The French crepe is a food that most people can agree on because it is so versatile.

This skinny cousin of the pancake can be filled with the sweet or savory fillings your heart desires and makes an ideal street food to eat on the go as well as — when loaded with salmon, spinach, mushrooms, cheese, scallops,… — a filling dinner.

In some parts of France crêperies are more common than pizzerias and the price per crêpe can be as little as €1.50 or as much as €15.

My favorite variation is the galette or crêpe salé from Brittany. What makes it so special? The flour! It is made from sarrasin, also known as blé noir, which literally translates to black wheat. However, the plant it comes from isn’t even a grass. Instead, this buckwheat, as it is known in the English language, is closely related to rhubarb.

In any case, it yields a dark flour, which, when mixed with water and grainy sea salt (the wealthier parts of the region also add eggs and even replace the water with milk) and baked thinly in a hot pan, turns into galettes.

I’m a rebel. So I like my savory galette sweet: with salted caramel sauce, another staple of la cuisine Bretone.