What is in a name? Mardi Gras (or in English, “Fat Tuesday”) has evolved in New Orleans far from the Christian roots of the French-speaking Acadians. Expelled from New Brunswick by the British government, many Acadians settled in Louisiana where they maintained practices such as observing Mardi Gras.
On the Tuesday preceding Lent fat was used up in preparing rich foods that would be prohibited during the forty-day penitential season beginning with Ash Wednesday on the following day. Lent is the forty-day period preceding Easter Sunday; it represents the forty-day fast of Jesus in the desert prior to beginning his public ministry and is observed by many Christian denominations.
Traditional practices include fasting, abstinence from meat, almsgiving, and sacrificing such pleasures as going to movies or consuming alcoholic beverages. In New Orleans, Mardi Gras has become a not-so-Christian event characterized by extravagant parades and celebrations. Mardi Gras is also known as Shrove Tuesday, the day on which Christians would confess and be “shriven” or released from the guilt of sins of the preceding year prior to the forty days of penitence and atonement.
In a recent conversation with friends, stories of family practices on the day preceding Lent were exchanged. A pancake supper in my family meant that my mother stood at the stove cooking and serving pancakes smothered in butter and maple syrup. My seven siblings and I would press forks through the cooked dough in search of the tokens that supposedly predicted our future: A button indicated permanent bachelorhood; a dime foretold future wealth, and a ring signified marriage. Another person described her ravenous brothers requiring their mother to toil endlessly producing the delicacies, which she despised, quickly enough to keep up with their demands and fill their hollow legs. A woman originally from England served her version of pancakes (thin crepes topped with lemon juice and icing sugar) to Canadians who snubbed them as inferior. A person from an Italian family had to develop the art of making thin crepes with a meat filling. Another member of the group informed us that she attends a pancake supper fundraiser at a church.
Do you have ways in which you mark the annual event of Mardi Gras, Pancake Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday?
-Sister Pat McKeon, csj