focaccia or fougasse a flat bread which belongs essentially to the northern shores of the Mediterranean and has its origin in classical antiquity. In ancient Rome panis focacius denoted a flat bread cooked in the ashes (focus meant hearth). Thence came the term focacia, focaccia in modern Italian, fougasse in the south of France, and fouace in the north of France.
P. and M. Hyman (in the IPCF volume on Provence, 1995) remark that in France this form of bread had become a luxury item by the end of the Middle Ages. It could be, as at Amiens, a simple white bread; or it could be enriched as in Provence, where 14th- and 15th-century documents equate it with placentula, i.e. a sort of ‘cake’. This enrichment made the product so different from plain bread that in at least one place it escaped a tax on bread. For many centuries it has had an association with Christmas Eve and Epiphany (cf. the gâteau des rois described under galette—a type of fougasse could fill this role in Provence). However, what figured as one of the thirteen desserts on Christmas Eve was a variation called fougassette, a sweetened version with orange flower water.
