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Monday 9 January, 2006

king and queen for a day

Filed under: Claire's Entries — claire @ 7:11 pm

In France January 6 is l’Epiphanie, which marks the occasion of the three wise kings visit to little baby J. Traditionally the day is celebrated among family and friends by sharing a galette de rois, a cake of kings. It is a lovely dessert that I would describe as a pie and is made of a light buttery pastry and typically has a marzipan filling, though we cheated a bought one with an apple filling(we both aren’t fans of marzipan). The fun of it is that a feve(bean) is hidden inside, well what is referred to as la feve and I imagine for a very long time was in fact a bean but these days is a small figurine depicting a fable. Who ever finds la feve is crowned King or Queen for the day and as well it is considered a good omen for the year ahead.

On this special occasion I was very careful in my choice of patisserie for the purchase, didn’t want to get a dud! So heading home I was all happy and excited, the cake in its bag with the golden crown ready for the auspicious event. That night after a lovely dinner prepared by Jim, of fresh tuna cooked in garlic, basil and lemon, it was time. First piece no feve, but much making of isn’t it yummy noises. Serving of seconds was done with much anticipation, we were serious this time we wanted that feve! Who would be crowned? C’est moi, c’est moi!!! I was so excited I almost choked on the dam thing. The feve turned out to be a little ornament depicting the fable of little red riding hood. Who was my big bad wolf I wondered? The coronation was performed, photos were taken for remembrance and I thought it was all over. But Jim had a surprise, from his pocket he produced a feve, le rat des villes et le rat des champs, he’d been the lucky recipient at work that day! So there we were King and Queen.

The next night while having drinks with people they produced a gateaux de rois, we declined first round offers and had a piece after the feve had been claimed, didn’t want to be greedy and perhaps its bad luck to be twice crowned.

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