Jeûne genevois “Genevan fast”

Dominique had brought a few plum tarts yesterday when we had lunch together, but I didn't understand the real meaning of this dessert, till I read this from http://www.24heures.ch/pages/home/24_heures/english_corner/news/news_detail/(contenu)/128570

Called the Jeûne genevois (literally, the “Genevan fast”), the statutory holiday has long been associated with the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. This event was marked by the mass killing by Catholics of Calvinist protestants, also known as Huguenots, in Paris and other parts of France in 1572.

But city records show that Genevans began the annual fast earlier, in 1567, in solidarity with protestants in Lyon who were also victims of repression. This day for dieting became an annual affair in 1640 and an official holiday - the first Thursday in September - in 1966. Mysteriously, the holiday has become associated with a delicious dessert known as the tarte aux pruneaux (plum tart).

According to Geneva’s chancellor, Robert Hensler, the canton’s top civil servant, the tart became a culinary tradition to allow women and domestic servants to pray and meditate on the fast day, free of worry from such duties as cooking. The tarts were prepared and baked the day before the Jeûne genevois, Hensler writes in an article that appeared this week in Geneva’s official gazette, the Feuille d’Avis Officielle. Using recently harvested plums, they replaced the regular meal on that special day.

What was once the only nourishment for 24 hours has now become a dessert to top off a festive lunch or dinner. It’s a fact that few residents seem to know, judging from a random survey of residents conducted by the Tribune de Genève. The newspaper interviewed eight people only two of whom drew the connection between the holiday and the protestant cause. None of them knew about the tarte aux pruneaux, including a baker and one woman who was nevertheless proud to say she cooks one from scratch every year.

I am lucky enough to pass a special day in Geneva!