Diorama of Christmas Eve festivities

Collection: Museon Arlaten, Arles, Paris, France
Photograph : B. Delgado

Reconstruction of a Provencal Christmas Eve with its huge meal served on three tablecloths (Nativity, Circumcision, Epiphany) and lit by three candles representing the Trinity.

The dinner is nonetheless modest, made up of home-made goods from the "mas" (farmhouse): snails, artichokes and celery with anchovy paste, mullet with olives...and thirteen desserts: cachat (sheep cheese ripened with vinegar), griddle cakes, apples, pears, dried figs, grapes, almonds, nuts, candied citron, quince, light and dark fudge...