Mardi Gras and New Orleans

It’s that time of year again when people from around the world adorn themselves with brightly colored beads and descend onto the streets of New Orleans with their drinks in hand to celebrate the festive season known as: Mardi Gras. While the rest of the country packs away their Christmas decorations and nestles in for the dreary, gray, cold winter months, the people of the crescent city have other ideas. Houses once decked out with red and green for the holiday season are transformed into shimmering homes with purple, green, and gold. Homes become awash with lights, streamers and garland with the official colors. Mardi Gras wreaths hang from doors decorated with the same colors and flags blow in the wind. Christmas is a nice holiday in the Big Easy, however, Mardi Gras is when the city really shines.

What originally started as a religious festival a few hundred years ago, has, over time, blossomed into a unique experience and become part of the city’s established folklore, however, there is more to Mardi Gras than just drinking, beads, and parades. Supposedly first and foremost this annual tradition began as part of a “religious” ritual. According to Christian religious legends, the time between the Christian celebration of Epiphany, which is typically in January, and Ash Wednesday, is the fasting season before Easter and the forty days of Lent. The big day of celebration of course is Fat Tuesday, the last day revelers are able to eat rich, fatty foods, hence the name Fat Tuesday. The idea was to eat all the fatty foods one had in their house because they weren’t able to consume any during the days of Lent. Hence the reason for the big celebration. That’s the “religious” reason and aspect of the holiday, however, as usually happens, things change over time. For the non-religious believers, it’s just one big party to celebrate a party, which is what the city of New Orleans is famous for.  

            Now, for a bit more history on the reason for the season and how it became what it is today and how it ended up in the states. Mardi Gras followed the French colonists from their home country of France to the new world when the French king instructed explorers to establish cities in his new territory. The first French establishment was “Fort Louise de la Louisiane, now Mobile, in 1702. The following year the inhabitants of the city celebrated their first, but less grand, Mardi Gras celebration in honor of their religious practices. This was the first Mardi Gras celebration in the new world. In 1718 the soon to be grand city of New Orleans was established, and well, we all know what happened then. The city would soon become the most prominent, culturally diverse cities in the South, blending a mixture of the many different cultures that would soon call it home.

The first Mardi Gras celebrations didn’t take place in New Orleans until the 1730’s, which of course was extremely sedate compared to what one see’s today. In the 1740’s elegant balls began to be held to celebrate the festive times. The grand balls and events held then became the forefather of events that are still held to this day. By the late 1830’s, nearly a hundred years after the first celebration, street processions began in which masked revelers would ride in richly decorated carriages and men would dress in fancy costumes and follow along on horsebacks. The tossing of beads from floats, carriages, wasn’t termed until late 1880 when it first appeared in a local newspaper. This tradition has now become synonymous with the celebration itself. This was also the first-time carnival events began to be published in the newspapers. News of the big celebrations in the Crescent City was quickly spreading throughout the world. The annual tradition of picking a Mardi Gras King started in 1872 when the first “king” was chosen, which was an honor bestowed unto the visiting Russian Grand Duke Alexis Romanov, the first royal to ever visit the event.

From steamers, to shirts, to beads, and all things in between, the city of New Orleans is awash in the official festival colors green, purple and gold. There are many legends as to how these colors were picked, however, the two most famous one be traced back to the grand party of 1872 when the city celebrated the first “king” of Mardi Gras. The story is that these hues were picked in honor of the visiting Russian Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich Romanov. As legend has it these colors were picked because they were the colors of the royal family, and what better way to honor a visiting dignitary than to use the colors he liked. Twenty years later at the celebration in 1892, the party organizers even gave meaning to the colors: green represents truth, purple represents justice, and of course gold represents power. The second story of the colors revolves around the first “king” of the parade. The committee decided that their first king needed to have his own colors. But what color? And how many? The committee decided that since the French, British and American flags were composed of three colors, that their flag should consist of three different hues. The first was purple, because it’s always been associated with royalty, and their first king needed a royal color as he was a prince. The second was picked according to heraldry rules, a color needed to represent a metal. The most powerful metal was gold, so it was obviously an easy choice to make. The final color picked was also based on following the heraldry theme, a coat of arms needed to have any of the following colors: red, blue, purple, green or black as they were standard on a coat of arms. Since purple was already chosen, green was an easy choice. Since this is long story to try and tell someone, it’s way more exciting to quote the story that the colors were chosen for the visiting Grand Russian Duke. Whichever is the real story, it doesn’t matter, wear the colors, and you will be aptly rewarded with several beaded necklaces.

The last and most interesting part of Mardi Gras celebration involves a baby and king cake. What is a king cake you ask? It’s a cake of sorts, but not in the traditional sense. It’s a twisted cinnamon roll-style dough that is baked and then topped with icing and sprinkled with sugar dyed in the colors of Mardi Gras. And did I mention there is a plastic baby baked somewhere in the dough? The baby, according to lore, has something to do with the Epiphany celebration and when Jesus first revealed himself to his followers. Not sure how that translates into a baby being put into a cake, but it’s done as one of the many celebratory traditions of the festive occasion. Who ever gets the baby is supposed to have good luck for the upcoming year.

As they say in the city, Laissez les bons temps rouler "Let the good times roll."