In this video, we explore thirty provinces from the old map of France, the one before the administrative reform, and one dessert per province: the kind a grandmother would make in her kitchen, without ever consulting a recipe book. Some are still very much alive, like Basque cake or Vendée brioche. Others, like Comtois gaude or Orléans cotignac, have almost entirely disappeared from French tables.

As we explore these traditions, we rediscover practices that are rarely seen today: dough beaten by hand for hours, a dessert broken rather than cut to avoid bad luck, a pastry chef's dye kept secret for generations. We also encounter legends, some true, others embellished over time, and a few real stories, like that of these regional desserts now protected by an official designation.

These are more than just recipes. Entire provinces disappeared from official maps in 2016, and for many, only the name of a cake remains. Rediscovering them is a simple way to keep a bit of that memory alive before it fades completely.

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