Salut c’est Géraldine, bienvenue sur Comme
une Française TV, Sound French, even to the French!
In the early days of January, yet another
occasion to get together
around the dining table and eat!
We take out some cardboard crowns and choose
a new king or queen for a day; although in
France we have a complicated relationship
with royalty.
But for one day we don’t care, because la
Galette des Rois is really tasty!
Let’s dive in!
La tradition
La tradition , tradition, of this day celebrates
l’Épiphanie the Epiphany, the day when
les Rois Mages, the three Magis or three kings
visited baby Jesus to give him presents.
It takes place on the 6th of January.
But most of the actual customs for the day,
such as the cake and choosing a king, date
back to pagan Roman times.
It’s been used by the Christian church for
centuries, but nowadays it’s been mostly
secularised again…
Mostly because it’s a tasty cake.
La Galette des Rois is present in public schools,
some professional canteens as well and even
in a special reception at L’Élysée, the
residence of our President of the Republic.
At the center of the day, there is la galette des Rois, the Kings’ galette.
It’s a special cake filled with layers of
la frangipane , a filling made of sugar, butter,
eggs and ground almonds.
That’s the most common recipe, at least.
In the South of France, they also use a cake
made of brioche.
In all cases, traditionally, inside the cake
is baked une fève, “a bean."
Nowadays it’s often a small figurine in
porcelain, sometimes plastic.
For marketing reasons, it often represents
a character in a new movie or a cultural icon,
but it can be more neutral as well.
Some people collect these small trinkets;
this collection is called la fabophilie,
the passion of collecting les fèves.
When eating the galette in family, the youngest
child gets to hide under the table
when someone is cutting the cake.
The child is then asked who gets each slice,
as they are cut.
When we get to finally eat the cake, someone
will find la fève in their slice, and they’re
the new king or queen ! They get to wear the
cardboard crown that is often sold with the galette.
This tradition is called tirer les Rois , to
pick the kings at random.
For simplicity, when a small enough child
or a tall enough table isn’t available,
we just pick the slices at random ourselves.
During the special reception at le palais
de l’Élysée , the Elysée palace in Paris
with the President, there’s no bean put
in the cake, since it would be in bad taste
to pick a King for the Republic!
In the rest of the country, we don’t have
such qualms; we can buy the galette with bean
and crowns in any supermarket or, better,
at la boulangerie without a problem.
You can buy a galette for six in a boulangerie
for around twenty euros.
Autour de la galette, around the galette,
you’ll find some really old history.
Picking a new King with a bean in a cake was
already a popular
tradition in ancient Rome and Babylon.
They even had a child choosing from under
the table!
Picking a new King for one day is also close
to the spirit of Carnival, or more likely
the medieval Fête des Fous, the feast of
fools, a wild popular party in early January.
That day, all around the city, the people
and the church drank and danced, and the mob
chose their one-day Pope.
This party used to happen right up until the
16th century.
Three centuries later, Victor Hugo used it
to open his great novel Notre-Dame de Paris,
the story of the hunchback Quasimodo.
But the great question that truly links us
together culturally, through time and space,
is really this mystery of life: Why is the
bean always
under your knife when you cut the cake??
Open your eyes next time, and tell me if it
happens to you too!
Et toi ? Do you eat a King Cake for this day?
Have you ever tasted a French galette des
Rois?
Which other customs of your country involve
traditional food?
Tell me in the comments section., I want to
hear from you!
If you’re on Youtube, you’ll find a link
below this video to the blog CommeUneFrançaise.com:
on the site I read all the comments and answer
all your questions too!
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Allez, salut !
