The Croissant Diaries

Surely the most satisfying start to the day involves croissant. This is how it is for me at least. But some croissants are more conducive to a state of morning tranquility than others, and sometimes it seems important to keep a precise mental log of where success in this quest has been found.

Of course, above and beyond the intrinsic properties of the thing, context also matters.
For instance, my most formative and thus highly prized croissant experiences involve a cluster of siblings curled, sprawled and draped around my mother's bed on a Sunday morning, as Bach's cello suites or perhaps Vivaldi's Nula in Mundo Pax Sincera floats up the stairs, and the gentle light of the expansive East Yorkshire skies dances on the wide river Humber before curving in through the window. Here, the croissant in fact functions, on one level, simply as a medium for the imbibement of coffee, through the operation known as 'dipping'; or rather, the croissant is so intimately bound up with the drinking of coffee that to consider either one alone would be an injustice to the other. On another level, the croissant is merely a semi-arbitrarily chosen obligatory passage point for the occurance of a vitally important ritual gathering and bonding within the family. So the croissant's status is in fact both historically contingent and a partial sideline to another consumable. But nevermind all this. What I have said is, the croissant has a special place of importance for me because of two interrelated factors (family plus coffee), whereas what I meant to say in this section was, that the setting in which the croissant is consumed plays an important role in the level of enjoyment the same may bring.

But I wanted to talk about real croissant.

Now, you'd think that the Bread Man in the market would sell lovely fresh croissant. Indeed, that is what I thought too, but in fact they are a little dry and slightly doughy. In order to make up for this, in which the bread stand very nearly succeeds, the croissants come with all manner of distractions: apricot or apple and sultana filling, chocolate and almond and a swirly shape, chocolate and a twisty shape... but these frills seem to accentuate the lack of the rare treasure of the plain croissant.

Reluctance to go to one of the Nadia's (the reluctance being due to a long-held suspicion against this slightly-too prosperous local bakery - how are there quite so many of them?) was recently overcomeby the writer on the grounds of its ridiculously convenient proximity to last year's house, and in fact the results were surprisingly good. They microwave it for you if you like. A difficult decision; overall the warmth wins out, but the microwaving process does somewhat deflate the thing into a flat state of greasiness.

Of the supermarkets, it would appear that Marks and Spencer remain ahead, although the new Sainsbury's organic croissants are extremely close competitors. The freshly baked Sainsbury's croissant is pretty good also. The other packaged Sainsbury's efforts have much to be desired, and even the Waitrose croissant, though excitingly large, doesn't have the all-important degree of lightness.

I think we can safely say there are two important factors to croissant success: lightness and butteriness. And fluffiness. Fluffiness so as to prevent the flaking into coffee upon dippage. Three factors, then: lightness, butteriness and fluffiness. Although, having said that, it is highly likely that fluffiness is the product of both lightness and butteriness, and thus is the all important factor. So, one factor: fluffiness. (No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!)

Very recently, I tried the Presto croissant. This is really very impressive indeed. I can find little to fault in this croissant.