2024-02-22 07:00:03
The spread is this famous creamy substance that can be spread on a base like bread – or even a pancake, a rusk… In general, the result is what we trivially call “a tartine”, the definition of which is that of a slice of bread (potentially buttered) covered with said sweet or savory dough. More than half of French people consume it regularly and 26% only use the market leading paste.
Image d’illustration Pixabay
Although it is rooted in habits, this practice is modern. The word “tartine” is itself quite recent, and only dates from the end of the 16th century.e century. It then becomes part of popular jargon, because, for some, adding butter to bread is a derogation of brioche for which butter is mixed with the dough.
Brioche was then the norm at court, hence the famous phrase (falsely?) attributed to Marie-Antoinette – “If they have no bread, let them eat brioche”. The question of bread was at the forefront at the time, due to an increase in its price following a scarcity artificially created by speculators. When the people forced King Louis XVI and his family to leave Versailles to return to Paris, on October 6, 1789, they shouted: “We will no longer lack bread! We are bringing back the baker, the baker’s wife and the little mitron!”
From the history of toast
One of the first known images of toast dates back to the 16th centurye century. This is the “Wedding Meal”, a painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder which represents a meal bringing together peasants in a crowded room – including, in the foreground, the child with toast on knees licking his index finger.
The Wedding Meal, by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (16th century) shows the oldest known representation of toast with the child in the foreground crumbling it.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder
The ancestor of the toast is the “roast”, or a slice of toasted or fried bread which accompanied soups and stews and roasts. This is where the English word comes from toast (translation of tartine), itself coming from the old French “toster” or “rotir”. “Toast” refers to the custom of dipping the toast in a cup of wine before drinking to the health of a guest.
It was only in the 20the century that toast has established itself in everyday language… Until today it has become an essential item elevated by certain chefs to the rank of a gastronomic dish.
L’avènement from stain to spreader
You can therefore spread anything you want on a piece of toast, from rillettes to chocolate paste to tarama. But usage dictates that the term “spread” most often corresponds to a sweet chocolate spread… which, paradoxically, contains a lot of sugar and fat and a little chocolate – all this in very proportion variable (In mathematics and logic, a variable is represented by a symbol. It…). Enough to open a real nutritional Pandora’s box.
The story begins at the end of World War II, in the Italian town of Alba, in Piedmont, now famous for its white truffles. As the shortage of cocoa beans set in, a local chocolatier and pastry chef, Pietro Ferrero, inspired by the Gianduja recipe, added hazelnuts to his composition to create a chocolate brick to slice called “Giandujot”.
Then, legend has it that, during a scorching summer, these bricks found themselves melting… giving birth, quite involuntarily, to a substance with an indescribable smoothness. Seizing the idea, Ferrero will sell it in jars with success that will not be denied. So much so that the recipe is soon transformed to obtain a dough at room temperature.
The current composition of this flagship product from Ferrero (from the English diminutive nut corresponding to hazelnutwalnut or hazelnut) includes for 100 g: 56 g of sugar, 20 g ofPalm oil (Palm oil, extracted by hot pressing from the pulp of oil palm fruits…)13 g of hazelnuts, less than 10 g of skimmed milk and low-fat cocoa each – with soy lecithin to emulsify everything.
This chocolate spread has remained an undisputed leader for almost 50 years, and represents more than two-thirds of the market share. The French are also the biggest consumers in the world!
A myth attacked from all sides
However, the inventiveness of the creators and those responsible for marketing (Marketing (we also sometimes use — in 7% of cases, according to the figures given by…) is limitless for bring down the leader – so far without success. And this is especially true since, in recent years, the nutritional transition has been advancing with the hunt for “bad fats”, of which palm oil is one, and the race for Nutri-score. The culinary equation is complex to solve, because while improving the Nutri-score of the product, it is necessary to maintain a spreadable substance. By dint of research (Scientific research refers primarily to all actions undertaken with a view to…), it is now possible to offer chocolate spreads made from oilseeds or other seeds or even red bean paste. A chocolate spread even managed to obtain a Nutri-score A, while the majority of them are satisfied with an E or a D…
If we consider (this is not always true!) that hazelnut is the “signature” ingredient of spreads, it is probably because of its nutritional profile: we find good fats (unsaturated fatty acids), fiber, proteins, vitamins E (Vitamin E or tocopherol is a fat-soluble vitamin (i.e. soluble in…) and minerals. However, hazelnut is far from being the main component – their content varying from 10 and 16% depending on the recipes, even if there are “good students” with 40% hazelnuts.
A market in perpetual reinvention
Some pastas also contain other dried fruits: cashew nuts (The cashew nut or cashew nut, called cashew nut in some regions, is the fruit…), almonds, praline. Some producers add pieces of lace crepes to give a crunch in the middle of the creaminess of the dough. There are therefore dozens of spreads, chocolate or not, to the point that it is impossible to list them all and even less to give their precise composition.
In addition to the number of candidates, what further complicates the analysis are the incessant changes in composition: palm oil replaced by sunflower, reduction in sugar, replacement of sugar by exotic sugars (cane sugar, flower sugar coconut, palm, etc.), increase in percentage (A percentage is a way of expressing a proportion or fraction in a whole. A…) of dried fruits, modification of the composition of dried fruits (hazelnut, almond, walnuts, peanuts and others).
Thus, the caloric value of a spread is very variable: from 275 kcal/100 g for those which use starchy foods, to more than 600 kcal/100g for their counterparts with mainly lipid constituents (remember that 1 g of carbohydrates provides 4 kcal, compared to 9 kcal for 1 g of lipids).
Concretely, what can a piece of toast provide in terms of caloric intake? Bread remains the most suitable complement to the spread, because it provides between 260 and 280 kcal per 100 g (a baguette is 250 g); wholemeal bread is slightly less caloric and provides more fiber (240-245 kcal). As for the spoonful of chocolate spread (15 gr for a teaspoon), its caloric intake varies depending on its composition – count 80 kcal per spoonful for the paste market leader.
For a reasonable continental breakfast, combine two slices of bread (preferably wholemeal) spread with a dairy product and a fruit.
Margouillat/Shutterstock, CC BY
Two slices of bread with a spoonful for each slice (i.e. 60 gr of bread and 30 gr of dough) + a glass of milk or yogurt and a fruit constitutes a breakfast called “continental” rather t low in protein, but acceptable.
In conclusion, there is no lasting recommendation possible: read the labels to compare the list of ingredients in your spreads. However, you should try to avoid the most caloric ones if you are a heavy consumer. Also favor pasta with few ingredients, without added oil or additives (powdered milk, lecithin). For example those giving pride of place to simple ingredients: cocoa and sugar from fair trade and organic, dried fruits other than hazelnuts from indicated provenance (almond, walnut, cashew, etc.) and with a strong oilseed fruit content.
This article was written in partnership with the health chain of the University of Paris, For better health (PuMS).
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