I do not decorate a Christmas tree every year, but we do set up a Christmas crib every Christmas. Now, having grandchildren, they help me to set out the clay figurines of the Provençal 'crèche'. This year the girls even sowed the traditonal wheat seeds and loved watching them grow fast. Each year they also paint a clay figurine, they both started with a pig and a sheep, easier, and now managed to paint real figurines!
It is important to keep up with traditions.
In my favourite blogreadings it is a feeling which is shared by some of us, through cooking, Bourbour's memories of chilhood and beloved Mum's cooking are becoming a celebration, just like Marcel Proust and his tasty madeleine.
Willym and his so well documented tour of the presepe in Roma during the Christmas period is not to be missed. That is why I want to link my page to his, because I do not want to forget this marvellous tour, I would like to do the same one day, sooner and not later!
Yes, the Christmas period is over with the arrival of the three Kings, who followed the Star.
When I was a child in Marseille just after the end of the war, the state of the city, (we were taken to Marseille in August '45, a year or so after these documents, and the centre was not quite completely cleared) , the state of my own family was so terrible, that my Mum registered me in a private catholic school, run by Italian nuns who did not speak French fluently, and it was like a fairy island in the turmoil of the tempest! I have glorious memories of these Christmas days when I learned all the Marseille and Provençal traditions. We played pantomines of the nativity scenes and sang a lot on Georges Bizet 'Arlésienne' with French words' De bon matin j'ai vu passer le train de trois grands rois qui partaient en voyage' unforgetable since then.. I learnt how to make cottonwool and matchstick sheep and put them in big empty matchboxes, as presents for Mum and then display them in my own nativity scene, drawn and decorated by me in cut-out cardboard. It was a marvellous time, when I hardly took any notice of the bombed quarters around the port, the derelict parts of the bottom of the Rue de la Répubique. I knew it all though, as I had to play in the wasteland where Mum used to work as a town clerk, in one of the barracks left by the US Army during the Liberation of Marseille.
It is now 'Le Centre Bourse'with a Museum and a peaceful garden
where the ancient port welcomes dreams about the Greek settlement. I often have a break there, gazing at the stones.
I was four, five, six, then seven years old and kept going to this special school where I was also taught music. Because of the atmosphere of hope and the strength and courage of my Mum, I had a happy childhood in Marseille.
As the three Kings have now arrived with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, we can now invite neighbours and friends to share the special 'kings' cake, which will have two surprises baked inside it, a broad bean and a small ceramic figurine from 'La Pastorale' the nativity play in Provence, with special typical provençal characters, the most naïve and loved one being 'Lou ravi', with is welcoming sign of admiration for what is happening in this provençal village,
In my setting, he is standing by the windmill. In common speech you can refer to a person as 'ravi' ('delighted') for someone who is always happy and admiring.. and at the same time slightly stupid).
There will be a King and a Queen when we eat the cake, and the King, the one who has found the dry bean, is supposed to buy the next cake and invite his friends... a chain process really!
Here in the village, we are invited by the neighbours and in turn invite them, so I think we share some five or six 'gâteaux des Rois' during the month of January. (A good excuse for a nice break and friendship). Our local baker has a fidelity card and we get a free one after four cakes bought, he knows the tradition... and his cake is delicious, with super preserved fruit from Apt.
To really follow the tradition, we need children around the table on the 6th of January and onwards. The youngest one goes under the table and as the cake is being cut according to the number of guests (and of course if the knife shrieks on the ceramic figurine, that has to be kept secret..), each time, we ask the child' Pour qui celui-là ',? (who is this one for?) so more or less the cake cutter can know who is going to be King or Queen... and the King gets the paper crown which goes with each cake, today there is often more than one crown, as the baker asks how many kids there are at the party...it is always more fun with children around.
What goes well with this cake is a glass of 'vin cuit' (cooked wine?) which is rather hard to get now, we used to get some from Palette which is just outside Aix en Provence... As it has almost disappeared, we often replace it with a nice Port and think of the good old days of 'vin cuit'! what was the best of all was to dip a piece of 'pompe' (the cake which is next to the gâteau des rois in the last picture) in a drop of 'Vian et Vieil'! Another "madeleine" alla Proust...
On the 2nd of February the 'santons' will go back to their box, like in the song
'>Dans une boîte en carton sommeillent les petits santons...
Le berger, le rémouleur et l'enfant Jésus rédempteur'
Le ravi, qui le vit, est toujours ravi,
Les moutons en coton, sont serrés au fond...'
Many thanks to jacquesurlus, for these songs we used to learn and sing, and this singer, Tino Rossi, so loved in South-eastern France and in his native Corsica of course!
Since I wrote this page the songs have been removed, I have put a link to the Bizet prelude which is the score of this song. I still thank the brave uploader mentionned !
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