Your Weekly Voilà: Celebrating French Traditions for Easter ✨🐇🔔🇫🇷

PASSION • CREATIVITY • INSPIRATION

Let's begin with France's passion for grammar. Truly, it is an art form. The slightest shift can produce something with a totally different meaning. For example, the word for Easter in French is Pâques. There is a distinction between "la Pâque" (feminine singular) which is used to identify Passover celebrated by the Jewish culture and "les fêtes de Pâques" (masculine plural) meaning the Christian celebration of Easter. It is more simply referred to as "Pâques" with no article.

Stay with me here . . . there's more. While the word for Easter is masculine singular when talking about next Easter - à Pâques prochain (note the adjective agrees), it is feminine plural when you discuss events around Easter. So using it more like a holiday rather than a religious celebration. Thus, you say Joyeuses Pâques (feminine plural) for "Happy Easter."

Heavy sigh. The French language is challenging.

What is not challenging is embracing a few of France's Easter traditions into our own celebrations. A generation ago, there wasn't an Easter Bunny but there were les cloches de Pâques or "flying Easter bells." We have to look to France's Catholic roots and the custom that church bells do not ring between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Sure enough. They have been silent here in southwest France today. The story goes that the bells develop wings and fly to Rome during that time to be blessed by the Pope. Upon their return, they deliver treats to the delight of children. This is why you will see French shops with beautiful chocolate bells wrapped for gifts this time of year.

I have to add a caveat. The Easter Bunny is a Germanic tradition. Ost Ara were goddesses of the spring whose symbol were rabbits and hares. This developed into the story of a bunny dropping off baskets of goodies. In my ancestral home of Alsace, the region borders Germany and so many traditions are shared between the two cultures that you will see plenty of rabbit chocolate treats.

Another tradition that you find in Alsace and throughout Germany is the paschal lamb sponge cake. Made in a traditional pottery mold, the Lamala is an Easter treat that I enjoy serving with coffee and tea on Easter morning. While the recipe is not complex, you do need to have the mold. This time of year you can find them at specialty kitchen shops. Better yet - pick one up at the wonderful pottery studios just north of Strasbourg the next time you are in France. (Please let travel open soon!!)

AGNEAU DE PÂQUES (osterlammele)

INGREDIENTS

3 eggs
90 grams sugar

100 grams cake flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1 T. lemon juice
Zest of 1/2 of lemon

Butter and flour for the mold

Divide the mold and butter each side liberally. Clamp the two halves of the mold together and flour the inside. Shake out any access.
Beat the eggs and sugar with an electric mixer with a whisk attachment for 10 minutes.
Sift the flour and baking powder together in a small bowl.
Add the lemon juice and zest to the sugar and eggs and blend.
Gently fold in the sifted flour and baking powder to the mixture.
Put half the mixture in the mold and tap several times on the counter to drive the batter into the details of the mold. Fill with the remainder of the batter.
Place on a rimmed pan to be sure the mold doesn't slide off and bake at 350 F (175 C) for 35 minutes. It will be golden brown on top and somewhat puffed. Remove from oven, take off the clamp, and carefully divide the mold when it is still warm. The cake should release easily.
Cool the cake on a rack and then place on your favorite Easter plate and dust with powdered sugar if desired. You have to tie a bow around its neck. Voilà!

Strange looking, isn't it? Traditionally, the lamb mold is made of terracotta. You can find antique ones such as the photo above at brocantes and shops in and around Strasbourg. You can also visit Alsatian potteries such as in the village of Soufflenheim to purchase a new mold. It comes in two pieces and there is a metal clamp that slides on and holds them together in the oven.

Children in France wake on Easter morning to hunt for eggs hidden in the house and garden. Since the 4th century, eggs have been offered as gifts at Easter. Church law dictated that Christians must abstain from eating meat or eggs during Lent. On Easter Sunday, surplus eggs from hens that continued laying during the 40 day period were consumed in large quantities. It is also why crepes are eaten on Mardi Gras knowing that they could not be consumed over the fasting period.

I also learned that in the nearby town of Bessieres just outside Toulouse, they prepare a large omelet to be eaten on Easter Monday in recognition of when Napoleon Bonaparte and his army stayed overnight in the village. We're talking a 15,000 egg omelet with 40 chefs working together. The story goes that Napoleon enjoyed a delicious local omelet on Easter Sunday and ordered the townspeople to gather all the eggs in the village and prepare a huge omelet for his army the next day. Unfortunately, there will be no grand celebration in Bessieres this year. Nonetheless, I'm sure a lot of omelets will be consumed this coming Monday.

I finally decided to decorate a few duck eggs that I have been saving forever. I used a couple of beautiful paper cocktail napkins that I picked up for just such a purpose at the gift shop at the Château Chenonceau in the Loire Valley. It's a bit tedious cutting out the pieces but then a simple bit of white glue will adhere them to the surface. Give it a light sanding and a clear varnish and you'll enjoy your creations for years to come.

While we won't be gathering with friends and family this weekend, the message for Easter has never been more needed. It is one of hope. A knowing that new beginnings often come from painful endings. We are enjoying spring and its new life after a cold winter. Just as we will enjoy meeting friends and visiting family after being sheltered in place for so long. We can take time this Easter weekend to be grateful for all that we have and think about the ways we'll start anew. What positive changes will you make in your daily life? This Easter, more than any other, grants us all the gift of time to reflect.

Wishing you and your family
a very Joyeuses Pâques,

Karen 💕✨🐇🔔🇫🇷