Crèpes
By Valentine
In Breton (Celtic language spoken in Brittany), the same word krampouezhenn means both a «crèpe», which is a thin and sweet pancake made with common wheat, and a «galette», which is made with buckwheat. The term «galette» comes from the
North of Brittany. In the west part of Brittany, people say «crèpes sucrées» for the
sweet ones and «crèpes salées» for the salty ones.
Although now people enjoy going to «crèperies» to eat «galettes», it was originally reserved for poor people since it is simply made out of buckwheat, some water, one egg and some salt. People used to eat it without anything else. Sometimes they would dunk it in buttermilk (lait ribot). Traditionally, people drink cider with galettes.
We cook our galettes on a specific utensil: the bilig. However the array of terms
to call it is quite large! We can hear words such as galetière, galetier (galettier),
galettoire, tuile etc. You roll out a galette with a rozell (or a rouable, or a raclette)
which is a sort of small rake.
The production of buckwheat being not sufficient to supply the 8,000 tons
currently consumed in a year, France imports wheat from China, Poland, or Canada.
Since the 1950s, most often, people do not eat plain galettes any longer. We can find all sorts of foods to put inside: ham, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon, cheese…
Sometimes, especially in Brittany, we eat galettes during public events. In this
case, we eat “galettes saucisse” – a sausage, which has just been grilled, wrapped in a
cold galette – that we eat like a hot dog.
You can watch the following highly professional video!
I apologize for my voice which can be quite annoying haha!
You will hear a song; that's a famous song that most of French children learn at school...
