A new tradition

This week I had my first galette des rois, or "King’s Cake"!  It is a cake made to celebrate January 6^th, or Epiphany/Little Christmas, but has become an major tradition/celebration in France no matter how religious one is.  It is served throughout the month of January and the boulangeries here have many displays that look like this:

Galettes des rois boulangerie display

(I was lucky enough to have a homemade one, though!)

Each cake has a fève (trinket) in it, and whoever gets the piece of cake with the fève "becomes" the king or queen.

Here is the full process of the galette des rois:

Someone cuts the cake into equal size pieces according to the number of people eating the cake.  Then the youngest person in the group must go underneath the table where everyone is sitting and randomly decide who gets which piece of cake when.  (The point of this is that the person underneath the table cannot see what the pieces look like incase the fève is visible.) Once everyone has their piece one must eat it carefully, in hopes that you have the fève!  Whoever has the fève is given a little crown to wear and is named the king or queen.  The new royal then chooses someone else in the group to be their king or queen to “rule” aside them.

At age 23 this tradition was a lot of fun so I can only imagine how exciting it must be to become king or queen when you are younger!  There’s even a song about the cake: “J’aime la galette, savez vous comment.  Quand elle est bien faite, avec du beurre dedans…” (I love cake, you know how. When it’s well made, with butter inside…”) Trust me, it sounds better in French.

I really hope to make this tradition a part of my life no matter what country I live in.  I love the holiday season so any excuse to keep it going a bit longer is okay in my book.  It makes the cold of January a little less bitter, and while it won’t have quite the same effect in the U.S. as it does here in France (for example, we won’t have boulangeries on every corner with fun displays), I think it is well worth attempting to bring back across the pond. (Plus, the cake is delicious.)  So, depending on where I am living next January I will host a dinner and attempt to create a galette des rois in order to keep my new, adopted tradition going. (I’ll even sing the song, promise.)

Word of the Post: une nouvelle tradition -- a new tradition