Vive le chocolat

Revolutionary pastry

By Caroline Cummins

July 14, 2008

Long story short: Once upon a time I had a job in Paris in the Bastille neighborhood — you know, the section of town where the Bastille prison used to be. (You remember: the prison the peasants tore down at the start of the French Revolution. Yeah, yeah, all that high-school European history is coming back now.) One of the neighborhood bakeries celebrated its location by offering what it called pavés, or paving stones, in honor of the Parisian revolutionaries who pried up paving stones to build barricades. This edible version was basically a square pain au chocolat — known Stateside as a chocolate croissant — smashed flat. (You can also buy little chocolates called pavés in France if croissants aren’t your thing.) So celebrate today — Bastille Day, the French equivalent of the Fourth of July — by smashing your own choco-croissant. Vive la République!