14/08/2026
Today the Food Tour de France finishes in Belfort — the Lion city, the gateway between Alsace and Franche-Comté, whose garrison held out for 103 days against the Prussian siege in 1870 and 1871. And today we are talking about a bread that arrived in this territory not through culinary invention but through displacement. A small, golden, man-shaped brioche that carries the memory of a war and a community that chose to remain French.
When the Franco-Prussian War ended in 1871 and France was forced to cede Alsace to the newly unified German Empire, tens of thousands of Alsatians made a choice. Rather than become German subjects, they crossed the border and resettled in France. Many came to the Territoire de Belfort — the one piece of the old Alsatian territory that France had insisted on retaining in the peace negotiations, specifically because of the symbolic importance of its resistance. And those Alsatian refugees brought with them their language, their customs, their recipes and their seasonal food traditions. Including a small man-shaped enriched bread that in Alsace was called the Mannele or the Mannala. In the Territoire de Belfort it became the jeanbonhomme — the good fellow, the little man. A French name for an Alsatian tradition that had crossed a border with the people who made it.
The jeanbonhomme appears in every bakery in Belfort from Saint Nicolas Day on the 6th of December through to Christmas — a seasonal tradition that is strongly Alsatian in character and that distinguishes this corner of France from the rest of the country. Rich bread dough — flour, sugar, salt, milk, eggs, butter, yeast — shaped into a small man, rested, glazed with egg yolk beaten with a little milk and baked until deeply golden. Eaten on the day it is made, warm, with hot chocolate. Some versions include chocolate chips pressed into the dough before baking — the chips marking the eyes and buttons of the bonhomme, melting into pools as it bakes. The jeanbonhomme is not found in Alsace itself in this form. It is not found in the rest of Franche-Comté. It exists specifically in the Territoire de Belfort because the Alsatians who came here in 1871 brought it and called it something new. An edible consequence of a nineteenth century war. A bread that chose France.
The full episode is on Fabulously Delicious now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Had you ever heard of the jeanbonhomme before today? 👇