CREPERIES

For hundreds of years the staple of the Breton peasant's diet was the galette, a pancake made from buckwheat flour. It is a savoury dish, and is eaten with sardines, eggs, sausages, ham, or indeed whatever is available. The Bretons still tend to cut up their pancakes and dip the pieces into buttermilk, or lait ribot.

Beware when shopping in local supermarkets – some of our guests buy lait ribot instead of milk, and they get an unpleasant surprise when they open the carton and find that their milk has gone lumpy! Always read the label carefully.
   
There are literally thousands of crêperies spread throughout Brittany, ranging from tiny village set-ups with no advertising at all to indicate their whereabouts, to large up-market establishments which offer the tourist a wide and inventive range of fillings. One of the finest in Brittany is Crêperie Madame Gatin, in the centre of La Roche-Bernard, which is housed in a truly splendid medieval house dating back to the 15th century. They serve excellent ice-cream as well....
   

In the country...

When visiting a traditional crêperie, which tourists seldom do, you usually have to supply your own ingredients and eating implements. Thus one goes armed with knives and forks, plates, glasses, butter, egg, ham, cheese, sugar, lemon, etc. The crêperie supplies only the table and chairs, bottles of cider and the pancakes themselves, with your 'extras' (cheese, ham, and so on) added to their mixture at the cooking stage. The locals normally come armed with bowls instead of plates and bottles of lait ribot.

These small, local establishments often cater for the Breton agricultural workers, and open only at lunchtime.
   

The crêpe

The Breton crêpe, or galette, is without doubt the aristocrat of the pancake world. Extremely thin and delicate, it bears little relation to the typical British variety, usually so thick and stodgy (well, they are when I make them...) There is an art to making a good Breton crêpe which, along with the choice of fillings and decor, is what makes some crêperies so much better than others.
 

Origins

When bread was scarce in Brittany several hundred years ago, the galette (or savoury pancake) was a good, quick substitute. The favourite flour was buckwheat, which arrived originally from the Middle East.

Originally these large, griddle-cooked pancakes were simply made to bulk out simple food – eggs, salty bacon, a little meat, a few sardines or a handful of vegetables. As white flour became more generally available, wholemeal wheat flour was used to make sweet pancakes.

It seems that anything savoury can be served up in a galette, and most sweet things are good with wheaten pancakes.