Pandemic Diaries - Year 3 - New Orleans - Carnival!

 27 April 2024

 

Carnival in Louisiana runs from Three Kings Day (January 6) through to Mardi Gras, known as Fat Tuesday or the day before Ash Wednesday.  So the length of Carnival depends on when Easter is, since Ash Wednesday is the Wednesday that is forty days prior to Easter Sunday.

 

I know, most people hear about Mardi Gras and think that's the whole event.  Turns out that Mardi Gras is the big culminating event for Carnival, and there are things going on for weeks prior to Mardi Gras itself!  Who knew?

 

We heard about Carnival events on the news, and people started advertising King Cake maybe a week or two before Three Kings Day.  Which meant yes, just around Christmas Day.

 

Then King Cake showed up in the supermarket.  Culinary exploration is a big part of travelling and learning about any new place - so of course we had to try King Cake.

 

I finally found a mini King Cake in a store, and bought it.  It really is delicious, sort of a yeasty kind of dough.  It seemed as though it was rolled out flat, smeared with butter and tons of cinnamon sugar, and then rolled up like a cinnamon bun.  Then joined together to make a doughnut or bagel shape, so it was like a very long cinnamon bun on its side.  It's baked, then lightly glazed with a white icing.  And always - ALWAYS - covered with purple, yellow-gold, and green sugar or sprinkles!  (Our mini cake was maybe the size of one average doughnut - supposedly three portions.  I ate roughly one half portion.  We know who ate the rest.)

 

King Cake also seemed to come in a variety of flavors - we saw chocolate filled, strawberry filled, some with almond paste or marzipan, some with a cream filling.  One could buy a single slice of King Cake, a mini baby cake such as we bought, or a whole cake which would yield at least eight portions.  We also saw some mega cakes that probably would feed twenty people or so!

 

Additionally, there is often a small token baked into the cake, and the person who finds that token in their piece of cake is said to have good luck for the next year.  Some people bake a very small doll in the cake as the token, some say this is a baby Jesus.  Other people put a single bean in the cake as the lucky token.  Our mini cake didn't have anything like that, however. 

I will admit that the colors decorating the cake are rather lurid and off-putting.  They are just so BRIGHT!  And obviously unnatural.  However, these are the traditional colors for Carnival here.  So I put aside my qualms and tried a very small slice of cake.  As I said, quite delicious!

People put up all kinds of decorations for Carnival.  I envision some of our neighbors with one room dedicated to all their decorations.  Really, between the full Halloween regalia, the Christmas decorations, and then the Carnival lights and bunting and flags and wreaths, this would fill up way more than a single closet!  Yes, the Christmas decorations come down on January 6, and the Carnival decorations go right up the same day!

Everything was in some kind of purple, bright green, and either gold or yellow.  There were banners, bunting on porches and out windows, figurines on lawns.  Swags of huge plastic or glass balls.  The requisite Mardi Gras beads hung along fences.  (I never know if it would be okay to help myself to a few strands of beads, or if that is a big no-no.  Are they out there merely as decorations?  Or are the beads there as a "help yourself" and "celebrate with us" sort of gesture?  I really have no clue!)

I took a couple of walks just to do Carnival decoration photo safaris.  Different neighborhoods had different sorts of paraphernalia, and some were quite fancy.  Houses along parade routes tended to be more overly decorative.  And of course businesses were all decked out with their own purple and gold bows on green trees and such!

It really was quite festive, and I had fun looking at all the decorations!

And yes, I turned our "fire screen" to the fleur de lys so that we had our decorations inside the house, as well!