Neapolitan cooks had a reputation for creating dishes with irresistible contrasts between sweet and savory, firm and soft, or in the case of the napolitain, crisp and creamy. He was right to credit the chefs of Naples for this invention. The great French chef and pastry artist Careme was the first to popularize the dessert in the early 1800s, but even then, he described it as being “of ancient origin.” Known in France as mille-feuille and sometimes called millefoglie in Italy, the dessert’s older names translate into “thousand leaves” for its many flaky layers of pastry surrounding its custard cream. Neapolitan food is rightly famous today for another great invention, the pizza, but its claim to the delicate pastry is less well-known. The dessert’s original name was a napolitain, or in English, a neapolitan – that is, a sweet treat in the style of Naples. However, the tasty dessert has nothing to do with the famous general and in fact has its roots in Italian culinary history, not French military history. With a lowercase “n,” a napoleon is a flaky pastry layered with custard and icing. When it’s written with a capital letter, Napoleon refers to the French military leader. “Napoleon translates into “thousand leaves” for its many flaky layers of pastry surrounding its custard cream”
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