chandeleur Bing

Feb 5

2 min read

Updated: Sep 28

When I look into the origins of French religious celebrations and traditions, many seem to have morphed over time into yet another now mostly secular excuse to eat or drink some delicacy or other. Perhaps it is just my own food obsessed brain that sees nothing else. Nevertheless, no sooner had our livers started recovering from Christmas excesses and the January junta of the galette des rois, some even trying a dry January cleanse, that we are summoned through all-pervading marketing and peer pressure to devour a colossal amount of delicious crêpes for the Chandeleur (official date 2 February). Here is a beautiful painting by Pieter Aertsen called The Pancake Bakery (1560) exposed at the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam which proves this French, Roman Swiss and Belgian tradition dates way way back.

The Pancake Bakery by Pieter Aertsen (1560)

How did the chandeleur start?

Many say that this originated in antique Pagan Roman traditions, either Parentalia, which honored the dead with rituals including candles, or Lupercalia which celebrated fertility, purification, and the renewal of life. Either way, the return of the sun and light with longer days was at the heart of the festivities. A lot of Pagan habits were integrated in Christianity, in this case to mark the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, 40 days after Christmas. It is believed that, in the 5^th century, the Pope Gélase 1st launched the ritual of festa candelarum during which the faithful carried candlemas during a long, cold, tiring procession and were comforted with a warm, flour and egg based treat that eventually progressed to pancakes. The beautiful round golden crêpes are meant to symbolize the glorious sun.

Some funny chandeleur superstitions :

It is said that farmers would finish their winter stock of flour by making many crêpes to avoid bad luck.

Another belief was that a woman would get married if she was able to turn the pancake 6 times in a row without dropping it to the floor or that she could protect her home as a newly wed by flipping a pancake on top of a cupboard.

Yet another is that flipping a pancake in the pan without dropping it with your right hand while holding a gold coin in your left hand brings good luck.

So many crêpes, so little time

There are a million different versions of pancakes in the world: French crêpes and galettes, Canadian pancakes, Greek blinis, South Indian dosas, Vietnamese Bánh xèo, Japanese Okonomiyaki, Algerian Mahdjouba… Which is yours?