Bergamote de Nancy

Appearance & taste

Bergamote de Nancy is a translucent hard sweet with an angular, flat shape that weighs 2 to 5 grams. Its amber colour is natural and develops during boiling; it contains no colourings. It tastes of bergamot. Because it is sucked and so eaten slowly, the aroma of the natural bergamot oil unfolds gradually in the mouth.

On every pack the list of ingredients states “bergamot oil” with the addition “bergamot oil is a natural product” or “bergamot oil is natural”. The best-before date is at most eight months after production.

Production

Only sugar, glucose syrup with a dextrose equivalent between 35 and 41, bergamot oil and water are used. The sweet mixture is boiled over an open flame at about 150 °C, known as “hard-crack boiling”: as it cools, the sugar becomes hard and brittle like glass and takes on its amber colour. After the natural bergamot oil has been added, the mass is poured onto a slab and cut with a cutter or a punching machine. All steps from preparing the mixture to cutting take place in the area.

Immediately after cutting, each sweet is individually wrapped in a transparent wrapper. The mass is very sensitive to humidity: unprotected, the sweets stick together, become opaque or milky and lose their hardness. They are sold in bulk packs of over 1 kg or in metal tins, cardboard boxes and transparent bags, with the exception of polyethylene bags.

Origin & history

The area covers the Lorraine departments of Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges. Nancy was the capital of the Duchy of Lorraine until it passed to France in 1766, and the seat of the ducal court.

A pastille flavoured with natural bergamot oil is first described in 1751 in the work “Le cannaméliste français” by Gilliers, cook to Stanislaus I Leszczyński, the last Duke of Lorraine and Bar; at the time it was used to perfume the breath. In 1857 the confectioner Jean Frédéric Godefroy Lillich developed the definitive method of production, in which the aroma holds better in the boiled sugar. The Lorraine confectioners pass on the know-how.

At the 1909 World Exhibition the sweets were shown in metal tins with a picture of the Place Stanislas. The Inventory of the Culinary Heritage of Lorraine (1998) and the Larousse Gastronomique (2000) describe them. According to the specification, it is the only traditional French confectionery whose flavour comes from natural bergamot oil.