SHREVEPORT DAY OF MARDIS GRAS

According to its history, the European countries celebrated twelve days of Christmas with the coming of the wise men who bore gifts to the Christ Child and thus it was a time of exchanging gifts and feasting. One of the most popular customs was and still is the baking of a special cake that was in honor of the three kings and called a “King’s Cake”.

The Europeans would hide a bean somewhere inside the cake and the person receiving it had to portray one of the kings (if the person did not break a tooth and need wander from the group towards ye extractor of teeth). Now, that wasn’t too difficult and idea until the Latin-American people came up with substituting a small figure inside the cake to represent the Christ Child. It would mean a year of good fortune that would await the lucky person (if the person did not choke on it first, which in that case would have made the person unlucky).

Well, the Louisianians liked the idea but decided to perpetuate the celebration by having the person who received the teeny plastic baby continue the festivities by shelling out and buying another cake. So, starting the twelfth day after Christmas, these King Cake parties would continue until the first day of Lent and ending on Fat Tuesday (which might have been originally called, “Skinny Tuesday” had it not been for these cake celebrations), Mardi Gras.

So, what exactly is a King Cake? It could best be described as a coffee ring decorated with colored sugars of Mardi Gras purple, green and gold…at least in Louisiana. Some use a bread dough, while others like Julie Anne’s uses the same dough as in their danish and then adds a filling and topping.

We took a tour of the kitchen to view the entire process from the dough flattened out and filled with a pralines and cream cheese mixture. The plastic baby was slipped into it before rolling it up and forming the ring. More of the dough and cheese mixture was tacking on to the end to complete the ring. It was then covered with a cream cheese frosting and topped with the colored sugars. Then, it was baked…of course.

After slicing that cake and doing much “yummy” sounds, it was found and because we only had breakfast earlier and would soon be having lunch, a second cake was bought and left before yet another cake would be downed. I’m guessing that people did not stay at the same place when they found the baby. You can actually purchase a King Cake year round here with one-day notice and they do ship! I recently got one with a chocolate cream cheese middle and topped with chocolate icing and chocolate chips. Esther was the one who found the baby. Www.julieannesbakery.com

It was the Krewe of Centaur Parade that afternoon as we made our way to the Red River. There was a tent set up by the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau. Nisha Livingston and Brandy Evans made sure that we were well taken care of. There was a buffet and liquid refreshments. It gave me another chance to sample some of the local fare such as: gumbo, chicken wings, rice and jambalaya. Although there was a sliced King Cake, it was no match for Julie Anne’s…tasted more like a coffee cake/ bread.

We gathered near the edge of the street to view the floats. Strings of beads of purple, green or gold, some with medallions, plastic cups, candy, thin Frisbees…all being tossed while onlookers stretched out their arms to catch. This would be one of a few other parades in the Shreveport area.

Having a taste of the local fare, my palate was ready to sample crawfish at Crawdaddy’s Kitchen (www.crawdaddyskitchen.com) . I wanted to find out how it was prepared. Louis Cascio brought me into the kitchen and explained that the “mudbugs” were washed off twice before the boiling. That was also done twice and at different temperatures. The first time gave way to some opening in the shells while the second time was when the spices were added. Afterwards the crawfish would go into a cooler and await their being ordered and dropped into a basket to steam.

How do you eat the “mudbugs”? Twist off the head and suck it out if you can handle the peppery part of the spice. Peel off a bit of the shell at the top of the tail, and while squeezing the bottom, grab the meat with your teeth and pull it out. As they say it, “Suck dem haids n pinch dos tails!”

That’s not all I sampled at Crawdaddy’s. Fried alligator. They take the “sirloin”, tender pieces of meat and marinate them before coating it. No, it doesn’t taste like chicken. Their fried green tomatoes are taken from jar in a brine, then coated with a lemon flavored breading before fried. Most interesting was Crawfish Cornbread that added crawfish tails, herbs and spices to the cornbread. All was delicious!

It wasn’t as if Esther and didn’t do anything else this day as we did have lunch, go to two art galleries and took a cruise on the river. I’ll get to that in my next article. In the meantime you can see a load of photos and youtube of the crawfish instructions and a bit of the Mardi Gras parade on www.merleswhirls.blogspot.com

March 04, 2010 - Queens Times