Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday - Shrove Tuesday - Fat Tuesday is celebrated on a different date each year as it is a lunar celebration, but it always occurs on the Tuesday preceeding Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.
Today Tuesday 12February 2013 is Mardi Gras!
In France Mardi Gras is a great opportunity to disguise and party with family and friends – and all disguises are allowed!
Mardi Gras used to be the last day of a full week of celebration before Lent, the forty days of fasting that lead to the celebration of Easter and during which no meat nor dairy products could be eaten.
On the Tuesday (Mardi), people ate all the remaining fatty food (gras ) they had stored in their homes.
The word Carnival is the evolution of Levare Carne that literally means “remove” the meat from the meal.
Meat was not a sort of food people could store at home anyway as it was very expensive, but what to do with the butter, milk and eggs, these perishable products that were part of their daily diet?
Easy: they made crêpes -pancakes for Mardi Gras!
In fact they emptied their larder, a sort of massive "Spring cleaning" in the kitchen!
And as forty days without meat and dairy products was long, people just went a bit wild before attacking such a period of austerity and spent a full week eating whatever they fancied and Mardi Gras, the last day of this seven-day celebration, was the Grand Finale!
Some were cheeky and went in disguise to knock on their neighbours’ doors and begged for more pancakes-crêpes!
The tradition has evolved very little since the Middle-Ages and adults and children are all keen on putting on fancy clothes and party!
If you have a special recipe for French pancake and would like to share it, Contact me and I'd be happy to publish it on Travel France Online
Today Tuesday 12February 2013 is Mardi Gras!
In France Mardi Gras is a great opportunity to disguise and party with family and friends – and all disguises are allowed!
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| French pancakes |
On the Tuesday (Mardi), people ate all the remaining fatty food (gras ) they had stored in their homes.
The word Carnival is the evolution of Levare Carne that literally means “remove” the meat from the meal.
Meat was not a sort of food people could store at home anyway as it was very expensive, but what to do with the butter, milk and eggs, these perishable products that were part of their daily diet?
Easy: they made crêpes -pancakes for Mardi Gras!
In fact they emptied their larder, a sort of massive "Spring cleaning" in the kitchen!
And as forty days without meat and dairy products was long, people just went a bit wild before attacking such a period of austerity and spent a full week eating whatever they fancied and Mardi Gras, the last day of this seven-day celebration, was the Grand Finale!
Some were cheeky and went in disguise to knock on their neighbours’ doors and begged for more pancakes-crêpes!
The tradition has evolved very little since the Middle-Ages and adults and children are all keen on putting on fancy clothes and party!
If you have a special recipe for French pancake and would like to share it, Contact me and I'd be happy to publish it on Travel France Online