Carnival: Carnival (word from Italian carnival “Shrove Tuesday”, from carnelevare “remove (raise) the meat (meat) ”) Is the time for popular celebrations and masquerades, which take place in the days preceding the Mardi Gras, eve of Lent.
Origin. It dates back to the Roman festivals of March calends, which celebrated the awakening of nature with agrarian rites. On this occasion, prohibitions were transgressed and disguises authorized; straw mannequins were burnt amid the cries. This is why, in the countryside, magical rites mingled with gastronomic celebrations. Abundance of meats. Carnival extends, theoretically, from Kings Day to Ash Wednesday, but it once reached its climax during the Mardi Gras meal, traditionally marked by an abundance of meat of all kinds (hence the custom of the parade of beef fat).
In Champagne, this last fatty meal must have included pig's trotters, in Ardèche, ears. In the Marne, we ate roosters defeated during the fighting of the day. In Touraine, the special dish was a leg de goat ; in Limousin, a stuffed rabbit; in the Quercy, a large vol-au-vent, containing a chicken butchered with a sauce salsify.
In Provence, the big aioli was required. In Nivernais, the meal consisted of: broth pasta, beef boiled with vegetables, coq au blood (or in white sauce), turkey ou goose roasted saladail and walnut oil, fromage blanc with crème fraîche, pie Asked prunes and burnt with marc. Such festivities brought together a large number of people; it was therefore necessary to make desserts fairly inexpensive and quickly prepared using a good flambé, hence the tradition of pancakes, waffles, beignets and other treats related. In eastern Belgium, today, we celebrate carnival by eating donuts, called “donuts”. Berlin ball », Or Russian salad (Malmédy); in the west (Tournai), the day before Mardi Gras, we prepare a " rabbit of the lost Monday ”.
In Quebec, it is a drink that is associated with the carnival: the "caribou", a mixture ofalcohol pure (between 40 and 80%Vol.) and Red wine, which we drink in the street to warm up.
In Switzerland, in Basel, the custom is to eat soup with all-purpose flour and pies withonion or cheese; in Lucerne, we taste Fosnocht Chuechli, a kind of beignets frits.
Quote from the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez (1917-2014): "The certainty of being mortal had fallen upon me shortly before my fifties, one evening like this during carnival, when I was dancing a bestial tango with a phenomenal woman. " in Memory of my sad whores (2004)