Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!

If you understand the title, then you are or have sometime in your life lived in somewhere between southern Louisiana and southern Alabama. The title is Cajun French for "Let the good times roll!' and is most often associated with Mardi Gras. If you've never experienced this festive season in one of these areas, you've missed something!

I spent some of my childhood in Mississippi and Mardi Gras was always a favorite. One of our neighbors was a member of a local "krewe" (they're responsible for putting on parades and hosting Balls during the season) and those of us from his neighborhood could count on being weighed down with bead necklaces

and doubloons (this was back in the day!).

Today the Krewes throw a variety of objects to those lining the parade route with most of them being known for a particular trinket. The most prized object being thrown is the Zulu's "Golden Nugget" (or coconut). 

The celebration of Mardi Gras was brought to Louisiana by early French settlers. The first record of the holiday being celebrated in Louisiana was at the mouth of the Mississippi River in what is now lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, on March 3, 1699. Iberville, Bienville, and their men celebrated it as part of an observance of Catholic practice.

The starting date of festivities in New Orleans is unknown. An account from 1743 notes that the custom of Carnival balls was already established. Processions and wearing of masks in the streets on Mardi Gras took place. They were sometimes prohibited by law, and were quickly renewed whenever such restrictions were lifted or enforcement waned. In 1833 Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandeville, a rich plantation owner of French descent, raised money to fund an official Mardi Gras celebration.

The New Orleans Carnival season, with roots in preparing for the start of the Christian season of Lent, starts after Twelfth Night, on Epiphany (January 6). In addition to the parades, balls (some of them masquerade balls), there are also King Cake parties. It has traditionally been part of the winter social season; at one time "coming out" parties for young women at debutante balls were timed for this season.

Celebrations are concentrated for about two weeks before and through Fat Tuesday , the day before Ash Wednesday. Usually there is one major parade each day (weather permitting); many days have several large parades. The largest and most elaborate parades take place the last five days of the season. In the final week of Carnival, many events large and small occur throughout New Orleans and surrounding communities. All celebrating ends at midnight on Fat Tuesday with battalions of street sweepers symbolically (and literally) sweeping the revellers out of the French Quarter and to their homes to begin the Lenten season.

In 2012, this coming weekend (through Tuesday, 2/21) is the height of the Mardi Gras celebrations and so...
Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!