Showing posts with label Mardi Gras. Show all posts

Saturday, February 10, 2024

King Cake

Mardi Gras literally translates to Fat Tuesday and the signature sweet of that Carnival feast is the King Cake.

The history of the cake is intertwined with Carnival’s history, and it's is believed to have its roots in ancient pagan festivals. (Halloween from Samhain, Christmas from Yule).

Carnival had two influences, Lupercalia and Saturnalia. Set in mid-February, Lupercalia celebrated rushing in the fertility spring, both for the coming harvest and humans.

Saturnalia, celebrated in December included the ritual of temporarily switching the hierarchical roles through a bean hidden inside a cake.

The bean hidden inside the Saturnalia cake was the fava bean, and he or she who found it would be temporarily crowned ruler for the day.

This ancient legume was considered magical in pagan times.

As Christianity became the predominant religion in Western Europe, people still clung to their traditional celebrations, but the significance changed.

During the Saturnalia the ‘king of the day’ was chosen by lot, using a bean concealed in a galette.

It was only in the Middle Ages that this cake ceremony began to be associated with the festival of Epiphany.” January 6th became the day of the Epiphany.

The Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day, marks the beginning of King Cake season in New Orleans.

Three Kings day was celebrated in various Medieval European countries.

Francophone countries had the Galette des Rois. Spain had the Rosca de Reyes, Portugal the Bolo Rei. The French cake galette is a flaky, golden, puff pastry with frangipane inside.

Food historian, Pierre Leclercq, believes that this cake is very similar to the Saturnalia cake, given its hue and shape that reflect the sun.

So, with Pagan roots, the Baby, Jesus and Fat Tuesday, enjoy your King Cake.

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Mardi Gras: The Pagan Celebration February 13

While many people know about the parades, Bourbon Street and the gala parties, most are probably unaware of the history of Mardi Gras.

If your thinking that it had a connection to Easter, you would be correct.

Mardi Gras and Carnival are the same celebration.

Though Mardi Gras technically refers only to Fat Tuesday, the Mardi Gras season actually begins on Epiphany, a Christian holiday celebrated on January 6 that is otherwise known as Three Kings Day or the Twelfth Day of Christmas.

In Brazil and many other countries, this period between Epiphany and Fat Tuesday is known as Carnival.

Whichever name you prefer to use, the revelries of Mardi Gras last until midnight tonight, when Ash Wednesday ushers in 40 days of Lent.

We can trace Mardi Gras all the way back to the pagan spring festivals.

It has the same atmosphere as the crazy Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Lupercalia.

Once Christianity came to Rome, religious leaders tried to blend the pagan traditions with their Christian beliefs and traditions for a smoother transition.

What resulted was a festival where people drank, feasted, danced, and partied before the somber period of Lent began.

This may come as a surprise, but Mardi Gras long predates Christianity.

The earliest record comes from ancient times, when tribes celebrated the festival that welcomed the arrival of spring, a time of renewal of life.

The Romans called this pagan festival Lupercalia in honor of “Lupercus,” the Roman god.

Lupercalia was a drunken merrymaking held each February in Rome, after which participants fasted for 40 days.

Interestingly, similar to modern celebrations, the Romans wore masks, dressed in costumes and gave themselves to the gods “Bacchus” and “Venus”.

As pagans were overrun by Catholicism, they still did not want to give up this popular celebration.

Church leaders, seeing that it was impossible to completely stop the Pagans from their customs, decided to “Christianize” this festival.

Thus, Carnival was created as a time of merrymaking immediately preceding their pagan 40-day fast, which the church renamed “Lent.”

The festival then spread to Europe, where it was celebrated in England, Spain, Germany, France and other countries.

During the Middle Ages, a festival similar to the present-day Mardi Gras was given by monarchs and lords prior to Lent.

Another tradition is the serving the “King Cake.”

This custom began in ancient times, when tribes celebrated the arrival of spring by making a cake and putting a bean in it.

After the tradition was adopted by The Catholic Church, the narrative changed.

Now it seems , the cakes were made in a circle to represent the circular route that the wise men supposedly took to find the baby Jesus in order to confuse King Herod (and us) disrupting his plans to kill the Christ child.

Today, King Cakes contain baby figurines to represent (surprise surprise, “the Christ child”).

Thursday, January 4, 2024

It’s Mardi Gras Time

The Carnival season actually begins on January 6, King's Day (Feast of the Epiphany).

Fat Tuesday is never on the same day each year because Easter Sunday is never on the same Sunday each year.

As a result, Fat Tuesday is always the day before Ash Wednesday.
This year, it’s February 13, 2024

From Mardi Gras New Orleans

Mardi Gras History

The origins of Mardi Gras can be traced to medieval Europe, passing through Rome and Venice in the 17th and 18th centuries to the French House of the Bourbons.

From here, the traditional revelry of "Boeuf Gras," or fatted calf, followed France to her colonies.

On March 2, 1699, French-Canadian explorer Jean Baptiste Le Moyne Sieur de Bienville arrived at a plot of ground 60 miles directly south of New Orleans, and named it "Pointe du Mardi Gras" when his men realized it was the eve of the festive holiday.

Bienville also established "Fort Louis de la Louisiane" (which is now Mobile) in 1702. In 1703, the tiny settlement of Fort Louis de la Mobile celebrated America's very first Mardi Gras.

In 1704, Mobile established a secret society (Masque de la Mobile), similar to those that form our current Mardi Gras krewes. It lasted until 1709.

In 1710, the "Boeuf Gras Society" was formed and paraded from 1711 through 1861.

The procession was held with a huge bull's head pushed along on wheels by 16 men.

Later, Rex would parade with an actual bull, draped in white and signaling the coming Lenten meat fast.

This occurred on Fat Tuesday.

New Orleans was established in 1718 by Bienville. By the 1730s, Mardi Gras was celebrated openly in New Orleans, but not with the parades we know today. In the early 1740s, Louisiana's governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, established elegant society balls, which became the model for the New Orleans Mardi Gras balls of today.

The earliest reference to Mardi Gras "Carnival" appears in a 1781 report to the Spanish colonial governing body. That year, the Perseverance Benevolent & Mutual Aid Association was the first of hundreds of clubs and carnival organizations formed in New Orleans.

By the late 1830s, New Orleans held street processions of maskers with carriages and horseback riders to celebrate Mardi Gras. Dazzling gaslight torches, or "flambeaux," lit the way for the krewe's members and lent each event an exciting air of romance and festivity.

In 1856, six young Mobile natives formed the Mistick Krewe of Comus, invoking John Milton's hero Comus to represent their organization.

Comus brought magic and mystery to New Orleans with dazzling floats (known as tableaux cars) and masked balls. Krewe members remained anonymous.

In 1870, Mardi Gras' second Krewe, the Twelfth Night Revelers, was formed.

This is also the first recorded account of Mardi Gras "throws."

Newspapers began to announce Mardi Gras events in advance, and they even printed "Carnival Edition" lithographs of parades' fantastic float designs (after they rolled, of course - themes and floats were always carefully guarded before the procession).

At first, these reproductions were small, and details could not be clearly seen.

But beginning in 1886 with Proteus' parade "Visions of Other Worlds," these chromolithographs could be produced in full, saturated color, doing justice to the float and costume designs of Carlotta Bonnecase, Charles Briton and B.A. Wikstrom.

Each of these designers' work was brought to life by talented Parisian paper-mache' artist Georges Soulie', who for 40 years was responsible for creating all of Carnival's floats and processional outfits.

1872 was the year that a group of businessmen invented a King of Carnival, Rex, to preside over the first daytime parade.

To honor the visiting Russian Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff, the businessmen introduced Romanoff's family colors of purple, green and gold as Carnival's official colors.

Purple stands for justice; gold for power; and green for faith.

This was also the Mardi Gras season that Carnival's improbable anthem, "If Ever I Cease to Love," was cemented, due in part to the Duke's fondness for the tune.

The following year, floats began to be constructed entirely in New Orleans instead of France, culminating with Comus' magnificent "The Missing Links to Darwin's Origin of Species," in which exotic paper-mache' animal costumes served as the basis for Comus to mock both Darwin's theory and local officials, including Governor Henry Warmoth.

In 1875, Governor Warmoth signed the "Mardi Gras Act," making Fat Tuesday a legal holiday in Louisiana, which it still is.

Like Comus and the Twelfth Night Revelers, most Mardi Gras krewes today developed from private social clubs with restrictive membership policies. Since all of these parade organizations are completely funded by their members, New Orleanians call it the "Greatest Free Show on Earth!"