Today we'll be discussing a cookie, or to some, a biscuit, from a French company. Specifically a raspberry tartlet from the Bonne Maman brand, which in turn was manufactured by the St Michel company.
Normally I strive not to repeat myself, when it comes to brands and companies. As in, once I cover one brand and/or company, I won't do another post about it. Instead, if I have another product from this original company, I'll go back to the original post and add to it. This post in an exception. Way back on May 22nd, 2015 I reviewed a fruit preserve made by Bonne Maman. However, back in those days, over a decade ago, I didn't usually mention much detail about the manufacturing company. As such, in the 2015 post, I didn't go into detail about the company at all. So, this will be new information when I do so now. Plus, technically the preserves of the 2015 post were made by Bonne Maman, while the tartlets today were made by another company, St Michel, in a partnership with Bonne Maman. So I think it's different enough, and appropriate for my purposes.
As it turns out, there is very little detail about the history of the Bonne Maman brand and company. Fortunately, there is some about St Michel. (In case you're wondering, I'm not misspelling this--St Michel does not include a period after the "St", for reasons not commented upon,) Back in 1905 a pastry chef named Joseph Grellier created a new kind of pastry, the galette. Reportedly the people of the village where Josepf made them, Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef, really enjoyed them. In 1908 Joseph's wife Constance had the idea of selling these galettes on the nearby beach, to visiting women. This was a huge boon to their popularity. In 1919 a biscuit factory was started, and production amped up. In addition to cookies St Michel also makes other kinds of cakes, pastries, and appetizers. In 1994 the company was sold to the German company Bahlsen. Then in 2006 Bahlsen sold St Michel to Monna Baie Biscuits, who then promptly changed their company name to St Michel Biscuits. But for now let's review the actual cookie itself. A section about an ugly controversy concerning this company will follow.
Bonne Maman raspberry tartlets: These were oval shaped, about 6 cm. by 5 cm. (about 2.25 inches by 2 inches). They were also formed like a dish, with an outer rim enclosing an inner "cup." The outer part was yellowish-brown in color, while the inner part was a red gel. The outer pastry part was good, a very decent example of the genre. And the inner raspberry filling part was also tasty, with a nice sweet and tart flavor. So, unlike a lot of European biscuits I've had, this one was not bland. It had a full, bold flavor. I really like these, and would heartily recommend them.
I'll preface this next account by stating I got this information from online sources, including Wikipedia, so for legal reasons I'll say all of this is "alleged." But, that said, back in the 1990's, St Michel did a curious, and to many (hopefully most) people an offensive thing. They partnered up with a zoo, which was then called Safari Africain, to recreate an Ivory Coast (an African country) village, which they named Bamboula's Village. To accomplish this, they hired a couple of dozen Ivory Coast citizens to serve as actors. So, essentially a human exhibit in a zoo. However, "Bamboula" is an old colonial term, which by the late 20th century was considered a racial slur. But it gets worse. The Ivory Coast employees were paid less than minimum wage, and were forced to appear bare-chested even in foul and cold weather conditions. Their children received no schooling or tutoring during this time. And their passports were confiscated so they couldn't leave the zoo premises, forced to live in tiny hut replicas. Obviously, for many reasons, various civil rights organizations and labor unions were appalled by this, and look legal action against the zoo. It was closed after less than a year, in September of 1994, and the zoo/St Michel were fined a token one Franc fine, plus legal expenses. (Which may have well been expensive, but I didn't see any exact amounts.) So this was weird promotion, huh? "Enjoy this racist exhibit, put on by oppressed employees, and then be sure to buy our pastries." Hopefully whoever decided that this was an acceptable idea was fired long ago. And to be fair, it was over 30 years ago. But still, even for the time it was pretty messed up. Sorry to get all depressing in this blog post about a cookie, but sometimes that's where the complete story takes us.
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