Bonjour!
I hope that you just and yours are nicely.
Spring sprang in France final week and this Sunday (31 March) the clocks spring ahead one hour! Fortunately the day after, 1 April, is a nationwide vacation in France so we would not discover it an excessive amount of! It’s Easter Monday, and Poisson d’Avril – April Fish Day, or as we English audio system say, April Idiot’s Day!
We’ll be consuming chocolate eggs, chocolate chickens, chocolate bells and chocolate fish in honour of the day. Chocolate bells you ask? I’m not making it up I promise! In France chocolate bells are simply as conventional as eggs. Legend has is that the church bells are silenced on the Friday earlier than Easter, and fly to Rome to be blessed by the Pope. On Easter morning, the bells return from Rome and ring out loud. And on their approach again, they drop chocolate treats for youngsters to seek out.
And what’s with the chocolate fish? Nicely, that’s not an Easter factor, it’s a 1st April factor. Nobody actually know for positive in regards to the origins of April Fish Day, however historians primarily theorise that, as April 1st was the top of the fishing season, for enjoyable (!), neighbours would cling fish from the backs of fishermen to mock their incapability to work. Hilarious. Hmmm. Different historians say it pertains to the change of date on which New 12 months was celebrated – from April to January. It was conventional to offer a present for brand spanking new yr and sometimes the current could be a fish, which was acceptable at a time that usually coincided with Lent, when meat was averted by Christians. From this got here the custom the place individuals would give pretend fish on 1st April – maybe to tease those that didn’t learn about or didn’t need to settle for the change within the calendar. Hmmm once more.
And it’s not nearly fish, it’s additionally conventional to trick individuals – like the highest photograph, I noticed these eclairs in a patisserie in Paris. They’re not fish flavoured by the best way, they’re truly deliciously candy!
Wishing you a really Comfortable Easter wherever you might be, hope you’ve a stunning enjoyable vacation – good for a learn of our newest free, and good The Good Life France Journal Spring subject!
Janine
Editor
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Janine Marsh is Creator of My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream, My 4 Seasons in France: A 12 months of the Good Life and Toujours la France: Dwelling the Dream in Rural France all out there as book, print & audio, on Amazon in every single place & all good bookshops on-line. Her new e book Methods to be French – a celebration of the French way of life and artwork de vivre, is out now – a have a look at the French lifestyle.
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