violette de Toulouse

Toulouse is la Ville Rose for the colour of its bricks, but it’s also ‘Violet city’, having cultivated violets ever since the reign of Napoleon III, when one of his officers brought violets back from Parma for his sweetheart.

Now cultivated in market gardens in the outskirts of the ever-growing city, the violets (along with other flowers and seeds) are made into little treats, in the medieval tradition of sugared flowers: the flowers are washed, quickly shaken dry, covered with powdered sugar, dried and sterilized, before being plunged into hot sugar syrup. They are still made today at Candiflor, in business since 1818, and mostly used for decorating cakes.

But in Toulouse, crystallized violets and violet confits (said to be good with foie gras), lollypops, violet dark chocolate, nougats and pralines and more, are all available, notably on a barge in the Canal du Midi called La Maison de Violette.