The legend of Lyon papillotes – only available during Christmas 🎄🤤🎄
Révillon Chocolatier, founded in Lyon in 1898, played a major role in spreading the papillote throughout France and making it an essential symbol of Christmas in Lyon and elsewhere in France.
…… escargots papillotes #Révillon
The story of the papillotes from Lyon is a mix of romance, legend and culinary tradition and dates back to the end of the XVIIIᵉ century (around 1790-1800), in Lyon’s Terreaux district, a mecca for confectioners.
What is a🎄papillote ?
A papillote is a small chocolate (or sometimes a fruit-paste sweet) wrapped in a shiny foil (gold or silver), with a little inner slip of paper containing a quote, joke, riddle, poem, or fun message and sometimes even a “cracker-style” surprise.
🕯️ Legendary origin — love and theft in 18th-century Lyon
The tale starts in the late 1700s, in the district called Terreaux in Lyon — more precisely on the street Rue du Bât d’Argent.
The story goes that a confectioner, known as Sieur Papillot, had an apprentice who secretly stole chocolates from the shop — not to eat them, but to send them to a young woman he was in love with. To charm her, he wrapped each chocolate with a little love note.
Once discovered, Papillot dismissed the apprentice — but instead of condemning the idea, he found it brilliant. He began selling chocolates wrapped with messages (no longer love notes, but jokes, proverbs or amusing sayings), thus giving rise to what became the papillote.
😏 The alternate version જ⁀➴ ♡ …. the apprentice ends up marrying the girl — who happened to be Papillot’s niece — and the romance turned into a chocolaty tradition.
Name & deeper linguistic roots
Interestingly, the word papillote already existed in Lyon well before the candy: in 1617, papillote referred to small pieces of paper used for curling hair. Later, in culinary language, en papillote meant wrapping food in paper for cooking.
So when the chocolate-wrapped messages appeared, the existing term papillote naturally fitted the idea of wrapping something in paper.
From local legend to national tradition
It wasn’t until 1898 that the tradition really took off at scale, with the founding in Lyon of Révillon Chocolatier.
Over time, Révillon turned the papillote into a symbol of Christmas in France producing hundreds of millions of them each year. https://www.revillonchocolatier.fr
These days, while many French chocolatiers and confectioners produce papillotes — with variations in flavors, fillings, and even the messages inside — the tradition remains deeply tied to Lyon’s identity and festive culture.
🎄
Leave a Reply