Last year, Prof. Charbonneau was interviewed about his project of tracing back the history of sucre à la crème, a confection he regularly uses in courses at Duke as well as in public (or conference) demonstrations to illustrate the importance of the mesoscale structure on mouthfeel. A couple of related articles came out last year in Gastronomica, along with a podcast interview, and in recent weeks, two of the key papers about this effort have also appeared: “Pralines des Voyageurs: An Iconic Intercultural Food” and “Sucre à la crème: Origin and Trajectory of an Authentic Québec Confection“. It’s been great a great adventure to unearth this origin story, and there’s still more digging to do!
Update (December 11, 2024): A more popular coverage of the topic has since appeared in CaribouMag.
Update (December 22, 2024): On the basis of this work, Francis Reddy has recently called for the nomination of sucre à la crème for UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list.
Update (January 13, 2025): The Chemistry Department has featured this work.
