We continue our local history feature about some of the Christmas foods brought to Timmins from other countries.
Local historian Karen Bachmann moves on from last week’s British Christmas pudding.
“So let’s go a little bit to France, and we’ll go avec bûche de Noël.”
This is the old tradition of bringing a yule log into the house and keeping it burning until Christmas, promising success in the year to come.
“And apparently there’s a story about when Napoloeon took over everything in France,” Bachmann recounts, “said you know what, these things are dangerous and we cannot afford to burn down Paris, so there’s none more of this yule log dragging into the house thing, no no.”
So bakers took over. They created chocolate confections with all kinds of creamy fillings.
“That tradition has gone on for us and we still see that today,” sys Bachmann. “And les bûches de Noël are really quite yummy.”
Next week: Filipino holiday food.
