eating.

This is the time of the year when the French really like to eat well. Ok so christmas was the real pinnacle of the feasting but the flow-over period seems to be quite extended.

I saw this figure the other day: around 80% of all champagne produced in France is consumed between Christmas and New Year. Add to that foie gras and lobster and truffles and the incredible 'buche' (the traditional Christmas desert; steamed pudding cannot compare), I tell you what - je me suis régalée.

Anyway I was going to tell you about the Galette des Rois. The galette is like a pie in appearance, golden and glazed and full of promise. It's made of flakey pastry and filled with a sweet almond paste, it's good the first 2 times but after that a little stodgy. The galette is eaten on the 6th of January - epiphany - and then for several weeks after. Hidden inside each galette is a little figurine (a fève), and whoever finds this in their slice, becomes king or queen for the day and gets to wear the cardboard crown that came with the pie. Depending on how much you paid for you galette, you can find all kinds of things inside. Between home and grandma and invitiations to friends houses, I would say the kids have had a go at around a dozen galettes. Little A showed me a pocketful of his winnings (the kids wont eat left-over galette if the 'fève has already been found, I don't actually think they like it) and there was everything from a gilt camel to a ceramic baby Jesus. I just went to Wikipedia and aparently the tradition dates from the the time of Ancient rome when the Romans celebrated the god of saturn and used the hidden fève to elect the king of the celebrations.

There you go, you learn something new everyday, or at least I hope you do!

ciao