La Fête des Rois

Bonjour tout le mode!
Tomorrow is January 6, which is Epiphany, or the day that the three Magi, or Wise Men,  arrived in Bethlehem to see the little baby Jesus.  It is always so funny to see church Christmas pageants, because once the baby is born, then the Magi come down to aisle to venerate the newborn.  It was when I was teaching French that I realized exactly why we have 12 days of Christmas, because it took them that long to reach Bethlehem.
Actually, Epiphany was started around the time of the pagans, who had holiday that celebrated the long nights of winter.  For the Fête des Rois, the French celebrate by having a party.  They have a galette des rois, which is a pretty cool cake.  Here in the States, you can order a king's cake from www.kingscake.com, or you can find them at several places here in Los Angeles.  There is the Normandie Bakery, which allows you to pre-order cakes in several sizes, and Porto's Bakery, to name just two. They are round and are more like a sweet bread than what we think of as cake.  The most important part of the king cake is the little token that is hidden inside.  It can be a bean, a small token, or a little plastic baby Jesus.  When you get the cake, the token is in a baggie, and it's up to you to hide it  the cake. The hardest part is making the cake look untouched after you have hidden the token.
At your party, the youngest person sits under the table and says who gets each slice of cake as it is cut.  Instead of diving into the gooey goodness of the cake, everyone waits until the entire group has been given a piece, then they stab it all over first to see if the lucky token is in their piece.  If you are lucky enough to get it, then you are crowned with the golden paper crown and you become king or queen of the party!

Notice the little plastic baby Jesus on the cake!

When I was in the classroom, I would often make a box cake that contained the little token and serve it at my French Club meeting.  For several years, I ordered a 'real' King's cake, which was fun and yummy. For more information, here is an article from thelocal.fr, which is also a great website for French news in English. The article even includes a recipe, so if you are so inclined, you can try to make one youurself!  Then, of course, take a photo and put it in the comment section so that we can all be impressed.

On a side note, I can't believe that this blog is almost 9 years old!  Wow...  I was not consistent in posting; something that is obvious is you look at the posting dates.  In 2017,  my resolution is to post something at least once a week.  If you have any suggestions for a blog post, let me know!