Mardi Gras 2023: Fat Tuesday origins and places to celebrate across Southeast Texas

It’s time to crack your beans and get the last bite of the King Cake – it’s Mardi Gras time!

Mardi Gras is French for Obese Tuesday. It is also called Shrove Tuesday, Carnival Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday, depending on where it is celebrated.

Regardless of the name, it’s a day of celebration that includes parades, parties, and food tastings before the start of the Christian fasting season of Lent on Ash Wednesday (February 22 in 2023). It falls on the last day of the carnival season, and it’s a six-week period of parties around the world.

Mardi Gras is synonymous with Carnival festivities in New Orleans, Venice, and Rio, but the day is marked in similar festive fashion around the world in countries with large Roman Catholic populations.

However, what began as a holiday rooted in religious traditions has become a cultural phenomenon, leading to parties for the sake of celebration, not necessarily the expectation of 40 days of penance between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.

Whatever your motivations, here’s everything you need to know about Mardi Gras to be aware of the holiday’s history.

The celebration dates back to the time of the Romans

According to historians, Mardi Gras-like celebrations date back thousands of years to ancient Roman festivals celebrating the harvest season. After the arrival of Christianity in Rome, the ancient traditions were incorporated into the new faith and immorality became the precursor to the season of Lent.

This fusion resulted in a hedonistic period of drinking, disguise, and dancing with a heavy dose of religion.

As Christianity spread across Europe, so did the pre-Lenten celebrations. Along the way, new traditions were born and some old traditions took on new incarnations. One such Roman tradition became the staple of the New Orleans Mardi Gras dessert known as King Cake.

During the Saturnalia, a winter celebration of Saturn, the god of agriculture, the beans were baked into cakes to celebrate the harvest. Whoever found the bean was named “King of the Day”. In the Middle Ages, Christianity appropriated the tradition of Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day.

Also known as Twelfth Night, Three Kings Day marks the beginning of the carnival season each year on January 6th. It commemorates the visit of the three kings – or the wise men or the wise men – to the Christ child on the twelfth night after him. Christmas to celebrate, gifts and banquets.

Christians in Spain, Latin America, and the United States celebrate the occasion with offerings, gifts, and family feasts. Thousands of people gather each year in Mexico City to polish the “rosca de Reyes,” or king cake, a staple of the holiday. Elsewhere, families prepare sweets in the shape of a crown at home.

The cake has a trinket or figurine baked inside to symbolize Christ and is eaten throughout the Carnival festivities. As in Roman times, the person who finds the trinket is crowned king or queen of the carnival, a distinction that carries different duties depending on the culture, from preparing tamales for the next family party to riding in a float procession.

Tuesday is basically the same thing

Along the way, Shrove Tuesday emerged as the last day of Shrovetide, the week before the start of Lent. The word Shrovetide is the English equivalent of Carnival, which comes from the Latin words carnem levare, meaning “to remove the body.” “Grumble” means to hear confessions, according to Catholic theologian Father William B. Saunders.

“While this was seen as the last chance for joy and, unfortunately in some places, resulted in excessive fun, Shrovetide was the time to let go of the things of the flesh and prepare spiritually for Lent,” he wrote at CatholicCulture.org. .

In preparation for Lent, Christians prepared pancakes to deplete their stores of eggs, milk, butter and fat, giving rise to Pancake Day in England. As the tradition spread across Europe, it became Mardi Gras in France, where pancakes and crepes are prepared as part of a lavish feast.

Mardi Gras in the New World

European colonists and slave traders brought pre-Lenten festivities to the Americas, where they became huge celebrations throughout the Carnival season. Celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti include musical competitions, elaborate costumes, fiestas, and cultural performances at various points leading up to Mardi Gras or Carnival Tuesday.

French settlers brought Mardi Gras to New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory. And the “Galette des Rois” or King Cake came along too, becoming a symbol of New Orleans’ trademark Mardi Gras.

The first recorded Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans is believed to have taken place in 1837. Over time, balls, parties, and parades spread during the Carnival season, organized by social clubs called “Krewes.”

The tradition of “show throws” is believed to have originated in the 1920s with the Rex’s Ball Club, the city’s oldest social club, whose colors of purple gold (justice), gold (strength) and green (faith) came to symbolize New Orleans Mardi Gras. Having started with their necklaces, they moved on to coins called doubloons stamped with their emblems, and other sphericals have adopted the practice.

Contrary to popular belief, there is no need for nudity to attract throws. Local historians say the trend emerged in the last 20th century as Mardi Gras attracted more college-age revelers.

While New Orleans is practically synonymous with Mardi Gras, there’s no lock on festivities in the United States.

Another Gulf Coast city about 170 miles to the east—Mobile, Alabama—also has a long history with Mardi Gras, with plenty of trendy balls and special events leading up to the big day.

There could be a heated debate between the two cities who have bragging rights to claim the first celebration.

Other cities, mostly along the Gulf Coast region, also have notable Mardi Gras celebrations, including Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Galveston, Texas.

A cake fit for a king

Here’s a King Cake recipe from Food52 that lets you recreate New Orleans-style magic in your own kitchen. Makes one large cake.

3/4 cup warm milk

2 1/4 teaspoons or a packet of dry yeast

1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon of sugar

1 piece of melted and cooled butter

2 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for flour

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Stuffing and topping

1 piece of butter

8 ounces cream cheese

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup coarsely chopped American walnuts

1 plastic baby

2 cups of powdered sugar

3 tablespoons of milk

Sanding sugar, marzipan circles, or other yellow, green, and purple decorations

directione

1. Mix warm milk, yeast, and 1 teaspoon sugar and let cool. While the yeast is proofing, whisk the butter, egg yolks, and vanilla extract together. In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the remaining 1/4 cup of the sugar, the flour, the nutmeg, and the salt.

2. When the yeast mixture becomes foamy, add that and the butter mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix until combined. Using a dough hook, or kneading by hand on a floured surface, knead the dough (adding flour as needed) for 5 to 7 minutes until you have a smooth dough. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover it with a damp towel, and let it ferment for two hours, until it doubles in size. Start making the filling as soon as the dough starts to ferment.

3. In a large saucepan, melt the butter and cheese together. Stir in the brown sugar and keep stirring until the mixture starts to bubble. Remove from heat, toss in pecans, then set aside to cool while dough finishes rising.

4. When the dough has finished rising, transfer it to a large piece of parchment paper and roll it into a 9″ by 13″ rectangle. Spread the filling evenly, leaving an inch on one of the long sides so the filling does not leak out. Start in the opposite direction to that end, and roll the dough like a jelly roll, sticking the baby somewhere in the middle.

5. Grease an empty 28-ounce can and place it in the center of a large parchment-lined baking sheet. Gently roll the dough around the box, seam side down, pinching the edges well. Leave it to rise for another half hour.

6. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, once the cake has gone through the second rise, bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the cake is nicely browned. Remove the box as soon as the cake comes out of the oven. Leave the cake to cool completely before decorating.

7. To make the glaze, whisk together the icing sugar and the milk. If the consistency is too thick for your taste, add more milk a little at a time until it reaches your desired consistency. Once the cake is out of the oven and cooled, pour it over the icing and then decorate it as you wish. For my decoration, I kneaded liquid food coloring into marzipan, rolled it out, and then cut out circles. If you want to go the traditional way and use fixed sugar, you can either use store-bought sugar or make your own by putting a few tablespoons of white sugar in a Ziploc bag with a few drops of food coloring and shaking it.

If you don’t feel like making your own king cake, or cooking at all, there are plenty of places willing to serve you festival fare.

Kulach ShoppeYou can buy King Cake kolaches stuffed with sweetened cinnamon cream cheese and pecan nuts, with a glaze of almonds, vanilla, and colored sugar. Or go the savory route with their seasonal boudin kolaches, stuffed with pork and rice boudin and drizzled with Cajun seasoning.

Fat Tuesday at the Plaza: In spring, savor traditional King Cake treats and Louisiana-style food trucks of gumbo. In addition to dancing to live music. The party begins at 5 p.m. at City Place Plaza and Park at 1250 Lake Plaza Drive and is free to attend.

Brasserie 19: Enjoy New Orleans-inspired cocktails, dance the night away to the music of the Bayou City Brass Band, as well as look for your chance to get gifts and gift cards. Everything goes down between 5 and 10 p.m

Mardi Gras Mambo: Let the good times roll while you volunteer at the Houston Food Bank on Fridays. February 24th 11am-1pm The volunteer shift will include music and food for purchase.

Brennan: Party with your very own Krewe (get it?) on Fat Tuesday. The menu includes a choice of appetizer, entree, and dessert for $79 per person.

in Etoile Cuisine et Bar In Uptown Park, you can party with crepe suzette. If you’re already on top of it, you can also book Galette des Rois or King Cake. Call 832-668-5808 to see if they still take reservations.

Song market: The new food court transforms into a party hub with food shows and Zydeco music from 5-8pm

CNN Wire contributed to this report.

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