YESTERDAY I WAS FRENCH. Double nationality is nice that way: you can opt in and out. Sort of. If not in all bureaucratic matters, then at least culturally. Certainly in terms of cuisine. Yesterday, the second day of February, provided the perfect opportunity for me to jump the American ship, don a beret (no, not really; long gone are the days I could pull off that look), and swear allegiance to Marianne. It came down to a simple choice: crêpes or groundhogs. Be honest, now, which would you prefer?
It’s not that I have anything against furry rodents. (I have even learned not to flinch at the giant rats in the subway and elsewhere.) Groundhogs are fine. But they can’t compare to a steaming plate of freshly flipped crêpes. While here we have Groundhog Day and Staten Island Chuck (New York’s weather-hog, the one who bit Mayor Bloomberg’s finger last year), the French have La Chandeleur, a religious holiday that is popularly celebrated as “crêpe day.”
Chandeleur is a “Festival of Light” that, once pagan in nature, is now celebrated by Christians (Catholic and Orthodox, under different names) as the Presentation of Christ at the Temple; it also marks the purification of the Virgin Mary. How crêpes got mixed into this seems to be a matter of speculation. One theory is that the golden, round shape of a crêpe is meant to represent the sun and therefore symbolizes the gaining light of spring against the winter gloom. In the play of seasons is where there’s some similarity with American Groundhog Day. It’s said that if the Chandeleur is clear, there’s no more winter to fear; if the day is overcast, forty days of winter will last. (Quand la Chandeleur est claire, l’hiver est par derrière; Chandeleur couverte, quarante jours de perte.) Across France yesterday there was a mixture of snow and sun, so I’m not sure what that predicts. In New York at least, Staten Island Chuck did not see his shadow, and so we will enjoy early spring weather. Supposedly. This morning it snowed.
There are a number of proverbs in French about La Chandeleur, all rendered in lovely language (one of my most frequent sources of borrowed French pride). But regardless of which way you say it, one thing’s certain: there’s probably not a soul in any Francophone nation who didn’t indulge a craving for crêpes on this day.
At our house, my husband took his turn at the stove, poêle in hand, to ladle and jiggle and flip and stack a plate of lovely crêpes. I am usually shy about flipping them in the air, but for the occasion, I managed one or two. Of course, this was completely ignoring the other tradition of the day, which is to hold a coin in your dominant hand and flip the crêpe with the pan held in your weak one (if you succeed, you’re said to have good luck for the year). I didn’t want to be responsible for wasting a single one. Twenty crêpes were destined for our son’s school, where they were preparing their own celebration of Chandeleur. Luckily, there were more than a dozen left for us to enjoy. My husband made his mother’s recipe for “crêpes au crabe,” which we had for lunch; the pot of Nutella came out later.
Maman’s Basic Crêpe Recipe
Yield: approximately 3 dozen crêpes
Ingredients:
3-1/4 cups (400 grams) all-purpose flour
4 cups (1 liter) milk
6 eggs
1 pinch of salt
3/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon (2 deciliters) canola or other light oil
grated zest of 1 orange (only for sweet crêpes . . . I will have to ask about added sugar)
Method:
This is my mother-in-law’s recipe, which my husband uses. From what I can tell, he just dumps everything in the blender and whirls it around until smooth. I don’t think you can go wrong that way. When it comes time to make the crêpes, heat a crêpe pan over high heat. Ladle enough batter into the pan to coat thinly and evenly, swirling the pan. Set the pan down on the heat, but lift and shake it periodically. When the crêpe detaches easily from the pan (starts to slide around), then it’s ready to flip. Be daring like Julia Child (not like me), and just launch the thing into the air. It will cook on the second side until golden brown around the edges. For a great video on making crêpes (plus some serious opinions on the need—or not—for special equipment), see this post from the Naked Beet.
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The crepes with Nutella, yum and the ground hog cute. But not as sweet and friendly as Guinea pigs. :)