INSIDE MAURITIUS THE ART OF DISCOVERY 68 The island is an open book; its entire history contained in the place names. Take Délices: that is the name of the stream and of the estate where the biscuit factory is located on the ruins of an old sugar factory mill. To get there you have to cross the bridge that spans La Chaux river at Mahébourg. On its western bank, as you leave Ville Noire (a slave village in colonial times), a luxuriant path leads off to the top of the hill. This is where the factory stands, surrounded by manioc fields irrigated by a hydraulic ram (a pump invented by Joseph de Montgolfier in 1792). In the courtyard, an ancient Indian almond tree stands guard over the story – and the history. GUIDED TOUR Once past the door of the shed, you plunge into the industrious atmosphere of the nineteenth century. The heat of the enormous oven fired by ravenala leaves, the scent of the starch and the sugar emanating from the stoves, the repetitive movements of ten or so workers dressed in long aprons and cream-coloured mob caps, the noise of the wire metal moulds banging together. The sight is captivating. Step by step, we watch the making of the famous biscuit. Once weighed on a scale made in 1839 by Henry Pooley & Son in Liverpool, the peeled manioc roots are pressed and then poured into a “cyclone” refiner to extract the water and obtain a dry flour, which is then sieved by hand. After that they add the flour, the sugar, and one of the seven natural flavours: butter, coconut, milk, aniseed, vanilla, chocolate, or cinnamon. The precise doses are one of the best-kept secrets on the island! Only Jana, the head supervisor, who has worked here for twelve years, is in the know: “I watch over the preparation. Then the baking, which, depending on the ambient humidity, can vary by a few crucial minutes.” Nearly twenty thousand biscuits are made every day. Once they are cooked, they are lined up in tins, ready to be packed. In a corner of the workshop, three female employees – so skilled they don’t need to watch what they do – sit at a table like schoolgirls at their desks: the first one lines up the biscuits, the second wraps them in greaseproof paper, sealed with corn starch, and the third covers the wrapping in a different colour according to the flavour. TIME REGAINED The adventure has continued thus since 1870, when the biscuits were first sold. It all started in the early nineteenth century when Fabien Rault’s ancestor left his native Brittany to set up in sugar cane production in Mauritius (then Isle de France). To ease the homesickness for his exiled father, his son Hilarion perfected a recipe “like a Breton shortbread biscuit”. As there was no wheat, he used manioc (a root from South America, introduced into the island by the governor from Saint-Malo, Mahé de La Bourdonnais, to feed cattle and slaves). Initially snubbed, the biscuit won a silver medal at the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition in London. During the First World War, when basic foodstuffs were severely lacking, it saved many of the Manioc fields around the Rault factory, on land around Délices, Ville Noire. Champs de manioc autour de l'usine Rault, sur les terres de Délices, Ville Noire.
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