La Fête des Trois Rois (Épiphanie)

I honestly don't know a whole lot about this tradition. This is what I have stitched together between a memory of a culture lesson in French class, and seeing examples here in Switzerland.To celebrate the coming of the three kings to visit the baby Jesus (Épiphanie), on the 6th of January in many European countries there is a sort of party and traditional game. The "Galette des Rois" or in direct translation "cake of kings" are often today a rounded chain of dough balls that loosely resemble a crown, but that is not what signifies them. Baked somewhere into the bread is a tiny figurine (originally the baby Jesus), and whoever finds this figurine in their portion of the cake becomes king for the day.


My host family had this bread the night of the fifth just for fun. Monkia played a trick on us by baking a tiny member of the royal family in every single one of the portions! Everyone was king! Elise was so excited when she found her's! Apparently Max always wins, and just for proof, that afternoon he had found a ceramic pig in the 25 piece Galette des Rois they had for his Latin class. We played around by sneaking them into people's food all throughout dinner. I got a tiny king in my salad! My host family has a yellow, felt crown that we passed around during dinner, but no one was actually given the rights of the king. (To boss around everyone else.)




This is one of the three Galettes des Rois that we had after choir practice on the 6th. I did not actually get to try one because they are made with gluten, but apparently they were sweet and delicious! There was a normal cake form in the center with the dough ball sections all around the edge which possibly contained the figurine. Whoever found it could then claim their paper crown. I think for teenagers the potential for food is far more exciting than any special ranking. In contrast, my favorite part of this tradition is to see perfectly respectable adults walking around through the streets with paper crows on their heads and grins on their faces!