The oldest Christmas dessert: the Yule log
With its roots in France, a few years ago we began to see it on tables all over Europe. But why a log? The origin of this cake is the pagan celebration of the winter solstice, with its ‘Fire Festival’ in which the pre-Christian families got a large log and burned it slowly in their homes during the three days of the festival. The burning of the log and the rituals surrounding it predicted whether the coming year would bring good or bad luck. The coming of Christianity, initially, and then industrialisation a few centuries later, reduced this atavistic ritual to a symbolic dessert in the form of a log, which is eaten on Christmas Eve or Day.