The interwar Kaunas featured several famous confectionary factories. Kotryna Sarapinaitė, a master’s student at the Faculty of Humanities of Vytautas Magnus University, who researches Lithuanian and world gastronomic culture, tells about their popular sweets and disagreements.
“Goldfish”, “Cat’s Tongue”, “Birds of Paradise”, “Crayfish Necks” – these were some of the names of sweets produced in Kaunas confectionary factories during the interwar period. Abrikos, Aškinazi, and Tilka factories were already producing candies of chocolate, mint, lemon, strawberry, marzipan, gooseberry, and a myriad of other flavours 100 years ago.
Today, there is little information about the Abrikos factory, according to Sarapinaitė.
“It is written that it produced a large quantity of products – more than ten different types. Today, only the factory chimney remains, which can be visited on Daukšos Street 28 in Kaunas,” she said.
“Aškinazi was built at the end of the 19th century. It was suppressed during the First World War but was restored after Lithuania regained independence.
“Tilka was a company founded by the Tilmansai family, a very famous family not only in the chocolate industry, together with the Kagan brothers. In 1921, they decided to open a new sweets factory together in Šančiai. The name Tilka came from the founders Tilmansai and Kagans,” Sarapinaitė explained.
Special sweets were dedicated to the sixtieth anniversary of President Antanas Smetona in 1934.
“I would single out the chocolate that was dedicated to Antanas Smetona. It was advertised with the following message: ‘Demand our cheapest chocolate everywhere, the chocolate of President Antanas Smetona’. A box of chocolates was also dedicated to President Smetona and is now kept in the Kaunas Presidential Palace. It is a velvety dark green box with many small drawers – a special exclusive set,” the researcher said.
There were also disagreements between the sweets factories. Tilka got into an unpleasant situation when it sued Aškinazi over the “Mountain Cow”.
“This was a special chocolate which was the subject of litigation as to who had the right to produce it. In the end, it was attributed to Tilka. There was also litigation over ‘Crayfish Necks’ chocolate. It is very interesting that the press described how it was made. It was a tub of sugar syrup filled with chocolate,” Sarapinaitė noted.
There were also plenty of patisseries in interwar Kaunas that used to sell their own products. They differed from cafés in that they had only a few branded confectionery products and the possibility of ordering coffee and tea. In contrast, cafés also served lunch and dinner.
According to Sarapinaitė, Aleksandras Perkovskis Patisserie, located at Laisvės Avenue 82, and Maksas Konradas Patisserie, located at Laisvės Avenue 45, were the most popular in interwar Kaunas. They also served as social and cultural hubs.
“The fact that Perkovskis Patisserie was a social and cultural centre is evidenced by the chess players, who loved to gather there and hold various discussions. It is a bit different with Konradas Patisserie, which can also be seen as a symbol of the bohemian community. It was not only a place to eat but also to socialise and discuss. People queued up and waited for hours to get in.” Sarapinaitė said.
“All kinds of literary and artistic topics were discussed there. An issue of the newspaper ‘Diena’, published in the 1930s, wrote: ‘If you want to be considered a writer, a poet, a painter, a journalist, go to Konradas Patisserie every day and sit for a few hours among the owners of this establishment’,” she added.
Kaunas patisseries were also not strangers to competition, which manifested itself in criticism in the press.
“In Konradas Patisserie you could smoke and bring dogs. Many newspapers wrote that there were vermin and cockroaches, dirty dogs running around, and that it was too smoky. But that was very natural,” said researcher Sarapinaitė.
“A lady who visited Perkovskis Patisserie, even though she was very busy, would still run to Konradas Patisserie to talk to her friends, have a coffee and a pastry. This led to resentment about customers being stolen, as well as exaggerated, ugly complaints, which were made public in the newspapers,” she added.
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