To Draw a King ~ Galette des Rois for Epiphanytide

Galette des Rois at the Walk of the Kings 

A few days ago I wrote about the Walk of the Kings; a sponsored walk which takes place each year around Epiphany. At the end all the walkers gather for a simple lunch of bread and soup, but we are also treated to Galette des Rois.

Galette des Rois, or 'King Cake', is intimately associated with the Epiphany season, especially in France. The cake takes its name from the Kings, who Matthew's Gospel tells us visited the Christ child on this day. It began around three (or seven in some reports) centuries ago as a dry French bread-style cake with sugar on top and a small bean, charm, or figurine, known as la fève or the King Cake trinket, inside it. Although it began in this way it now comes in all manner of different varieties depending on the country it's made in. Some are made from sweet brioche sprinkled with coloured sugar. Others use puff pastry filled wuth apple, almond, or chocolate/pear paste.

King Cake season lasts from the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas to Shrove Tuesday. In the Southern states of the US it is associated with Mardis Gras/Carnival, which again lasts from Epiphany Eve until Lent Eve, which there is known as 'Fat Tuesday'. It's believed that the King Cake was introduced to New Orleans from France in 1870. The themes of Mardi Gras are reflected in its colours, which were adopted only just after the King Cake tradition arrived there; purple for justice, green for faith, and gold for power.

Tradition tells us that the purpose of the King Cake is to 'draw the kings' to Epiphany, which is one reason why the cakes are so ostentatiously decorated. As for the bean or charm; the la fève is again part of the endlessly weaving theme that we find again and again in our folk traditions; that of the World Turned Upside Down. Whoever found it was tasked with providing the next year's cake but also became 'King for a Day', with all the blessings and responsibilities that that entailed. That this was a subversive act is suggested by another tradition; that of cutting the cake into the exact number of slices for those present, but also ensuring that there was an extra slice, known as "the share of God," "share of the Virgin Mary," or "share of the poor", and which was intended for the first poor person to arrive at the home, making it possible for the poorest of strangers to become king.

In England the 'Twelfth Cake' upheld a similar tradition but, uniquely, other items were often included, with whoever found the clove being “the villain, the twig, the fool, and the rag, the tart”. Anything spicy or hot, like ginger snaps and spiced ale, was considered proper Twelfth Night fare, recalling the costly spices brought by the Wise Men. Another English Epiphany dessert was the jam tart, but made into a six-point star for the occasion to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem, and thus called Epiphany tart. The discerning English cook sometimes tried to use thirteen different coloured jams on the tart on this day for luck, creating a dessert with the appearance of stained glass.” (The Old Foodie). As for the Twelfth Cake, it also contained a bean, but this would be in one side with a pea in the other. The man who found the bean, and the woman, who found the pea, would become King and Queen, or Lord and Lady of Misrule.

Le gâteau des Rois, by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1774

These days, the celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas having been discouraged during the Industrial Revolution (more important to work than feast), our Twelfth Night cake has largely been replaced by Christmas cake, and so subsumed into the shorter two or three day celebrations. No wonder that we often feel that we've eaten two weeks worth of food in one day at Christmas; we actually have!

The Epiphany Cake, and its loss from our own traditions, reminds me that I would like to reclaim my own eating from kronos (secular time) this year, and return it to kairos (sacred time). No wonder that we so often feel unsatisfied by the food we eat. We have forgotten how to 'draw out the king'.

References:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_cake

https://www.frenchasyoulikeit.com/galette-des-rois-a-sweet-french-tradition/

http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2007/01/twelfth-day-of-christmas.html?m=1