The evolution of eating habits is always interesting. It has to be said that the French did not invent the croissant and therefore it is controversial for them to dictate how we eat them (Straight or curved, the French agree: you’re eating your croissant wrong, 20 February). Croissants are Viennese and were created in celebration of the Habsburgs’ defeat of the Ottoman empire at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. The crescent shape is part of the Ottoman flag. Rumour has it that Marie Antoinette, who was born in Vienna, introduced the croissant to Paris in 1770 before the French Revolution, but croissants only appeared in a widespread way in France in the mid-19th century, the first description of a Viennese baker in Paris being in 1838.
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