For a small French town, this 15,000-egg Easter omelette is a 50-year tradition

Members of the World Brotherhood of the Knights of the Giant Omelette of Bessières are part of a broader international community that believes in the notion of sharing, writes Anna Mindess

Members of the World Brotherhood of the Knights of the Giant Omelette of Bessières stir their oversize omelette during the city’s annual festival in March 2016 (AFP/Getty)

Every Easter, a brood of volunteers in Bessières, a small town in southern France, collects 15,000 eggs – not to dye them pastel colours or even hide them for children to find. Early on Easter Monday morning, they will crack open the prodigious pile, add 2lb of salt, 1lb of pepper and a bucket of herbs, then whip it all up in massive pots. Another team, sporting tall chef’s hats, plops a dozen gallons of duck fat into a 13ft-wide frying pan that weighs more than a tonne and, wielding huge wooden paddles, stirs up a humongous omelette.

And in a year of many challenges, including the avian flu and the skyrocketing price of eggs, which has transformed the morning staple into a near-luxury for many, the omelette will be portioned out and distributed to the thousands of eager spectators for the same price as always: free.