See what the Easter rabbit rolls in—chocolate shell eggs. It's a Rosemarie de Paris offering, this gone-with-the-war novelty. Wartime restrictions have been lifted regarding the manufacture of hollow chocolate figures, and the candy-makers of the Rosemarie de Paris kitchen have plunged into the Easter egg business in big fashion again. On display are huge chocolate eggs, covered with gleaming foil in silver and gold, draped with satin ribbon. The eggs open to reveal an assortment of the firm's finest chocolates. When the candy is gone, the eggshell itself may be broken to munch bit by sweet bit. Chocolate eggs are selling in Rosemarie de Paris shops in New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, and Beverly Hills, California.
First shipments of Périgord truffles have arrived out of France. Yes, the Périgord, most famous of truffles, their reputation due to their delicate aroma and regularity of appearance. When this aroma is like involves the gourmets in argument. On one point they agree; that the wine of Pomerol carries a truffle bouquet. But what's the bouquet?
Truffles vary in size from little ones about the bulk of a walnut to those with the girth of an apple. When taken from the soil, they are swarthy affairs, rounded like potatoes and covered with a sort of red dust. Inside they are usually blackish-gray or black, according to age, and marbled with white veins. A few truffles are white, notably those of Piedmont and Umbria.
Truffles are of mysterious growth, seedless, rootless, growing in clusters a few inches to a foot underground. The key to their mystery was found in the activities of insects attracted by the scent. After burrowing into the treat the marauders unwittingly carry the truffle spores to the leaves of the nearby trees. There the spores partially develop and are leaves fall.
All truffles are wild truffles; no one knows how to grow them. To harvest these black diamonds, they are literally mined. The French insist only virgins can discover the scent of a truffle, virgin sows, virgin bitches. The hogs and the dogs are muzzled and leashed for the hunting excursions. It's claimed there are occasional women (virgins, of course) who have the truffle nose and can walk over the beds, forecasting their location and approximate depth, size, and quantity.
Truffles grow in many places, Spain, Germany, Italy, England, France, even our own California; but all are considered inferior to the French truffles of Périgord. R.H. Macy's, 34th Street and Broadway, New York, have stocked the truffles in three packs: the one and three-fourths-ounce tin ＄2.29; three and one-half-ounce tin ＄4.29; seven-ounce tin ＄8.31.
Hot cross buns, those pagan cakes originated in the pre-Christian era, are again in the bakery windows exhibiting their sugary charms. But less sugary than prewar; some are less fruity, some have lost their frosted cross.
This blessing of the bakery, as we know it today, first rose in England. There the hot cross buns has flourished as in no other land. As far back as 1252 the bakeries were competing with the church in selling buns stamped with the cross—an illegal practice, but they did it just the same. A century ago the bun had reached its all-time popularity high when two widely known bun houses in Chelsea were thronged from daylight to dusk with people from all parts of London who came to taste the Good Friday bread.
A modest milestone toward grocery reconversion is marked by the arrival of the first postwar shipment of the Norwegian Bristling sardines here out of Stavanger. Bristlings are sprats, the smallest of the herrings, five inches being the maximum length. A delicate fish it is, abundant in many parts of Europe and used there both fresh and smoked. The Bristlings are so tiny, so tender, the skin is left on, the bones are left in. The fish are split, cleaned, beheaded, and packed in oil with the flavor of Norwegian Sild sardines, the three and three-fourths-ounce tins selling for 22 cents at Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue.
Still another returnee from over the sea is the French pâté de foie gras, coming in three-pound blocks with truffled centers. The tins hold thirty servings, price＄25, at Vendome Table Delicacies, 415 Madison Avenue.
It was a ceremony of broad smiles of lusty lip-smackings when the first postwar wheel of Switzerland Swiss cheese weighing 237 pounds was sliced, at a ceremonial tasting held recently for the New York City Press by the Switzerland Cheese Association. The cheese was the gift of the cheese co-operatives in Switzerland, harbinger of the tidings that Switzerland Swiss will be coming to this market in modest amounts by early summer.
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