The Sweet Excess of NOLA's Mardi Gras Carnival Season by Martha Reed

As a child growing up in the American Midwest (Ohio and Kansas) I considered the Christmas holiday season to be the festive highlight of my year. Christmas week leading into New Year’s Day still wipes me out with seeing the out-of-town relatives and the newcomers, catching up on their latest happenings, and getting the spreads ready for the get-togethers, the football game halftime shows, and the special holiday cocktail parties. But since I’ve started writing my New Orleans Mystery series and researching NOLA culture, I’ve come to realize that for hardcore New Orleanians, Christmas is just a pre-game warmup. NOLA's Carnival season begins on January 6th, AKA Twelfth Night, the last night of the twelve days of Christmas, and then it runs for 43 more days until Fat Tuesday, February 17th, the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.

Yikes! I am a rank partying amateur. These NOLA folks are professional caliber party animals.

Twelfth Night is important because it's the day the Christmas holiday decorations and trees are taken down and New Orleanians traditionally start hunting for an iced King Cake.

What’s a King Cake, you ask? It’s only the carbohydrate version of crack cocaine. Once you try a slice, you will annually crave it. (Trust me on this.) Fashioned from a ring of slightly sweet brioche dough, a King Cake is iced with vanilla glaze or frosting and gold, purple, and green sprinkles. It also features (or hides) a plastic Baby Jesus figurine. Tradition holds that whoever gets the slice with Baby Jesus on it (or in it) needs to treat their friends to the King Cake the following year.

And since NOLA is ground zero for traditional superstitions, it’s also important – once you slice into the King Cake to keep the same knife in the box for good luck until the entire cake is gone. This last item may just be lazy housekeeping – there’s so much sugar in the frosting there’s no way any germs could get into it and otherwise you’ll just keep unnecessarily dirtying knives as you keep returning time and again for one final slice. (Trust me again on this.)

Between beignets and King Cake, NOLA is out to get you.

Also during Carnival, Mardi Gras parades roll through the streets featuring elaborate floats hosted by social clubs called krewes. Some krewes like the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club go back to Carnival’s very beginning. Participants in this krewe are famously known for tossing prized beaded necklaces, fake gold doubloons, and plastic coconuts into the crowds lining the sidewalks. Some krewes, like the Krewe of Tucks, irreverently throw jeweled toilet brushes.

I’ve even invented a krewe of my own – Krewdio-54 whose members are disco music devotees. Laissez les bons temps rouler! I suspect that in my next NOLA Mystery this group will be parading down St. Charles Street dancing to Donna Summer while on roller skates.

Have you visited New Orleans during Carnival/Mardi Gras? What was your experience like?