George “Loki’ Williams is a new friend I met on Twitter, who hails from New Orleans. He’s an award-winning blogger, including the 2008 Wey Award for his posting on Hurricane Katrina, Katrina: An UnNatural Disaster, and he continues to be a major voice in New Orleans’ reconstruction. You can find him on Social Gumbo, interviewing everyone from Ed Rollins to Emeril Lagasse, and quoted everywhere from the BBC to the New Yorker. I am so pleased to have his guest post today!
The Kingcake, A Carnival Tradition
Hello from New New Orleans!
Right now it is Carnival season in the Crescent City. Carnival is the season, which runs from the sixth of January until the beginning of Lent, Mardi Gras is the Day, Fat Tuesday. That is when bacchanalia, ranging from the family friendly to the adult holds say and the city basically shuts down except for the bars and restaurants. The mamallian displays are generally limited to Bourbon St, the area where the Frat Boys go. That’s pretty purely done by tourists, not locals.
You can get a brief overview of the King Cake on Wikipedia . It also explains the story behind Twelfth Night (begininng of the Carnival Season) and what it has to do with those classic Christmas carols The Twleve days of Christmas, and We Three Kings. The formal name for Twelfth Night is the Feast of the Epiphany.
One of the things that New Orleanians look forward to is January sixth, Twelfth Night. Among other things that is the time when Kingcakes come into season. In the early days of Carnival a tradition was born, that of placing a bean into the cake to be found when the pieces were served. That person would be “king for a day.” When the traditions came to our shores this one held fast. In time the bean was replaced by a plastic baby, meant to symbolize the infant Jesus (remember these are Catholic tradtions). Some of the Royal Courts of our Carnival Krewes have used Kingcakes to determine their reigning monarchs, although most often what people think of is that “getting the baby” makes you obligated to buy the next Kingcake and throw the next party.
So, quit with the history lesson already, what is a Kingcake? Well in New Orleans we traditionally do it the old fasioned way. The Kingcake itself is a ring shaped cake similar to a brioche. There is usually icing or a sweet glaze with colored sugar on top. The slices are delineated by bands of colored sugar in purple, green and gold (the traditional Mardi Gras colors). Now that is the “old school” Kingcake. Over the past decade or so I’ve watched a wide variety of filled kingcakes appear, something that is more akin to the currect European vogue.
An interesting note, The Twelfth Night Revelers, a Carnival organization my family has been involved with since the 1800′s, throw the first ball of the season. It is, of course, on Twelfth Night. Mark Sottek has a great tale about their debut in his extremely detailed and erudite King Cake History .
It is stories like this that are the stuff of Carnival legend! This simple pasty has been the bearer of tradition for centuries. The fact that it can only be acquired for a few short weeks out of the year lends a festive air of excitement to things. Throughout Carnival season Kinkcake parties occur freqeuntly in the workplace, at school, and in people’s homes. You never know when it will suddenly be your turn to host the next one.
I hope that my friends in our sister “river city” have enjoyed this little bit of pastry oriented folklore! Happy Mardi Gras everyone!
-George “Loki” Williams
P.S.– if you want a Kingscake here in Cincinnati, try Busken or Servatii’s.
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Just to clarify a bit, it was the Katrina website that won the Webby Award, I was just the blogger.
I hope that your Ohio audience enjoys this small peek into our pastry culture. It would have been a good bit longer and more coherent if I had not been writing it between parades…
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While Busken and Servati make something called “King Cake,” it pales in comparison to what is actually produced in Louisiana.
Once a year, my mom sends one up to my office. It is quite the tradition now: people start talking about it after Christmas, and they all e-mail her a thank you on the day it arrives (we started this when getting e-mail was a big deal to her). She sends them from Delicious Donuts in Lake Charles:
http://www.deliciouskingcakes.com/
They make a variety of flavors, but the pecan praline is the best.
I’m originally from Mobile, AL, another French-American city that celebrates Mardi Gras. As school children, the teacher would bring King Cake into class on the first day of the Mardi Gras season. The child that got the Baby Jesus figurine would be responsible for bringing the cake into class the following week. It was a fun tradition and one that I miss tremendously now that I’m a “Yankee.”
And to second Charles’ comment, the Busken version of King Cake (I’ve not had the Servati version) is a good imitation but not a duplication of the real thing found in NO or Mobile.
@Lauren D.
You have just describe a scene enacted every year in school rooms throughout the Gulf Coast.
Here is an interesting and little known note: Mardi Gras as it is now, with parades and such, started in Mobile. Two Krewes named Strypers and Cowbellions were the first. When members of those Krewes moved to New Orleans they got together with the native creoles (including members of my family) and started the first modern Krewes: Comus, Momus, Proteus and Twelfth Night Revelers.
So while I will always love the New Orleans Mardi Gras the best, it did all start in Mobile, Al.
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