Last year we skipped Fat Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras. Pancakes will be on the table tonight. The dinner will be subdued, a far cry from the revelry of years past.
Eating pancakes on the day before Lent is a
tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages. During Lent there are many foods that some Christians - historically and today - would not eat: foods such as meat and fish, fats, eggs, and milky foods.
So that no food was wasted, families would have a feast on the shriving Tuesday, and eat up all the foods that wouldn't last the forty days of Lent without going off.
The need to eat up the fats gave rise to the French name Mardi Gras ('fat Tuesday'). Pancakes became associated with Shrove Tuesday as they were a dish that could use up all the eggs, fats and milk in the house with just the addition of flour.
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The most famous celebration, New Orleans' Mardi Gras parade, will make
a partial comeback this evening:
Signs this year point to a partial recovery, but not a return to pre-pandemic crowds and tourist spending. Hotel occupancy rates on the weekend days before March 1 are above 80% for the roughly 26,000 rooms in the city’s French Quarter and downtown, still below pre-pandemic levels, according to New Orleans & Company, the group representing the city’s tourist industry. The expected occupancy rate for Saturday was 80%, down from 90% in 2020. The occupancy rate for actual Mardi Gras is expected to be 66%, down from 82% in 2020, according to the group.
War, inflation, and COVID-19 have put a damper on the party.
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