Do you celebrate carnival?

We have Mardi Gras here n the USA which, this year, runs from approximately the 5th and ends on Fat Tuesday which happens to be the 9th. There are parades with floats and people in costume, beads being worn and given out(for some reason over here the throwing of beads to women usually involves them exposing their breasts to "earn" them) and the consuming of mass quantities of alcohol. I guess the latter could be the reason for the beads for boobs thing.

I never did go to the parade here in my city as I'm not a big fan of large crowds. When I was younger, I did participate in the debauchery at some of the local bars.

 

I have never been to a Mardi Gras or carnival celebration. I love New Orleans and have been there several times, but never for Mardi Gras. I guess I would be curious to be there for it and see all the parade floats and costumes, etc. but also kinda wary of all the super-drunks around. (Though I survived a crowded U-Bahn car packed with massively drunk German football fans in Munich a few years ago, so maybe I could handle it, lol)

About the closest I've come is going to a small Mardi-Gras themed party (in a southern U.S. state, though not Louisiana) some years ago and eating some of this:



For those who aren't familiar, this is called a "King Cake" here:

A king cake (sometimes shown as kingcake, kings' cake, king's cake, or three kings cake) is a type of cake associated in a number of countries with the festival ofEpiphany at the end of the Christmas season; in other places, it is associated with the pre-Lenten celebrations of Mardi Gras/Carnival.
What started out roughly 300 years ago as a dry French bread–type dough with sugar on top and a bean inside now comes in many varieties depending on the country. Some king cakes are made of a sweet brioche dough in the shape of a hollow circle with a glazed topping sprinkled with colored sugar. Hundreds of thousands of King Cakes are eaten in New Orleans during the Carnival season. In other countries, king cakes are made with a puff pastry, filled with one of several fillings (almond, apple, chocolate/pear, etc), and have a small figurine hidden inside. The figurine changes from bakery to bakery and often represents a hit movie or other cultural icon.
The cake often has a small plastic baby (said to represent Baby Jesus) inside, or underneath; and the person who gets the piece of cake with the trinket has various privileges and obligations.[1][2]

(my slice of King Cake did not have the baby Jesus figure, though)

 

mmm, King Cake..... Just don't choke on teh baby Jesus.

 

Waw, beautiful cakes! In France, King's cake are eaten on Epiphany and look like one of these two:

(different shapes and recipes depending on where you live). There is a figurine we call the "fève," a bean variety, because a long time ago there was an actual bean in the cake.. Whoever gets "la fève" also gets a cardboard crown, which make them the king/the queen of the day. Whoever gets the fève is also supposed to buy the next cake
Some old people claim that if you keep the first fève of the year into your wallet, then your wallet will be filled all year long.

As for Mardi Gras and Carnaval, few people still realise they're supposed to be the same thing... Children dress up, sometimes grown-ups do too. When I was a teenager growing up in Toulouse, we used to have flour and eggs battles.
There are parades in some cities, which can last for a few days; and at the end of which, King Carnival is burnt.
Some parades are pretty famous, for instance http://www.nicecarnaval.com/carnaval/galerie-photo-corso-bataille.php]le[/url] Carnaval de Nice.

What is it like in Germany, Skiara? You haven't said! ^^

 

Enjoyed your post, Twinnie! Those French cakes look delicious too. Are those candied fruits on the top of the one on the right? The traditions you describe surrounding the "fève" are interesting.

What does this mean, "King Carnival is burnt"? Is "King Carnival" a figure from a parade float or something? Sounds interesting!

The "flour and egg battles" sound fun (and messy!)

^Ditto!