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The Art of Living in Season
Epiphany
Le gâteau des Rois (King’s cake) is displayed in bakeries throughout France for most of the month of January, starting January 6. The cake is sold with a golden paper crown, and a little porcelain figure. Families at home hide this figurine inside the cake: the person who gets it in his or her slice is king or queen for the day – and has to treat the present company to the next cake, and so on until the end of the season. My book provides an extended interpretation of this tradition.
The custom goes back to medieval times when the figure was a fava bean, which is why it is still called la fève. The early porcelain fèves, in the late 1800's, used to be representations of baby Jesus or a magi. At present, however, you can find fèves of all sorts of characters, including Asterix le Gaulois, farm animals, Harry Potter, and even tiny santons de Provence. Some children become avid collectors of the latest kinds, while adults sometimes search through flea-markets for older fèves. Collectors are known as Fabophiles.
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