Hi everybody, and welcome to this brand new year!<\/p>\n
As you probably know, Christmas lasts a bit more in some countries, so we are nearly returning to routine by now.\u00a0 Our last holiday was January the 6th<\/sup>, the Epiphany, when we celebrate the visit of the Three Wise Men to Jesus child. It is the night before that these magic men leave us some gifts, if we have been good during the year or some coal if we have not.<\/p>\n One of our traditions in this day is to share with our family and friends the King cake: it is a cake containing a trinket, a small religious figure and a broad bean. If you find the figure in your piece of cake, you will be \u201ccrowned\u201d for a day and have a year full of good luck ahead. If you find the broad bean, you will have to pay for the next cake.<\/p>\n So I was looking for my little figure (because obviously I didn\u2019t want to pay next year\u2019s cake) when suddenly somebody else\u00a0found it, and it was not a King of Virgin Mary image, but a little witch to our surprise! That made me wonder about the origin of this dessert. It goes back to Roman times and their Saturnalia festivities, when even slaves were excused from working and enjoyed themselves as free men. People used to eat a cake made of honey and some nuts, and as the broad bean was a symbol of prosperity and fertility, it was hidden in the cake as a kind of surprise gift. The pagan celebration was lost, but not the cake, which adopted the doughnut form we know today.<\/p>\n The French aristocracy loved the dessert, and they introduced a more valuable present (a golden coin sometimes), which changed into the small figure later on. So now the fortunate person who gets the gift is the \u201cking of the feast\u201d, and the one who finds the broad bean pays and receives the nickname of \u201ctontolaba\u201d (\u201ctonto del haba\u201d, the silly of the broad bean). Funny, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a1Hola a todos, y bienvenidos a este flamante a\u00f1o nuevo! Como posiblemente sab\u00e9is, la Navidad dura un poquito m\u00e1s en algunos pa\u00edses, as\u00ed que apenas estamos volviendo a nuestra rutina. Nuestro \u00faltimo d\u00eda de vacaciones fue el 6 de Enero, la Epifan\u00eda, cuando celebramos la visita de los Tres Reyes Magos al ni\u00f1o Jes\u00fas. Es…<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/01\/witch-200x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/01\/witch-233x350.jpg\")