|
a MARDI GRAS article
Cultures
of Acadiana |
Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, February 7, 2001
What's purple, green and gold and hides an ugly baby?
The answer is, of course, king cakes.
by Jim Bradshaw
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Mardi Gras is coming, so it's time for king cakes: jumped-up coffee cakes iced in purple, green and gold that hide an ugly little plastic baby.
Here, they're a favorite treat during Carnival season, sporting the traditional Mardi Gras colors. Back in the "old country," king cakes are - well, not quit as gaudy. The dough is plainer. In Europe, they show up only on Twelfth Night, the Jan. 6 Day of the Kings. Traditionally, there is a bean somewhere in the brioche ring, and whoever gets the bean is king for the day.
But New Orleans has been a party town pretty well ever since settlers no longer had to scrabble for each bite of food. During the 1800's, the period from Twelfth Night until Lent became the frenzied climax of a winter-long ballroom season.
At some point, the king cake became the arbiter of who would hold the next house party, said Wayne Phillips, who oversees the Louisiana State Museum's Mardi Gras collection. Whoever got the bean, almond, or pecan hidden inside was the next host.
The bean became a baby in the mid 1900's. Later in the century, as the number of parties fell and king cakes became an office fixture, the baby became the signal for whoever had to buy the next cake, rather than give the next party.
In the last 20 years or so, king cakes themselves have undergone a transformation. If you look, you can find braided rings of dry, cinnamon-laced brioche, glittery with colored sugar. But, most bakeries, "traditional" just means unfilled.
The dough is much softer and sweeter. It's usually iced. At least half of today's king cakes are filled with fruit, cream cheese, praline, chocolate, rum and other exotica.
In the past 10-15 years, king cakes spread well beyond New Orleans.
Tanya Clark said her Shreveport bakery, the Dough Basket, made its first king cakes in 1996 - 11 of them. Last year she sold 1,761 including 454 shipped all over the world. She hopes to make 2,500 this year.
United Parcel Service ships about 150,000 king cakes out of Louisiana during the six-week Carnival season, spokesman Steve Holmes said. There is so much business that UPS even designed a special king cake box, though some big customers, like Haydel's, use their own.
"We pull our truck up to the back of the bakery and they load them in," he said.