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Sweet Success
Skylines (February/March 1998)
I stopped for a moment to admire the window display with its tempting array of fancy chocolates and clutches of speckled eggs that
looked as if they had been plucked straight from the nest.
But it was the contents of the shelves inside I had come to sample - shelves crammed with humbugs and lollipops of every imaginable
colour and flavour. So I pressed on through the open door, insinuating my way amongst the huddle of connoisseurs who had beaten me to
it and were already jostling for position in the cramped premises of Le Succès Berckois.
I had come to watch the confectioner at work and today she was entertaining a school
party - something she does for all age groups from the toddlers of the nursery class to
the more sophisticated clientèle of secondary schools.
There was a time when little family-run businesses selling home-made sweets could
be found all over France. But when sugar ceased to be a luxury item and
confectionery took off in a big way, technology intervened and the skills of the old
cottage industries died out. According to proprietress Micheline Matifas her tiny shop
in the coastal resort of Berck near Le Touquet is one of around only ten in the whole
country where you can still see traditional boiled sweets being made by hand.
As I took up position, taking care not to tread on any toes, she had just finished
boiling up her sugar syrup and was carrying it carefully towards a large marble slab at
the front of the shop.
The scalding liquid cooled quickly as it hit the cold stone and she had to work fast,
rolling it into a ball then stretching it until it became translucent.
"Did you know that this is what they use in films to simulate the effect of breaking
glass?" she asked holding up a thin pane of sugar mixture before shattering it with a
small hammer into hundreds of tiny splinters...
© Alison Thomas
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