The Widdershins

Hi fellow Widdershins!

I’m going to be doing some posts for awhile since our dear Madamab is sort of overwhelmed with the latest assignment in her job.

As you can see by my title, it’s Carnival time in New Orleans, and also Mobile Alabama, Rio and many other parts of the world.  Besides acting like fools shouting “Throw Me Something Mister” at grown adults riding on floats of imaginary or mythological characters, who throw plastic beads at us, we also eat…a lot.

One of the things we really love are our King Cakes.

King Cake

King Cakes are a Carnival tradition going back to the French and Spanish who colonized Louisiana.  The European style was a type of brioche dough twisted into a ring cake and the New Orleans version is similar.  It is normally decorated in the official colors of Mardi Gras which are purple, green and gold.  Those also are the colors of the Rex Organization which is one of the older Carnival groups.  The colors have no official symbolism, however Rex states  “that purple, green, and gold symbolized justice, faith, and power, respectively”.  King Cakes are normally served starting with Twelfth Night through Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras Day, the day before Lent and the last day of Carnival celebrations.

Inside the King Cake you’ll find either a plastic baby or trinket of some sort.  In European King Cakes they placed a bean in the cake. Wikipedia says in the French tradition that:

Tradition holds that the cake is “to draw the kings” to the Epiphany. A figurine, la fève, which can represent anything from a car to a cartoon character, is hidden in the cake and the person who finds the trinket in their slice becomes king for the day and will have to offer the next cake. Originally, la fève was literally a broad bean (fève), but it was replaced in 1870 by a variety of figurines out of porcelain or—more recently—plastic.

and that:

Formerly, one divided the cake in as many shares as guests, plus one. The latter, called “the share of God,” “share of the Virgin Mary,” or “share of the poor” was intended for the first poor person to arrive at the home.

In New Orleans it is a tradition to have a King Cake party at work and whoever gets the slice of cake that has the “baby” is then obligated to purchase the King Cake for the next party.  Generally, one person will cut the entire cake and then you select an individual slice.  I can tell you from personal experience that I’ve seen my share of “cheap” co-workers who would take that knife and do some hellacious “poking” before selecting a slice!  LOL!

King Cakes have changed quite a bit through the years.  At first they were merely the baked dough with a small amount of icing and colored sugar on top.  From those, some bakeries starting putting a heavier layer of icing on top, and adding additional decorative items, to recently when bakeries started offering King Cakes with fillings in them.  The usual filling flavors are pecan praline, cream cheese, strawberry cream cheese and similar flavors.

Well I don’t know about y’all, but I’m getting a little hungry.  Let’s grab a slice of King Cake and catch the parade that’s passing by.

Parade

And I’m almost certain I hear some music too.

This is an open thread.