King (or Queen) for a day

The galette des rois, a traditional French cake eaten in January with a little porcelain trinket, or fève, hidden inside.

The galette des rois, or king cake, is centuries-old tradition, originating from the Roman Saturnalia festivities if you'll believe what Wikipedia has to say. Today, it's a cake eaten around the Epiphany, in practice meaning any time in the month of January. Hidden inside is a little porcelain trinket called a fève. The cake is divided into equal parts according to the number of people sharing it and the youngest person in the room must hide under the table and randomly assign a portion to each person. The lucky winner finds the fève in his or her piece, hopefully not biting solidly into it, and gets to be king (or queen) for the day. Valentin explained that in French elementary school the kids really buy into this: whoever gets the fève really will boss all the other kids around for the rest of the day. After that age, the king just gets stuck wearing a little paper crown and, should the cake be homemade, the king must make the next galette.

Fève found! And accordingly, queen for the day declared.

We finished off the month with one last little (not homemade) galette. I even won the right to command, let them eat cake! And so we did.

We now have our very first fève. French families can accumulate large collections over the years.