France: Crepe and galette, at the heart of Breton culinary heritage

Detail of the poster for the exhibition “Et vous?

Are you a pancake or a galette? ”.

© www.lillustrefabrique.net

Text by: Olivier Favier

6 min

In all, six exhibitions are devoted to the crepe, in Finistère and Côtes-d'Armor.

That of the Breton Departmental Museum, in Quimper, is visible until April 2021. That of the Landévennec site, between Brest and Douarnenez, will reopen in spring.

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The project was born from a study carried out in 2015 at the initiative of the Landévennec museum, on the Crozon peninsula, around fragments of cobbles from the end of the Middle Ages, revealing that butter had been used and heated there. at a temperature above 240 °.

The proof was made that pancakes were made in Brittany 800 years ago.

But first, should we talk about pancakes or pancakes?

In Gallo country, or Haute Bretagne, to the east, we distinguish the sweet pancake from the savory pancake.

In Brittany, in the west, we speak of buckwheat pancakes and wheat pancakes.

The name buckwheat is moreover misleading to name buckwheat, since, devoid of gluten - and therefore difficult to bread - it does not belong to the grass family and is sometimes included among the pseudo-cereals.

Joseph-Marie VILLARD: Interior of a crêperie in Brittany.

Postcard, 1st quarter of the 20th century.

© Breton Departmental Museum, Quimper / Finistère Departmental Council © Breton Departmental Museum, Quimper

A poor man's dish ...

Brittany accounts for nearly half of the 4,000 crêperies in France.

And it is around the first known representation of a crêperie,

, presented at the Paris Salon of 1866 by Jules Trayer, that part of the exhibition presented at the Breton Departmental Museum revolves. Quimper, a stone's throw from Saint-Corentin Cathedral and the Fine Arts Museum, where this work is usually exhibited.

At that time, Brittany was poor and difficult to access, and enjoyed a very poor gastronomic reputation.

The pancake is a poor man's dish that replaces bread.

It is also a women's affair, an activity for widows in particular, such as bistros in port cities.

However, we discover at the Pont-l'Abbé exhibition, in southern Finistère, the crêpe and kouign recipes - the pancakes of the Pays Bigouden - vary from one district to another.

Like the Ethiopian injera - made from teff, a cereal that is also not bread-making - the Breton pancake is prepared on a hot plate, traditionally in ceramic or stone, most often in cast iron since the Renaissance, called billig or crêpière.

The instrument which allows to distribute the dough on the billig is the rozell, the spatula which allows to take off the pancake is called spanell.

Munetsugu SATOMI, Imp.

ARMORICAN: Crêpes dentelles Gavottes - The finest (detail of an advertising poster), 1929 © Breton Departmental Museum, Quimper / Finistère Departmental Council © Breton Departmental Museum, Quimper

... become a regional emblem

The only ingredients needed, recalls Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio in his latest book,

, are flour and water, everything else - including butter - is a matter of providence.

To season the billig, reminds Pierre Jakez Hélias, in

, we use lardig, a mixture of lard and egg yolk.

The operation requires time and know-how, especially if the plaque has been left for too long.

It was towards the end of the 19th century - and the departure of many Bretons to Paris - that the Breton crepe spread in France - its fortune somewhat resembles that of the Neapolitan pizza, which traveled to the United States before. to conquer northern Italy.

The development of the railway, then of the car, made Brittany a tourist region.

Its singularity and the richness of its traditions overwhelmed painters and folklorists.

In Quimper, earthenware and biscuit factories are developing, and the famous lace crepe, or gavotte, whose industrial marketing, and not the invention as is often believed, is attributed to Katell Cornic, in the Locmaria district.

The crêpe becomes a regional emblem and a tourist dish par excellence - there are around forty crêperies in Quimper, especially around the Place au Beurre.

In Rennes, a Maître-Crépier school has existed since 1989, and we can also find it in Nantes or in Morbihan.

People sometimes come to train there to prepare an emigration project or if they are a foreigner, to bring home this flagship of Breton gastronomy.

In the United States, Australia and even Japan, the crepe has thus become one of the torches of French culinary know-how.

To see and read:

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► In Landévennec,

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