Here’s what I know about croissants,” my friend Emily, a former Seattleite who now lives in Paris, recently wrote me, providing ground rules for enjoying that most French of pastries. “Never, ever use them as bread for a sandwich. The French have a love/hate relationship with the sandwich to begin with . . . and the idea of letting a perfectly good croissant get soggy from tomato and mayonnaise . . . no way! Which, I guess,” she continues, “is the most important thing to remember about croissants: They are only for breakfast! Or for a mid-afternoon snack. But since mid-afternoon snacks are only really acceptable for those under the age of 10, while you may see a kid eating pain au chocolat on the playground, you won’t see an adult eating a croissant at 4:00.”

But what about the actual eating? Sylvie Nogaki, who studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and runs the French-focused catering company Sylvie Cooks, says eating a croissant is an act of appreciation. “I never saw anyone eat a croissant walking down the street. Even when people only had a minute, they savored what they were eating. Usually people pull off a bite with their fingers, letting the croissant break along its own lines and eat that, rather than biting into them. People dipped that bite into their coffee or added jam if they liked.”

Oops, I thought. I usually bite into my croissants—and get buttery flakes all over my shirt. I’ve eaten croissant sandwiches, and I’ve eaten late-afternoon croissant snacks. I’ve spent hours crisscrossing Seattle, from Honore and Cafe Besalu in Ballard to Bakery Nouveau in West Seattle (and now Capitol Hill) to Cafe de Leon in Queen Anne, sampling the city’s best croissants. But the proper, polite, or best way to enjoy them is something I’d never considered. That isn’t the case for the many Seattle bakers I spoke with.

Nohra Belaid of Ines Patisserie in Madison Valley wuple of hours after it is made. Customers come in after 5 p.m. and are surprised that croissants are no longer available. After 5 p.m., a croissant is no longer fresh.”

Nohra Belaid of Ines Patisserie in Madison Valley wuple of hours after it is made. Customers come in after 5 p.m. and are surprised that croissants are no

Though I think of croissants as quintessentially French, Belaid explained that they’re actually a type of viennoiserie—a category of pastry made of enriched yeast-leavened dough from Vienna. The croissant was originally based on a less-seductively named, crescent-shaped bread roll was supng of the siege of Vienna, which had been started 150 years earlier by Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire.

Though I think of croissants as quintessentially French, Belaid explained that they’re actually a type of viennoiserie—a category of pastry made of enriched yeast-leavened dough from Vienna. The croissant was originally based on a less-seductively named, crescent-shaped bread roll was supng of the

In one popular variation on this origin story (which historians believe first appeared in In one popular variation on this origin story (which historians believe first appeared in the the French enarousse Gas” E

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