Happy Easter & April Fool's Day from France | EUROtoday

Good morning!

I hope that you just and yours are properly.

Spring sprang in France final week and this Sunday (March 31) 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 Fool's Day!

We'll be consuming chocolate eggs, chocolate chickens, chocolate bells and chocolate fish in honor 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 it 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 method again, they drop chocolate treats for youngsters to search out.

And what's with the chocolate fish? Well, that's not an Easter factor, it's a 1st April factor. No one actually is aware of for positive concerning the origins of April Fish Day, however historians primarily theorize that, as April 1st was the tip of the fishing season, for enjoyable (!), neighbors would hold fish from the backs of fishermen to mock their incapability to work. Hilarious. Hmmm. Other historians say it pertains to the change of date on which New Year was celebrated – from April to January. It was conventional to offer a present for brand new yr and sometimes the current could be a fish, which was acceptable at a time that always 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 find out about or didn't wish 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 picture, I noticed these eclairs in a patisserie in Paris. They're not flavored fishy by the way in which, they're truly deliciously candy!

Wishing you a really Happy Easter wherever you’re, hope you’ve a beautiful stress-free vacation – excellent for a learn of our newest free, and good The Good Life France Magazine Spring difficulty!

Janine
Editor

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Janine Marsh is Author of My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream, My Four Seasons in France: A Year of the Good Life and Always France: Living the Dream in Rural France all out there as e book, print & audio, on Amazon all over the place & all good bookshops on-line. Her new e book How to be French – a celebration of the French life-style and Art of residingis out now – a have a look at the French lifestyle.

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