Jim Bradshaw: In Louisiana's Mardi Gras, where's the beef?

Today we chase chickens at Mardi Gras but, way back when, the celebration of “Fat Tuesday” in France was about a fat bull. Most Mardi Gras historians say the Boeuf Gras, the first Carnival celebration held in France, was in the early 1500s — but that it had roots reaching far into the pagan past.
According to one of them, in France, at the Fete du Soleil, the Druids sacrificed a young bull, which was led through the streets covered with garlands of leaves and flowers. ... This spring festival later gave way to the Roman carnival, and under the French kings, their bull became the Boeuf Gras, favorite and best-loved symbol of the fete. (Perry Young, The Mistick [sic] Krewe: Chronicles of Comus and His Kin, Louisiana Heritage Press, 1969)
Later, the Boeuf Gras became a street parade led by a fat ox on a decorated cart. The butcher’s guild in Paris was in charge of the parade in those days, and it was probably designed to sell a little extra meat before Lent began. (The word "carnival: probably comes from the Latin carnem levare, meaning "to take away the meat.")
In those days, fasting during Lent was a really serious thing. Meat, eggs, and milk were forbidden by both church and civil law. At one time, the penalty for breaking fasting regulations was death, and even as late as the middle 1500s butchers could be fined for slaughtering animals during Lent.
Sometimes during Boeuf Gras, a masked man in regal robes rode the fat beef, proclaiming himself Roi des Bouchers (King of the Butchers).
The Parisian revelries disappeared at the time of the French Revolution, but Napoleon reinstated them in all their glory in the early 1800s, including a decorated cart carrying the Boeuf Gras bedecked with greens (ivy, not collards).
The historians think students from New Orleans who attended school in Paris at that time brought the Carnival to New Orleans, including the tradition of Boeuf Gras.
The Daily Picayune reported on Feb. 19, 1901, “It will be with a sentiment somewhat akin to regret that the public will learn that the boeuf gras will not be a feature of the Rex parade this year. For many years the fat ox led the royal parade, and was much admired by children, to whom his colossal proportions and gaily bedecked guardians were objects of mingled awe and commiseration. But with the increasing splendor of the pageants it has been felt that this barbaric display was little in accord with the refined artistic feeling apparent in every other portion of the display. The … the boeuf gras can hardly claim an appropriate place in the modern carnival, however proper might have been his appearance therein in former times.”
We could probably generate a healthy debate over the “refined artistic feelings” displayed in some modern parades, but that’s for another day.
The urban carnival, absent the beef, spread from New Orleans to other communities in south Louisiana, sometimes in response to, or even opposition to, the New Orleans fete.
When steamboats began plying the Teche, Courtableau, and other south Louisiana streams in the early 1800s, they did everything they could to attract passengers, and one of the most popular of them was a special “excursion” rate to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.
The railroads did the same when they replaced steamboats in the late 1800s.
All those folks taking themselves, and their money, to the city didn’t sit very well in many south Louisiana towns, so merchants began to push for their own celebrations.
The story in New Iberia was typical of many places. “Hundreds of New Iberia residents made an annual pilgrimage to New Orleans for Mardi Gras,” according to Glenn Conrad’s history (New Iberia, Center for Louisiana Studies, 1979).
“Merchants loudly lamented the fact that large sums of local money were being spent in the Crescent City.”
Some towns struggled with local celebrations at first, but it appears that the lament is on the other foot today; hundreds of people from New Orleans now come here to spend their money. According to one analysis, south Louisiana suppliers today make more on just the sale of beads and gee-gaws than they did for the whole celebration not too long ago.
Fun and profit, too! Could anything be better?
Let the good times roll and the cash registers ring.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, "Cajuns and Other Characters," is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.