Laissez le bon temps rouler! Happy Mardi Gras, everybody. Despite being a French import to the States, the traditions and culture of Mardi Gras are completely alien to the people of France today.
For starters, the two girls I tutor showed me how to make one of their favorite Mardi Gras treats. You take a thin slice of homemade bread, unsalted butter, and small radishes, and eat it all together like a roll-up. These girls, ages 7 and 9, thought this was a delicious after-lunch dessert. They also said that the butter has to be unsalted so the spicy radish isn’t too powerful. If I tried to feed that to my nine-year-old niece, she’d retch.
They even do post-Mardi Gras traditions differently. My parents sent me a photo of themselves with the ash cross on their foreheads for Ash Wednesday. I’d bet that almost all of my readers are familiar with that tradition, and maybe you practice it yourselves. Not so with my kids. They asked if my parents were Satanists, what with the scary black crucifixes on their faces. I talked to some adult colleagues later on, and they said that plenty of French people do the ash cross tradition, it’s just that younger people don’t.
You know how the French don’t really do Halloween? Instead, their big costume holiday is Mardi Gras. Kids and adults alike dress up all day. I saw five Harry Potters, three Disney princesses, several nuns, a flight attendant, two Roman centurions, and, uh… two Native Americans. Like, fake buckskin shirts and a plastic feather in a headband. I almost feel bad for these people. Like, how can you be that obsessed with native Americans and yet be that ignorant?
There will be a costume contest in the school on Friday, but unfortunately I’ll be teaching a class. I know that some of my students will be dressing up as the Scooby Doo gang, and that they even made a cardboard Mystery Machine.
Anyway! The people of France have the tradition of king cake, just like we do, except their king cake is prepared and eaten at Epiphany (January 6). I tried explaining that the tradition is a mainstay in America, too:
Me: So, we have king cake at Mardi Gras, and it is just like how you do it. There’s a cake that is served to everyone, and baked inside the cake is a little token representing baby Jesus. Whoever gets the token has to bring the cake next year. The token is usually a little plastic baby.
My students: What are you talking about? We don’t do anything like that.
Me: What about the galette de roi that you eat on Epiphany?
Students: Yes, that is galette de roi. You said king cake.
Me: King cake is English for galette de roi.
Students: But we don’t have little baby Jesuses.
M: Right… because for you guys it’s usually a ceramic token. It still represents baby Jesus.
Students: But Madame, we do that on Epiphany, not Mardi Gras.
Me: So you’re saying the tradition I’m describing is completely, totally foreign to you?
Students: Of course. The name is different and the Jesus token is different. Very different.
Me: Of course.
My students have a pretty firm grasp of Mardi Gras culture and the history of New Orleans. They’re familiar with the Acadians, the French explorers who travelled from their settlements in Canada down the Mississippi River to found New Orleans. They know about the cajun people, and that both the language and the ethnicity is a rough blend of the French, West African, and native influences on the region.
They’re not totally hip to it, though. I showed them a video of the Zulu krewe parade, and they were startled by the dance moves and costumes. They asked me if what they were seeing was voodoo. Yes, I said. Obviously those guys in feathered top hats hitting the griddy are practicing ancient voodoo magicks. One of the boys said they looked like the bad guy from The Princess and the Frog, which is evidently a favorite among French youth.
They really love the idea of Carnavale. Turns out that the big parties and parades are really only a New World thing, and my students, at least, are jealous of us in the Americas. Mardi Gras over here is much more akin to a solemn religious observation that a hoedown. Kinda like Easter, I guess.
Personally, I think the way we do it makes more sense. Fat Tuesday is the day before Lent, the season of absolute resistance to earthly pleasures. So naturally you want to get all of that out of your system before jumping headfirst in forty days of fasting and prayer!
Bises,
Allison
P.S.: Two bits of European news you may have missed: first, the European Parliament just voted to ban the sale of new gas, diesel, and hybrid cars by 2035. This means that come 2035, the only new cars that can be sold in Europe will have to be fully electric. The EU is a huge market, so this change will likely create a shift in car manufacturing worldwide. Second, March 7th is going to be a massive national strike and protest about retirement reform. It’s supposed to be one of the biggest on record. Pay attention to French news that day — something interesting might happen.
Flan in France 