attributed to her until decades after her death.

Today it houses hamburgers in MacDonalds.

YEARS GONE BY

January 8

2025 - Nothing

2024 - The common kettle - not so common

2023 - Nothing

2022 - Kitchen things with holes

2021 - Missing

2020 - Nothing

2019 - Nothing

2018 - Petrol and confectionery

2017 - The chilli controversy