The fou\u00e9e\u00a0or fouace Angevine is a small ball of bread baked in the oven that is filled with hot rillettes, mushrooms, beans\u00a0or butter according to the regions. It has become traditional of Anjou and Touraine.<\/p>\n
The term comes from the Latin panis focacius which means a flat bread cooked in the fireplace. The term derives from the Latin focus which means “fireplace, place to cook”.<\/p>\n
In the eighteenth century, Jacob Le Duchat, in his Historical Remarks and Criticisms of the Works of Fran\u00e7ois Rabelais, cites “a kind of cake or cooked cake to fire, which those of the country call fouace, and those of Languedoc say fougace, of Touraine fou\u00e9e, with the same meaning “. In 1880, Charles M\u00e9ni\u00e8re, in his Glossaire angevin etymologique, compared with different dialects, indicates that the word fou\u00e9e designates a bundle of wood for fire or a small fire of fagots. Cakes of bread were baked in the oven. In 1908, in their etymological and historical Glossary of the languages \u200b\u200band dialects of Anjou, Verrier and Onillon define the term as a “thin slab that is put in the oven before bread and which cooks very quickly … Calls this same galette: Galette \u00e0 la fou\u00e9e. ”<\/p>\n
According to folk tradition, once a week, one finds oneself in family near the fire for the vigils fou\u00e9es. While waiting for the oven to be hot enough to cook the bread, breads were prepared with the rest of bread dough. Some bakers also made them for workmen who, in the morning, took them as breakfast on their way to work.<\/p>\n
It is a traditional recipe for the rural regions of western France, including the Loire Valley, Saumur in Anjou and Touraine.<\/p>\n
Due to its ancient origin, it is close to the Italian focaccia, the Proven\u00e7al fougasse, the Spanish fogaza, the Balkan poga\u010da, the Hungarian pog\u00e1csa, the German pogatschen and the Greek bougatsa. In the western part of France, there is a brioche in the Vend\u00e9e, known as the Vend\u00e9e fouace, a Nantes breeder, and a breeding ground in the island of Jersey.<\/p>\n
Rabelais describes the recipe of the fou\u00e9e or fouace in his novel Gargantua.<\/p>\n
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