"’Ainsi périssent les ennemis de la République!’ (Thus perish the enemies of the Republic), refers to how fictional character Mère Royaume poured boiling hot vegetable soup on soldiers climbing up the city walls of Geneva in a surprise attack on December 11-12, 1602.
One of the ways the Genevois celebrate this defeat is by eating chocolate cauldrons filled with marzipan vegetables, representing the soup. -James Knight (with Wikipedia)
People smash the chocolate caudron. This is called “casser la marmite” (to break the cauldron). By tradition, the youngest and the oldest of the group break it. Below you can see two people smashing the cauldron in a video:
James Knight lived in Geneva for four years. He wrote, "L’Escalade was my favorite holiday there."
Thanks for sharing James!
-Mama Lisa
Photo: Wikipedia
This article was posted on Friday, December 13th, 2013 at 10:10 am and is filed under Countries & Cultures, Holidays Around the World, Switzerland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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