Let Us Eat Cake!

Last year, I bought a King's Cake and some Champomy (sparkling apple juice) for me and CSI to celebrate Epiphany. No, I'm not turning Catholic. But I have gotten to where I do like participating in yummy tasting cultural traditions around me, and learning where the tradition comes from. If it's celebrating a certain saint, while I believe that every believer is a saint (saved by grace), I also think it's great to look at the lives of those who have gone before us. Learn from them. I can appreciate their testimonial life without worshipping them. And I can eat their cake.

So...January 6 is Epiphany. I know, I know, it's January 26 when I'm writing this. I'm a little behind. You can blame CSI. (Ha!) Epiphany is supposedly when the Magi (kings) arrived to bring their gifts to baby Jesus. (So, when you're setting up your little manger scenes next Christmas season, you should really put your three wise men off somewhere away from the manger. They're in route...not arrived yet. Camelridingcowgirl does this and I think it's brilliant.)

Since gold, frankincense, and myrrh don't taste so good, and we live in the country where good eatin' is a national pastime, why not bring baby Jesus a cake instead? Works for me! The king's cake is sold throughout the entire month of January in pretty much every bakery and grocery store in France. And I totally think it's acceptable to eat more than once.

Inside the cake is la fève, a little trinket. Or is supposed to be. That's where this year's king's cake comes into the story. Here's a picture of last year's king's cake.

A sweet little Japanese girl that would crack your tooth if you bit down on it. Whoever's slice of the cake has la fève gets to be king/queen for the day and where the crown that comes with the cake...And has to buy next year's cake. CSI got la fève, and thus had to provide this year's cake.

She brought the cake this year, and we were all hoping that the Artist would get la fève. CSI and Pantene will both be gone next January (sad, let's not talk about that), and so the Artist really needs to get la fève so that she can buy the cake. I suppose in French tradition, the youngest person at the party is supposed to sit under the table and call out who gets which slice, so as to ensure that la fève is given at random. For some reason...we couldn't convince CSI to get under the table?

When serving the cake, we realized that it was not apple (like the yumminess of last year), but almond paste. Count me out.

CSI bit into what she thinks is a giant nut, and exclaimed that it's all rubbery.

"Is it la fève?"

"No...it looks like a nut. And tastes like rubber."

She spit it back out, and we examine it. It looked like...a bean. Not a trinket.

WE GOT GYPPED!

I went over the computer and began to read from Wikipedia (the source of all true and correct knowledge for the information junkie), and it turns out...France has several kinds of king's cakes. I prefer the APPLE one, please. And down here in the South, it is more common to have the traditional bean in the cake than a trinket. Or a sweet little baby Jesus (as a popular blogger would call him).

We got gypped.

Pantene didn't seem to mind that we got gypped, since she got to wear the crown for a bit. What girl doesn't love a little diadem-al bling?

Later, CSI went back for a second slice, and it turned out...there was also a little baby Jesus in the cake. Not or. And. If one person found the bean, and one found the little baby Jesus, who gets to be king/queen for the day and wear the crown? I suppose the one who found the little baby Jesus.

It seems a little weird to me to put a little baby Jesus into a cake. What if you bit Him!? Does it honor Him to have Him smothered in almond paste? How does He feel about you taking His rightful crown and wearing it, simply because you found Him? Should I save all my king's cakes' crowns from over the years to lay back down at His feet one day? What does it say about my faith in Jesus that I'm disappointed that there wasn't a little Japanese fève but instead a poorly crafted but appropriated covered baby Jesus in the cake?