Those in New Orleans like to boast that when it comes to Mardi Gras, “everywhere else, it’s just Tuesday.” And that is true for a vast majority of the United States. Chickens still need to be fed; children still need to go to school. But that doesn’t mean you can’t laissez les bon temps roulez in your home!
Officially, Mardi Gras (also known as Shrove Tuesday) is the final day of Carnival or Shrovetide before Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras means “Fat Tuesday” in French, reflecting the old practice of it being the last night of consuming rich, fatty foods in preparation for the fasting season of Lent.
These days, in Orleans Parish and other regions that celebrate, Mardi Gras is the culmination of several weeks of celebrations and parades that begin on Epiphany, or Twelfth Night (January 6), with the Joan of Arc Parade. This year, Mardi Gras falls on Feb. 13, when the Rex and Zulu parades roll through downtown New Orleans.
If you feel like having your own Carnival celebrations on the homestead, there are some fun, low-key ways to do so. The first is simply to decorate your home (or some food) with the traditional colors of the holiday: purple, green and gold.
These historic colors were inspired by the rules of heraldry (the system by which coats of arms and other armorial bearings are devised and described). In heraldry, there needs to be both metals and nonmetals represented to bring prestige to the person bearing the colors. Gold was an obvious choice, representing both royal status and a high-value metal. Purple also represents royalty, having been the rarest and most valuable dye for centuries. Green represents the plentiful hopes that Mardi Gras inspires within the population (and it was a growing color symbol of wealth in the late 19th century).
Green foods are easy enough to come by, so throw in some gold to liven them up, whether that’s yellow bell peppers, squash, corn or even potatoes on the vegetable side, or bananas, pineapple, lemons or mangoes on the fruit side. There are some fun purple options too, from cabbage, carrots, potatoes and eggplant to blackberries, plums and grapes. There are even purple varieties of broccoli out there (like Broccoli Purple Magic from All-America Selections).
Costumes are also a big part of the celebrations in the Crescent City. We’re not saying you need to don sequined jackets and cover yourself in glitter, but maybe take the day to wear something a little more colorful than the usual mid-winter hues of black, gray and Carhartt brown.
And parades are most likely not going to be happening amid snowdrifts in the Northeast, but you can always boogie down the music of the Big Easy wherever you are by visiting WWOZ.org. This is a nonprofit community-supported radio station in New Orleans owned by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation. The station specializes in music from or relating to the cultural heritage of New Orleans and the surrounding region of Louisiana – and it’ll be playing the greatest hits of Mardi Gras on the big day.
