Today is La Chandeleur

2nd February : La Chandeleur 

Le jour des Crêpes (Pancake Day)

This is one "fête" I wasn't familiar with in France, and it's not to be confused with Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras the day us anglophones traditionally know as Pancake Day. La Chandeleur is known as "Candelmas" in English, probably not a very well known name except maybe for any religious readers? It's a Christian celebration of the "presentation of Jesus Christ at the Temple" and the purification of his mother the Virgin Saint. The common name "Chandeleur" or Candlemas comes from the tradition of lighting candles at midnight as a symbol of the purification.

Today it is known as "Crêpe day" because they say that Pope Gélase the 1st gave out crêpes to the pilgrims arriving in Rome. Also the round shape and golden colour of the crêpe reminds us of the Sun, representing the end of the winter and the return of warmer weather.

There are many sayings in France related to this day, the meaning behind most of them being that if its nice weather on this day then winter is now behind us. It depends where you were in France today, in Brittany it was lovely! 9 degrees and sunny this morning, just a bit of light rain this afternoon and evening. Northern parts of France had black ice and -5 degrees! So who knows if winter is behind us or not!

For those not at all familiar with french food, a crêpe is like a pancake but thinner, it is a tradition here in Brittany especially. It is filled with sweet things such as, sugar, chocolate, caramel, honey etc. One of my favourites is "beurre sucre", breton salted butter and sugar, delicious! Certainly don't knock it unless you've tried it.

I bought crêpes for us today from our boulangerie, knowing how delicious they were I wasn't even tempted to make my own! I'm a good pancake maker and Francois makes a great Galette (the Breton savoury version) but neither of us tend to make traditional crêpes. I will do it one day soon.