Happy Mardi Gras!

It’s Mardi Gras! 

Mardi Gras is one of the biggest and most beloved (or reviled, if such revelry and debauchery is not your thing)  holidays/events/happenings on the planet, with some of the biggest and most famous celebrations occurring on three different continents: New Orleans, Louisiana in the USA in North America, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in South America, and Venice, Italy in Europe. 

But what is it? 

There are a few different levels to look at Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday - or Shrove Tuesday. Let’s first look at the different names referring to the same day. 

Mardi Gras: the literal translation from these French words to English is Tuesday Fat - Mardi meaning Tuesday, Gras meaning big or fat; aka Fat Tuesday (in French, the adjectives often follow the noun). 

The reason for this strange combination is that the “Fat” refers to the final night of eating rich, fatty foods before starting the fast of Lent, a period of prayer, penance, and fasting or giving up of certain luxuries as a form of penitence which is traditionally described as lasting for 40 days. For most Western denominations, Lent concludes on “Holy Thursday”, the Thursday immediately preceding Good Friday (the day Jesus is said to have been crucified) and Easter Sunday (resurrected).

Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday is also sometimes referred to as Shrove Tuesday. Shrove is the past tense of the verb shrive, with shriving being the act of confessing sins, hearing a confession and prescribing penance, or of granting absolution. In some countries, Shrove Tuesday is also known as “Pancake Day”, owing to the old custom that pancakes were traditionally made as an efficient (and delicious) way to use up rich foods such as eggs, milk, and sugar, before the fast. Since the fast emphasized eating plainer food and refraining from food that would give pleasure, in many cultures, that meant no meat, dairy, eggs, or sugar. So voila - pancakes to use it all up! Go big or go home!

There are various festivities commemorating and celebrating the pancake tradition itself, but that’s another story. Some of the other most renowned festivities surrounding this time of year have become larger than life - quite regardless of whether the revelers are “believers” are observers of the actual initial inspirations for the festivities and will be actually fasting or not - and are also well worth their own stories: Mardi Gras parades and festivals in New Orleans, Carnivale in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, and Carnival in Venice.