Fête des Crêpes

It's almost Chandeleur, and you know what that means!

Well, if you didn't know, then I'll admit that I didn't either--until a few hours ago, at least. Chandeleur is actually a religiously-based holiday set always on February 2, which is exactly 40 days after Christmas. Originally, it was a feast day celebrating the presentation of baby Jesus at the Temple. In the U.S., it is sometimes remembered as Candlemas (another holiday that I had never heard of...) however the date is more often remembered as the non-religious Groundhog Day!

In France, however, Feburary 2nd is a day of eating crêpes.

Why are the delicious creations known as crêpes associated with Chandeleur? I have no idea, and neither do my host parents (I asked them last night). But I'm glad they are! Kat, Ariana, and I celebrated Chandeleur tonight--two days early--at Malou's appartment. I must say, it is a delicious holiday.

First, the four of us made buckwheat crêpes--also called galettes--and filled them with ham, cheese, and mushrooms. These, obviously, were our dinner. Afterwards came the fun part: sugar crêpes. We each took turns flipping the crêpes for good luck--a strange tradition of Chandeleur. Only Arianna managed to flip her crêpe with a coin in her other hand, which is meant to bring her a whole lot of luck for this year! She also managed to capture my crêpe-flipping success on video! My host mother in Tours tried to teach me how to do it multiple times, and they all ended in dismal disaster, so I was quite surprised when I actually succeeded tonight! Notice how Malou put out the maroon towel beneath our feet, though: it was there just in case we failed to flip the crêpes and they fell splat on the floor! Luckily, the three of us were victorious and the towel was unnecessary!

 

Kat, about to flip her crêpe.

Kat made a delicious caramel sauce, and then I helped her caramelize some banana slices. Honestly, it was a feast: we could load our crêpes with nutella, caramelized bananas, regular banana slices, caramel sauce, any combination of the above....

After stuffing ourselves, we finished off our cider (the alcoholic kind, of course, which goes perfectly with crêpes) and played three very intense rounds of Pick-Up Sticks. None of us had played that game in years, and we were all laughing at the ridiculousness of it. Overall, tonight was truly a great end to this week. Merry Chandeleur, everyone!