Poisson d’Avril

n. – April Fish or April Fool
We are invited to a dinner tonight at someone’s home and in procuring a gift to bring, I learned about yet another French tradition. I’m used to April 1st being April Fool’s Day where if you are so inclined you can make a prank on someone else. Of course everyone else knows it’s April Fool’s Day so often times it’s difficult to pull off. I never asked myself why April 1st was the date of this tradition until now.

Here it is called Poisson d’Avril and while I still don’t know why the fool has been replaced by a fish, the tradition of making a prank is equally celebrated. In many cases, the fish comes into play in the form of a paper fish that children attach to each other’s backs and then cry “Poisson d’Avril!” Again, this must be difficult to pull off since everyone knows about it. However, I did have a good one pulled over on me this morning when a friend wrote on Facebook that she had died her hair platinum blonde to which I responded “welcome to the world of blondes.” I then realized it was a joke and felt very blonde myself as a result.

The origins of April Fool’s Day are said to come from the changing of the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, which moved the beginning of the year from April to January. People who still celebrated April 1st as the beginning of the year, whether it was because they didn’t want to change or simply were not aware of the change, were considered fools.

Well that all makes sense to me except again for the fish. The fish is how I made my discovery though as I entered the lovely chocolate store near us to buy the hostess gift. There were dozens of different fish-shaped chocolates. I didn’t understand what fish had to do with Easter which is coming up so I asked the shopkeeper who enlightened me. And so off we’ll go to dinner this evening with our lovely dark chocolate trout as a little offering for Poisson d’Avril.