Rousquille and touron

The rousquille is a round biscuit, pierced or hollowed at the centre, with a tender, shortbread-like dough, about seven centimetres across, coated in a white icing flavoured with lemon or aniseed. Its name is said to come from the Catalan rosca, “crown”. In the past, itinerant sellers threaded them onto thin sticks that they carried over the shoulder, from fair to market.

Its origin owes something to oral tradition. In Amélie-les-Bains, it is said that in 1810 a pastry cook named Séguela had the idea of glazing these rings and flavouring them with aniseed; the sources agree neither on his first name nor on the original flavour. Arles-sur-Tech also lays claim to the biscuit, a confusion perhaps born of history: until 1840, the spa town was called Les Bains d’Arles. In Arles, the Pâtisserie Touron, founded in 1850 as a hotel-café-restaurant, makes its rousquilles according to a family recipe kept secret.

Touron (torró in Catalan) is another matter: a nougat of almonds, hazelnuts or pine nuts bound with honey or sugar, known throughout the Mediterranean world and present in Catalonia since the Middle Ages. The Perpignan version is white and soft, or black when the sugar is cooked to a caramel. A first factory opened in Perpignan in 1840; today, Perpignan and Saint-Laurent-de-Cerdans account for most of French production.

Touron is eaten during Advent and above all at Christmas; children also receive it from the Tió de Nadal, the log that has been “fed” in the preceding days. The rousquille, for its part, accompanies village festivals and the welcoming of visitors, often with a glass of Banyuls or muscat. Other sweets follow the calendar: bunyetes, thin, crisp fritters, at Easter, crème catalane formerly on Saint Joseph’s Day, and the croquants of Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet.