Brittany and Normandy, unlike other regions of France, transform most of their milk into butter rather than cheese. In the days before refrigeration, the butter was preserved with sea salt, and it was with this sea-salted butter that the first galettes were made in the late 1800s. Joseph Grellier, a baker in Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef, started to sell his own version of the galette in 1905, calling it the Galettes St. Michel (the varieties of galettes are often named after their town of origin), but it was not until after the war, when the railroad turned Brittany into a summer resort destination, that the business began to boom and the cookies gained a broad popularity. The St. Michel galettes are imprinted with the family name, along with an image of the archangel defeating the devil. They are made with 18 percent butter (today the salt is added separately). Each box contains 20 galettes.

The funny name, Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef, probably derives from Chevesché, the ancient name of a nearby promontory.