Jielbeaumadier boite babeluttes de lille 2010

A Babelutte is a sort of long

toffee Toffee is an English confection made by caramelizing sugar or molasses (creating inverted sugar) along with butter, and occasionally flour. The mixture is heated until its temperature reaches the hard crack stage of . While being prepar ...

flavoured with

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of pl ...

or vergeoise (demerara sugar) from

Veurne Veurne (; , ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality in the Belgium, Belgian Provinces of Belgium, province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the town of Veurne proper and the settlements of , , ...

, in Westhoek (

West Flanders West Flanders is the westernmost province of the Flemish Region, in Belgium. It is the only coastal Belgian province, facing the North Sea to the northwest. It has land borders with the Dutch province of Zeeland to the northeast, the Flemis ...

, Belgium).Bernard Padoan
C'est belge et c'est connu dans le monde entier II
''

Le Soir ''Le Soir'' (, ) is a French-language Belgian daily newspaper. Founded in 1887 by Émile Rossel, it was intended as a politically independent source of news. Together with '' La Libre Belgique'', it is one of the most popular Francophone newsp ...

'', 25 July 1997. The candy is closely related to

Butterscotch Butterscotch is a type of confection whose primary ingredients are brown sugar and butter. Some recipes include corn syrup, cream, vanilla, and salt. The earliest known recipes, in mid-19th century Yorkshire, used treacle (molasses) in plac ...

Etymology

The name is likely to come from the

Flemish Flemish may refer to: * Flemish, adjective for Flanders, Belgium * Flemish region, one of the three regions of Belgium *Flemish Community, one of the three constitutionally defined language communities of Belgium * Flemish dialects, a Dutch dialec ...

"babbelen", speaking a lot, and "uit", finished because when you eat the toffee, you cannot speak anymore (either because you are enjoying it or because you cannot open the mouth). An opposing but similar explanation attributes the origin of the word to "babbelle" (which means "chatty" in Ch'ti).

History

The candy originates from the 19th century, from a couple that prepared and sold it to tourists on Belgian coastal beaches.

Babelutte de Lille

The Babelutte de

Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...

is a famous babelutte in the

Nord-Pas-de-Calais Nord-Pas-de-Calais (; ; West Flemish: ''Nôord-Nauw van Kales'') was a former regions of France, administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new Regions of France, region Hauts-de-France. It consisted of the ...

Brands and companies

Moeder Babelutte is a small chain of shops in western Flanders that purveys babelutte, along with other sweets.

References

Belgian confectionery French confectionery {{confection-stub